Good preventative maintenance programs should be the goal of industrial maintenance departments. One diagnostic tool is monitoring the level of contaminants present in system fluids. This can dramatically reduce downtime and repair costs by providing contaminant trend analysis. For example: 1) Increases in the number of particles in a fluid associated with system components such as copper (CU) or iron (Fe) can indicate that a bearing, cylinder or other major component is in the process of wearing. This is a signal of possible component failure. 2) Increases in the number of particles associated with environmental material i.e. silicon (Si) suggests the need for a closed reservoir and/or a better air breather. C) Decreases in elements associated with fluid additives, phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca), sulfur (S) for example, indicate fluid additive depletion and the need to recharge the system with new fluid.