By Keith Staninger, digital solutions and controls portfolio leader, Ingersoll Rand
As you anticipate your Labor Day picnic in the summer sun, you prepare by grabbing a hat, sunscreen and water. You check in with your kids every hour to see how they are handling the heat. Think of it as a family version of preventative maintenance with real-time monitoring, though your family won’t want to socialize with you if you call it that.
Those same summer days require a similar mindset for your compressor room. How do you determine if the compressors are feeling the heat? Running into the compressor room to ask them isn't exactly convenient while you're out with your family enjoying that picnic. Unless, of course, your plant shuts down because of it. Then you'll enjoy a nice long visit.
You could choose to do this on your own, but it takes time. Your project would require mobile apps, data tables, hardware, cellular plans and that’s before you even get to handling security and data privacy. Try to find the time to become an expert and set up that whole ecosystem while doing your day job.
The growing trend is to put agreements in place with equipment vendors to provide insights from the data to service the machines more effectively. In doing so, you can access remote and condition-based monitoring, predictive maintenance analytics, visual management tools and trigger service requests for the equipment if there is a problem.
About the Author: Keith Staninger
