The application arises from the need to monitor and anticipate the problems of one or more machines managed by a PLC. These problems, often resulting from the accumulation over time of small discrepancies, require, when they occur, ex post technical operations maintenance.

One of the largest petroleum refineries in the world is equipped to refine various types of crude oil and manufacture various grades of fuel from motor gasoline to Aviation Turbine Fuel. Due to wear and tear, eight hydrogen valves in each refinery were leaking, and each cost $1800 per ton of hydrogen vented. The plant also had leakage on nearly 30 flare control hydrocarbon valves. The refinery wanted a continuous, online monitoring system that could catch leaks early, minimize hydrogen and hydrocarbon production losses, and improve safety for maintenance.

Printing International is building pad printing machinery to print on all kinds of plastics, glass, ceramics, porcelain, on caps and closures, medical devices and pharmaceuticals. 4 Key Project Requirements: • Transparency on machine performance • Worldwide service network • Remote support, contractual availability • IT security

With a very broad range of applications, steel is an important material and has been developed into the most extensive alloy in the engineering world. Since delivering high quality is absolutely crucial for steel plants, ensuring maximum productivity and the best quality production are the keys to competitiveness in the steel industry. Additionally, working conditions in steel factories are not suitable for workers to stay in for long periods of time, so manufactures usually adopt various machines to complete the steel production processes. However, the precision of these machines is often overestimated and the lack of flexibility also makes supervisors unable to adjust operating procedures. A renowned steel factory in Asia planned to improve its Distributed Control System (DCS) of furnaces as well as addressing the problem of insufficient accuracy. However, most well-known international equipment suppliers can not provide a satisfactory solution and local maintenance because the project needed new technologies to more accurately control equipment operations. By implementing Advantech’s automated monitoring and control solution, steel factories can not only improve the manufacturing processes but can also allow users to add additional functions to the existing system so as to make sure the operation runs at high efficiency.

Hollingsworth and Vose wanted to improve the efficiency of their compressed air system, lower the electricity expense component of manufacturing cost in their commodity industry, and conserve energy leading to lowered greenhouse gas emissions. Compressed air systems degrade over time and become leaky and inefficient. Hollingsworth and Vose wanted to increase the frequency of system inspections without paying the high cost of manual labor.

China Steel Corporation (CSC) is the largest integrated steel maker in Taiwan. Our goal is to enhance facility maintenance and management efficiency. First and foremost, to achieve this goal we know we need to understand the tradeoffs between the set-up costs of machine condition monitoring (MCM) devices and the losses we experience due to unexpected faults. We also need to consider the critical pieces of equipment we own and the degree of difficulty involved in maintaining them. Effective MCM can help maintenance managers understand the condition of critical equipment in real time, which is a competitive advantage for steel manufacturers.Our first self-developed facility online monitoring and diagnosis system (FOMOS) was installed on the CSC production line in 1998. The system performed well for monitoring certain issues such as mill vibrations, but after a few years the system became less reliable. We found that the hardware and software had limited functionality. We knew we could build a smarter, more connected system that could use the latest advances in processing power, wireless networks, and software connectivity. We realized that it was fairly easy to develop an MCM system, but it was difficult to address specific challenges we faced.Our biggest challenge to address was how to detect equipment abnormalities at an early stage without creating a large number of false alarms. Since vibration is a relative condition indicator and strongly affected by system or structural dynamic rigidity and transmissibility, in real situations, it is common to find that two pieces of the same equipment at similar locations and operating conditions exhibit different vibration levels after several years of operation. Vibration signals can be a key indicator for information such as wear, imbalance, misalignment, impact load, and bearing fault by using different signal processing and algorithms.A conventional monitoring and diagnosis system uses the same or very few indicators and criteria to monitor and diagnose various machine conditions regardless of the nature of the operation of the machine. Therefore, these systems are prone to false alarms or missing alarms. To make it worse, with diverse monitored equipment, a complicated operation regime, and widespread applications in numerous process lines in an integrated steel factory, it is impractical to achieve our goals with only a few diagnosis experts. Thus, we discovered the best way to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our MCM system was to introduce some artificial intelligence methods.

Manufacturers rightly focus on improving profit margins and growing revenue. Attracting new customers, selling more products and lean practices can help. However, as equipment sophistication increases, so does the ability to monitor equipment. Manufacturers can now develop revenue from maintenance services. Preventive maintenance has its advantages but to really drive uptime and maintain service levels, predictive maintenance is needed. Seamless IoT and machine sensor data integration is critical as well as a low-latency messaging backbone for scalable, fast and reliable transport. Delivering potentially large quantities of data at sub-second speeds is key to downstream activities. webMethods Integration, featuring Universal Messaging, addresses this need with an enterprise-grade service bus for connectivity, messaging, transformation and security of machine data for advanced real-time analytics.

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) was in the process of building a new distribution center. The AEO facility management team decided to look at alternate options for lighting layout that could provide energy and maintenance savings. AEO would need a full-time maintenance employee just to replace burned-out fluorescent tubes.

Oseco were completely new to Industry 4.0, Oseco needed to find a lean and quick method for successfully implementing condition monitoring.

Fastenal's objective was to better understand their machine downtime, utilization, quality issues, and to embrace cutting-edge manufacturing technology/process improvement capabilities to bring their team to the next level. However, there was a lack of real-time data, visualization, and actionable insights made this transition impossible.

“Well before it went live, we had worked out a clear plan for exactly how we were going to use the new versiondog versioning and data management software from AUVESY,” says Michael Mrugalla, who works in process automation at the Mainz plant. “We also had to think about what backups really meant for us. With all our field devices, control programs, drive systems, programming languages, file formats and software applications, we needed to know precisely what we have to back up in case a breakdown (e.g. a power outage) stops production. Because the whole point of making a backup is to be able to recover data quickly and easily when something goes wrong and continue working as if nothing had happened. But that means more than simply restarting production, it also means we need to be able to pick up where we left off with our ongoing process maintenance and optimisation.” It was particularly important to Nestlé that their backup strategy be built around a sin-gle continually active and universally appli-cable solution. And they wanted it to maintain a centralised backup of all the data necessary for both recovery and further development for all devices and all related projects (i.e. every piece of hardware and software). And the programs actually running on controllers need to correspond precisely with the data on the server. If not, the reason must be easily identifiable and the valid version always available to be reloaded onto the device.

As technology advances, textile manufacturing has been transformed from a labor-intensive to a partially or fully automated industry. Automation is significant in all segments of textile production - from spinning to printing, and textile machinery manufacturers are constantly searching for new technologies and automation processes will increase the productivity of their machines. The color paste mixing and dispensing machine is an essential part of the printing and dyeing process. With the advantage of automatically computerized controls and database management, the system can significantly improve its dispensing precision, working efficiency and production quality as well as reducing material consumption.

The current state of condition monitoring requires manual measurements that are compounded with aging equipment and the retirement of knowledgeable personnel.

Kaunas Energija's Heat and Power Plants were distributed across the country, including in places lacking an internet connection. This made supervision and maintenance difficult and expensive.

The refining company needed to continuously monitor the pressure in Z-Purge junction boxes around the refinery. These junction boxes were maintained at a low positive pressure to prevent process gasses from entering the junction boxes. These junction boxes are widely distributed throughout the plant. Previously these junction boxes were manually monitored by operators on periodic rounds in the refinery.

To develop a reservoir pressure maintenance automation system to remotely control, monitor, and protect devices in pumping station.

The Spanish Government has launched a CO2 Capture and Storage Program in Hontoman with the aim of developing this technology. This programme's approach is based on the fact that CO2 capture and storage could be an essential part of the solution to achieve substantial global CO2 emission reductions.

As a power supplier, Enerwhere needed to make sure that their equipment is operational 24/7 and that power can be supplied at all times. Enerwhere needed to know how to do continual maintenance and know how much power is consumed by each customer.

In the framework of its predictive maintenance offering, ONEPROD part of the ACOEM group provides monitoring solutions that allow to avoid unexpected breakdowns in industrial production tools. Traditionally ONEPROD was using wired data acquisition systems. However they were costly and hard to install in harsh environments or explosive zones, like in the oil & gas and mining industry. To cover the distance to connect and power the monitoring equipment considerable lengths of cable are required especially in industrial spaces with difficult access. Developing a wireless data acquisition system became a key success factor in the ONEPROD strategy in order to avoid any cabling issue and to improve the safety of the staff in charge of portable measures.

Paint and coatings specialist Brillux is a manufacturer of painting products in central Europe. The company's warehouse and distribution operations include a fully automated conveyor system controlled by Siemens SIMATIC automated process controllers and a traditional MLOG SCADA system to reduce downtime.

NGC has a statutory duty under the Electricity Act 1989 to develop and maintain an efficient, co-ordinated and economical Transmission System for the supply of electricity. One of NGC’s statutory obligations is the requirement to maintain system frequency within the range 49.5Hz - 50.5Hz. This is achieved through the management of changing generation and/or demand. These services are automatic and can be required at any time to contain frequency deviations and recover it back to normal. To date these services have been provided by Generators, obliged to have a frequency control capability by virtue of their Grid Code connection conditions, and large industrial electricity consumers capable of interrupting firm loads for a required time. Given the limited number of production processes able to offer a firm interruptible load, NGC has been developing a frequency response service through the aggregation of fluctuating electrical loads. By combining a large number of cyclic demands, a relatively firm level of response can be derived and delivered when required.

The ReMASTER Compressed Air Monitoring system was installed in 2015. This system is capable of monitoring compressed air system parameters on a continuous basis and transferring that information to a cloud server which can be accessed by Atlas Container personnel, Industrial Diagnostics and Sparks Dynamics. This information was collected into a database which can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet or displayed graphically using Sparks Dynamics ViewMaster Software. The average annual compressed air electricity expense was estimated to be approximately $116,000. This is based on an incremental $/KWh electric rate of $.091 per KWh and an estimated compressed air energy consumption of 1,279,200 KWH. The implementation phase of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs) for the Compressed Air System included: • Identification and repair of compressed air leaks • Understanding of compressed air usage per manufacturing machine and installation of shut off valves when the machines are no longer in production mode • Identification of misapplications of compressed air to include blow offs, venturis, and cooling scenarios • Understand system pressure requirements and potential installation of point of use pressure regulation.

McKinley faced several challenges to implement these product improvements: - Which device hardware is best? - How do they connect their products and put them online? - How will their products communicate? - Which sensor protocols work best? - How will they develop the proper visualizations? - How do we integrate it with their field service technology? - How do they set up rules and their associated actions?

In 2016, Kevin Stoddard, a managing partner, had a problem. InControl’s customers required sensors on several equipment distributed across multiple sites and locations. To accomplish this, InControl needed a cost-effective solution fast. They also needed this solution to be intuitive for the equipment owners, highly secure, and broadly capable of delivering custom analytics to clients around the world.

To develop a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system for 10,000 remote terminal units (RTUs).

While in the midst of developing SYMPHONY®, a fully automated slide staining system for standard Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) staining, Ventana realized that they required a remote service solution to ensure that customers received an exceptional level of service. However, with a tight timeline to develop and launch this new product, there was some reluctance to integrate additional software. “There was some internal reluctance toward implementing the remote service technology with our SYMPHONY instrument given the short timeframe,” explains Greg Dameron, Director of Development at Ventana. “In fact, the executive team informed me that if the software would delay the SYMPHONY launch by even one day, then we would not implement it at all.” The company began evaluating commercial remote service offerings, seeking a solution that would provide value to customers without disrupting system stability. “Our products are based on stability, so we needed the remote service technology to be stable as well,” says Dameron. Ventana sought to reduce instrument downtime to fewer than 24 hours by remotely monitoring all field instrumentation on a 24/7 basis. This would enable the abilities to remotely diagnose and repair issues, provide “over-the-shoulder” troubleshooting and training for users, and track inventory to automatically replenish reagents in real time. “We felt strongly that delivering remote service would help us achieve a response time that we could not otherwise meet,” says Dave Flaten, Vice President and General Manager of the Primary Staining business unit at Ventana. “We believed that it would become an integral part of the product line.”

Following the Fukushima incident in Japan, EDF-Energy NGL undertook a rigorous assessment into the resilience of its fleet of UK nuclear power stations against the highly unlikely occurrence of an extreme weather or other natural event. Through this process, they identified a requirement for the provision of mobile emergency response systems which will be deployed on the occurrence of such an event.

After spending millions on an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) infrastructure, including CO2, compressors, pipelines, injection wellheads, and fluid separators, Chaparral began to see its long-term investment pay off as oil production increased. However, when a CO2 compressor fails, CO2 volumes to the pipeline plummet by 50% or more. The operator needed predictive intelligence to prevent such an event.

Best Buy wanted to quickly develop and deploy apps to achieve business goals. Also, create apps that are scalable and low-maintenance.