As companies turn to finer filtration to extend the life of their most critical rotating equipment more debris is captured in filters and less remains in the oil. Wear debris analysis through oil analysis is no longer enough to predict impending failure. The next generation of wear debris analysis requires Filter Debris Analysis (FDA) to uncover the wealth of information buried in your filter and gain a comprehensive assessment of machine wear. In traditional oil analysis the only particles available for analysis are those circulating in the oil (smaller than the filter size) or immediately released in the oil prior to filtering. Given the fine filtration used in rotating equipment to produce longer life cycles, 95% of the wear debris that could provide useful insight into machinery condition is caught in the filter and never ends up in an oil sample. Typically, all the debris is discarded with the filter. Increasingly, fine filtration is making conventional monitoring techniques less effective at providing reliable indication of machinery component wear. Filter Debris Analysis captures this lost information and identifies the specific components that are wearing, providing improved diagnostic and prognostic information about impending failures.