MYTH: “CBM is extremely expensive – hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
💬 “Our fleet budget is already tight, so we can’t afford additional systems.”
FACT:
👉 The real cost of CBM is typically in the range of tens of thousands of USD for installation and operation.
👉 That’s often less than the cost of a single day of vessel downtime (which can reach $50,000–$150,000).
👉 Return on investment (ROI)? Even up to 10x after the first avoided failure.
Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) systems allow early detection of wear in critical components such as bearings and shafts. This makes it possible to plan maintenance during port calls instead of dealing with failures at sea.
Real-world example:
A pump failure during a voyage = 2 days of downtime = approx. $200,000 in losses.
Annual CBM cost for that vessel = $20,000.
➡️ Detecting just one issue in advance could pay for the system for up to 10 years.
CBM is not a cost – it’s a form of insurance. It protects against losses measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars and brings predictability to maintenance planning.
💬 Question for you: what’s more expensive – implementing CBM, or a single unplanned dry dock stop?