The most common failure of a condition monitoring programme is not bad data. It is good data that never becomes a work order. Here's the workflow that closes the gap.
Assign an owner before the report arrives
One named person receives the report and is accountable for triaging it within a week. Not a shared inbox. Not 'maintenance'. A person, with a deputy for holidays.
Triage into three buckets, always
Every finding should leave the meeting in exactly one of these states:
- Act now — raise a work order this week, with parts ordered.
- Plan it — add to the next shutdown or planned window, with a date.
- Watch it — no action, but flagged for close attention on the next visit.
Attach parts and lead times immediately
A finding without a parts check is not really planned. Confirm availability at triage; a twelve-week lead time turns a 'plan it' item into an 'order now' item even if the work waits.
Close the loop with the analyst
Tell your analyst what you did and what you found when the machine came apart. It calibrates future diagnoses, sharpens severity ratings and builds trust in the programme. A quarterly review call is usually enough to keep this honest.
Track two numbers
Findings actioned as a percentage, and unplanned stoppages on monitored assets. If the first rises and the second falls, the programme is working. If findings pile up unactioned, no amount of extra data will help.