Parker Filtration launches industry’s first condition monitoring iPhone App

The ConMon app features two key programs: ISO Code Generator and Frequency Analysis. The ISO Code Generator offers, for the first time, the opportunity for users to enter details about their machinery via an interactive questionnaire, the results of which offer a recommendation of how clean their system needs to be. Users can then measure the current level of contamination in their system to see if it is within this recommended limit. Having done so, the user is then able to gain more feedback about their own specific needs using the Frequency Analysis program, which balances issues such as machine sensitivity and likely downtime costs and reports back with guidelines on how often to sample in order to achieve maximum efficiency. These statistics can provide vital guidance to users who may be unwittingly running their systems with inefficient or damaging levels of contamination and enables them to judge the most cost-effective option when purchasing condition monitoring equipment.

The innovative idea germinated when Shaun Skilton, Product Manager for Parker Hannifin Hydraulic Filter Division Europe’s Condition Monitoring Business Unit, recognised a need to help sales staff and customers alike achieve a deeper understanding of condition monitoring technology, and to give them access to advice and information when and where they need it most. “We’ve given presentations and literature to sales staff and customers before,” Skilton said, “but it seemed to me that what they really need is the ability to gather specific information quickly and easily, on the spot, to evaluate the performance of any given system. Now that so many people are using smart phones it seemed that such devices offered a convenient and powerful way to make that evaluation possible.”
Within hours of the ConMon download becoming available, Skilton and his colleagues were inundated with positive feedback. “Our sales people are very happy because the app enables them to answer the most important questions that customers ask there and then,” Skilton said. “And this is only the beginning. Once our customers discover ConMon, there’s a whole range of additional features we have lined up to add to the app.”

The ConMon app also features live news and twitter feeds, one-click routes to the Parker website and Filtration Division’s email address, a regularly updated selection of useful facts and more.