After taking ISO Cat II vibration last spring, I caught a soft foot on our 1,500 kW roughing stand motor and avoided a 6-hour stop on the 110-inch mill. I’m lining up next year’s training — what courses or certs have given you the best preventive maintenance ROI in a steel plant (ultrasound, thermography Level I, PLC/drive refreshers)?
Thermography Level I gave us the quickest ROI; on our 110-inch mill we caught a bus-duct splice running 18°C over ambient at about 60% load and tightened it on a planned stop, likely preventing a drive trip — just know the scans are weak below about 40% load. After your ‘soft foot’ save on the 1,500 kW motor, are you set up to rescan MCC buckets quarterly or only pre-shutdown?
Agree with @mike_r901 on thermal for bus duct, but Ultrasound Level I was our sleeper hit: week one we flagged a failed steam trap and set dB-based lube targets that cooled bearings on the 80" finishing mill. Do you already have a UE or SDT gun? Baseline your top 25–30 bearings and set +8–10 dB alarms, then shift to condition-based greasing — it’s a stethoscope for grumpy bearings.