Industries with intensive invested capital demands healthy processes continuously to achieve their economic goals, because any interruption of the production caused by any equipment malfunction or failure may result in a major disruption of output or even production shutdown. Thus, an effective maintenance concept should be evolved to provide the required tools, data and methods for detecting deviations at an early stage to maintain and enhance the availability of machinery, product quality and profits. A new concept of condition-based maintenance (CBM), Total Quality Maintenance (TQMain) is presented. It aims to maintain not only machines but the quality of the essential elements involved in the production process, such as methods, operational conditions, personnel competence, raw material, quality and managerial systems. The major results have achieved in this study are

Evidence of prolonging the bearing's mean effective live by using more accurate diagnosis and prognosis are confirmed when faulty bearing installation, faulty machinery design and harsh environmental condition are considered.

Changes in the machine speed and load influence the information delivered by vibration signals.

Applying vibration spectral analysis, it is possible to detect the deviations in the quality of a product during the processing time and before it is completed.

Maintenance profit of one paper machine was found to be at minimum about 3.58 MSEK yearly.

The main conclusion is; identifying and eliminating causes behind deviations in quality and equipment condition at an early stage are vital to accomplish continuous improvements and to assure longer machine live and high quality products at competitive price. Several case studies have been conducted during the last ten years to verify the applicability and benefits of TQMain are discussed