22/07/2022  B&B Attachments Ltd

According to FutureBridge, 20 per cent of industrial machinery manufacturers are expected to invest 10 per cent of their annual revenues in the next three years on digitisation. Though, historically, pumps and valves have been among the last devices to be digitalised in plants. Here, Marek Lukaszczyk, Europe and Middle East marketing manager at the motors and drives specialist WEG, looks at how Industry 4.0 has evolved to now support increased equipment life in pumps.

Industry 4.0 technologies, like advanced diagnostics and machine-to-machine communications, are being increasingly used in manufacturing environments, and are proven to enhance overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). In fact, a Gartner study indicates that 80 per cent of organisations surveyed that adopted the IIoT have achieved better-than-expected results.

Not only that, but these technologies benefit maintenance to a significant degree, by reducing time and costs. Thanks to the flexibility and decreasing cost of sensors, like the WEG motor scan, these advantages can be increasingly applied to industrial valves and pumps.

The rise of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has facilitated this, with more remote management solutions available. Therefore, end users are demanding better ways to digitally connect and communicate, both directly and remotely. This is accomplished by distributing data gathered by sensors through the IIoT. Plant equipment, networks and industrial edge devices can be interconnected to produce several benefits — including an Industry 4.0 predictive maintenance plan.

Operating conditions, such as heat, usually change during the life cycle of a pump, so much that a pump no longer runs at the optimum operating point. The load usually peaks at shutoff, at which point long-term operation can reduce pump component life and reliability.

This also applies to newly-installed pumps. Plant managers should look to digitally optimise a pump’s performance, keeping this as simple as possible by not using complex analytics and avoiding having to replace the pump. But where do they begin?

A starting point with digitalisation is to align new digital platforms with a plant’s maintenance strategy ? whether the strategy is corrective, preventive or predictive. Failure to have a proper maintenance strategy can impact the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the pump, and the facility’s overall bottom line.

For example, digital solutions, like WEG’s motion fleet management platform (MFM), monitor the operational status of several industrial assets — including pumps. It also uses cloud computing and IIoT technologies that are deployable across a range of industrial assets, including industrial pumps.

Used mainly by maintenance engineers, the technology monitors OEE through data collection and processing, generates valuable real-time insights to share with plant managers and leads to improved asset management.

For instance, the software enables new verifications, such as pump surface temperature, for engineers to migrate from component substitution over time preventive methods, to a fully-fledged 4.0 plan. In turn, this reduces damage and wear on industrial assets and, therefore, reduces unplanned downtime. 

Software platforms also benefit asset management. They allow periodic data collection and advanced data processing, where valuable insights are generated to monitor the operational status of several industrial assets. A key benefit of software is improving communication between the software and the sensors, which in turn reduces time between the detection of a failure and applying maintenance.

In addition, specialist modules with AI provide automated fault diagnosis based on historic data and trends. This makes it possible to analyse the forecasted deterioration of equipment before applying predictive maintenance.

This not only helps establish predictive maintenance plans, but also significantly reduces unplanned downtime and costs.

Returning to our aforementioned example, WEG’s MFM data processing is managed both on edge and in the cloud. This not only makes the technology flexible to suit different companies’ needs, but it also holds the key to increased equipment life.

That is because better data management allows faster reactions at the device level, where the sensors are installed. This leads to comprehensive data analysis in the cloud and automated fault diagnosis, including historical data.

All of this data can be presented in easy-to-understand reports distributed among plant engineers and maintenance teams. And that’s not to forget that remote monitoring can keep workers out of harm’s way to prevent injury.

As digitalised solutions become more flexible, there is no longer a reason why pumps and valves should be the last priority for digitalisation.

More information on WEG Motion Fleet Management can be found on its website.

For more information, please contact: Marek Lukaszczyk WEG (UK) Ltd Broad Ground Road Lakeside Redditch Worcestershire B98 8YP Tel: +44 (0)1527 513800 Email: info-uk@weg.net Web: https://www.weg.net

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