Background
Since 2024, a leading global pharmaceutical site in Europe, has relied on Eastway’s online condition monitoring to safeguard a wide range of critical assets, including HVAC, Compressors, and other medium to high criticality equipment. The goal has been consistent: reduce unplanned downtime, enhance efficiency, and extend asset reliability across the facility.
This strategy paid off when the Eastway Safeguard® System identified a sudden motor bearing fault in one of the site’s HVAC fans. By detecting the issue early, the plant avoided an estimated €72,000 in potential downtime and repair costs. A clear demonstration of how continuous monitoring translates directly into measurable value.
The site’s maintenance team works in close partnership with Eastway, ensuring seamless integration of the system into day-to-day operations. Through ongoing feedback and collaboration, they continue to strengthen reliability standards and move closer to world-class maintenance practices across all assets.
The Eastway Safeguard® System is designed to protect critical assets through continuous monitoring of vibration, temperature, current, steam traps, air velocity, pressure, and more. It is compatible with internal platforms, enabling seamless integration and delivering a complete view of equipment health that reduces downtime, extends reliability, and improves overall performance.
Case description
In July 2025, the Eastway Safeguard® System identified a sharp rise in vibration levels on the HVAC motor bearings. Both velocity (mm/s RMS) and acceleration (g’ RMS) readings exceeded the established alarm thresholds. Figure 1 illustrates the acceleration trend at the motor drive end of the HVAC fan between April and July 2025, while Figure 2 presents the velocity data from July 2025, clearly showing the increase.
Figure 1. Acceleration (g’ RMS) trend from motor drive end test point
Figure 2. Velocity (mm/s RMS) trend from motor non-drive end test point
Analysis & Recommended Action
Vibration analysis by the Eastway remote monitoring team indicated progressive motor bearing deterioration. The FFT spectrum showed non-synchronous peaks related to bearing fault frequencies and noise and the amplitudes were increasing. Based on these features, it was recommended to replace the motor bearings at the next available opportunity.
Figure 3. Acceleration (g RMS) FFT spectrum at the motor drive-end test point, showing frequencies associated with motor bearing deterioration.
Action Taken
Following Eastway’s recommendation, the site maintenance team scheduled a planned downtime to inspect and service the HVAC motor. The bearings were replaced, and inspection confirmed advanced wear. Root cause analysis found that the bearings had been overloaded, placing excessive stress on them and causing them to wear out prematurely. Figure 4 shows the acceleration (g RMS) trend, with vibration levels decreasing after the bearing replacement, confirming the effectiveness of the corrective action.
Figure 4. Acceleration (g’ RMS) trend from motor drive end test point.
Results
The implementation of the Eastway Safeguard® System enabled the plant to identify a sudden fault in the HVAC motor bearings before it could lead to an unplanned failure. Although the issue was unexpected, the system provided sufficient early warning for the maintenance team to respond quickly, minimizing downtime, avoiding additional repair costs, and keeping production running without disruption. Effective collaboration between the maintenance team and Eastway ensured a fast response and allowed the HVAC motor to be replaced during scheduled downtime.
Table 1 illustrates the importance of predictive maintenance, not only for detecting developing bearing faults but also for identifying sudden issues in time to prevent costly failures and maintain operational continuity.
Table 1. Estimated cost savings
