How Does Your Compressed Air Purity Monitoring Procedure Measure Up ?
Are Regular ISO 8573 Audits Sufficient ?
Compressed air quality audits are rarely carried out in strict compliance with ISO 8573 and a lot can happen in between them that can seriously affect your reputation and profitability . Whether strict compliance is important for you is more a consideration of maintaining your site quality standards and the air purity records need to reflect the actual system conditions . The methods used in the audits for measuring each impurity type , the length of sample times and the conclusions drawn from the results must be appropriate and repeatable but are enough questions asked about the methods before the audit ?
There have been occasions where the test results were genuine but at a lower purity class than expected and contractors have been told to re-test by a manager in denial . If your auditor knows that you expect an air purity result of 1:2:1 , are you certain they couldn ’ t skew the results to meet this in order to get paid and move on to the next job ?
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For many companies , in-house verification of compressed air quality supplements their external ISO 8573 audits to give a more complete understanding of delivered air quality . This reinforces their site quality standards by providing more frequent measurement points , highlighting trends that may indicate the need for planning remedial action before contamination levels become problematic .
Water will condense or evaporate according to temperature and pressure changes throughout the air distribution system and relying on the dew point readings from the sensor on the dryer in the plant room , is not likely to provide sufficient certainty all across the site . Standalone dew point sensors with integral displays and alarm relay outputs are a very inexpensive way of providing point of use verification that the delivered air is dry within the expected limits .
Organic and inorganic particulates can be measured with laser particle counters and while they won ’ t differentiate
between them or indicate inert or viable microbiologicals , having a sensor permanently measuring at critical points in the system will give rapid indication of increased levels that would prompt further investigation .
Removing the need for sending oil samples away for laboratory analysis through the use of modern PID sensors , provides a quick , accurate and repeatable assessment of oil vapour with an almost instant indication of system changes . They also offer online 24 / 7 monitoring with alarm outputs .
Would you rather know beforehand or is it safe to assume everything will be fine until the next 6 monthly audit ?
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