Rally Around Critical Equipment
3 min read
It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an immense challenge to manufacturing and industrial infrastructure. Many businesses are struggling with how to continue producing, bring in money, and keep their employees while living with our new reality. We must find ways to keep our businesses healthy with tight budgets and vulnerable employees working from home. In our new blog segment “Building Resilience”, Outlier’s engineers explore ways that we can use industrial automation to strengthen businesses under these unprecedented conditions.
First and foremost, rally around your most critical equipment. Stick with your moneymaker and do all that you can to ensure up-time, quality, and efficiency on critical equipment or processes. If you are unable to have as many people physically on equipment, don't juggle more than you can handle. Consider down-scaling to offer just one or two products with the highest margins. You're not the only one reducing services during this time. For the equipment kept running, make sure that you have resources in place to keep it running. Two easy ways to maintain your equipment while limiting time in person is by adding remote connectivity and predictive maintenance sensors.
Remote Connectivity
Add remote connectivity through Industrial VPN modules, and engage with an integrator to provide critical maintenance. VPN modules provide a layer of security to your industrial network and typically do not require skilled IT resources to configure or maintain. Industrial VPNs cost $500-$1,000 and require Ethernet connection to internet, Wi-Fi, or cellular connectivity. With some of the higher-end VPN modules, you can wire additional sensors to help with troubleshooting and data analysis. For equipment run by PLCs, SCADA, or other automation, Outlier Automation’s engineers can provide remote, on-demand troubleshooting in case the line goes down or your maintenance team needs help finding the issue.
Predictive Maintenance Sensors
Add predictive maintenance sensors on critical motors. Failed equipment can take days to recover from if you're not prepared. Vibration, temperature, torque, speed, and current sensors can provide data trends indicating that failure is imminent, or at the very least, quality is affected. For an easy and economical installation, maintenance, and visualization, consider Samsara's condition monitoring capabilities. Samsara offers magnetically mounted, wireless sensors for vibration and temperature monitoring that connect to their cloud gateway routers. You can easily configure dashboards and email or SMS alerts to maximize your time to respond to issues. The platform can be used for basic machine control if you do not currently have automation, or it can be installed in parallel with existing automation without modifying existing programming.
Another economic option to consider is Siemens SIMOCODE motor management devices. SIMOCODE can be added to existing motors to monitor current, voltage and a variety of other diagnostics. Basic logic and alarming can be programmed and displayed on a local operator device. There are also a variety of communication options to send data and alarms to many types of PLCs (Rockwell/Allen-Bradley, Schneider, etc.).
Interested in incorporating these technologies? We can help specify the best monitoring devices for your needs, and help you install and configure them. Contact us to learn more.