Positive IR Results In the Refining Industry

The key to positive IR results, whether in the refining industry or in any other predictive maintenance endeavor, is to keep the camera running and to build interest in the benefits of thermography with the right people. As long as the camera is running, it can give us useful information. Finding the right people to receive the IR information is the key to the actual use of the information, and to achieving cost savings and improved reliability. As thermographers, our job includes finding influential individuals in our organizations who can benefit from the use of IR. Using IR to locate temperature differentials is new to a lot of our operational personnel, and some of our fellow workers need to understand how the IR tool can be applied to help them. A positive and aggressive communications program continues to be the best way to get our fellow workers involved in helping us justify existing IR applications and to develop additional IR applications. Some people are very skeptical about the reliability of IR, and others that think it is "smoke and mirrors."