Computers in Vibration Analysis – The Past 50 Years and What’s Ahead.

Abstract
Over the past 50 years, computers have changed from something that few people personally interacted with, or knew much about, to becoming a pervasive part of everyday life. This has also occurred in the field of vibration analysis. I’ll review some of the ideas, major challenges, accomplishments, and changes that I’ve experienced while applying and using computers in my work as a vibration analyst from the early 1970’s to present. Many vibration analysts got on board this journey at various points on this timeline, and we have all arrived here in 2023 with much talk, both positive and negative, on the future. With the advent of things like ChatGPT, and other applications of artificial intelligence affecting all aspects of society, the impact in our world of machinery will certainly not be benign. What should we expect? How do we deal with this? And how do we remain relevant and valuable as vibration analysts and reliability engineers? Let’s take a look and do our best to prepare.