Machinery Health Moves Toward an Integrated Future

Industry trends toward sending data straight to cloud applications—directly from the plant floor via an edge gateway or 4G router, for example—will enable plant teams to import critical data into analytics and support tools without the need for IT experts to support hardware and connectivity. The same cloud tools will also help connect to even the most remote assets, ensuring no equipment data is ever stranded. Such simple cloud connectivity tools are leveling the playing field by unlocking scalable analytics solutions for organizations of any size.

Without having to invest in hardware and technology support, it is easy to start small with a pilot application of analytics because initial investments of both time and money are dramatically reduced. And when those pilot programs show success through fast ROI, they can easily be scaled up without having to change hardware. Moving to more robust, wide-ranging, and comprehensive analytics is as simple as changing the terms of the hosting agreement.

An integrated technology foundation

At every level of industry, personnel need high-quality, contextualized, mobile data to generate information and provide insight into the safety, performance, and health of operations and equipment (figure 3). As plants move toward fully automated and predictive maintenance, they need to generate information quickly and easily, and to deliver it to relevant personnel.

Successful long-term maintenance strategy depends on selecting technologies that are designed from the ground up for easy integration. These technologies deliver the richest data to the relevant personnel at the right time, while providing tools for users to work together efficiently and effectively. As those tools generate ROI, often quickly, they will be better positioned to scale with the plant and the enterprise, protecting the organization’s investment over the lifecycle of its equipment.

All figures courtesy of Emerson
 
This feature originally appeared in the February 2022 issue of InTech magazine.