WearDetect oil debris sensors alert maintenance professionals to the earliest signs of machine wear via integrated smart factory systems

Condition Monitoring/Predictive Maintenance 8th December 2023 Hits: 439

Background

The soaring hourly cost of unplanned downtime is costing manufacturers significantly more than even 2 years ago, according to a report by Siemens/Senseye *. The report (based on 2021-2022) suggests that unplanned downtime now costs Fortune Global 500 companies a staggering 11% of their yearly turnover and as a result they must minimize unplanned downtime while avoiding the significant costs of over-maintenance. Predictive maintenance is the strategy firms are turning to. * The true cost of downtime 2022 – siemens.com/senseye-predictive-maintenance

For the reasons above, oil debris sensor monitoring systems are proving increasingly significant within condition based monitoring (CBM) portfolios, providing maintenance professionals early warning of machine wear allowing the timely scheduling of maintenance tasks. Wear debris monitoring is increasingly being adopted amongst the world’s largest manufacturers where the benefits of additional and earlier warning of faults scale to magnify the return on investment.

Challenge

WearDetect oil debris sensors continuously monitor ferrous wear on critical rotating assets such as gearboxes and bearings which are used throughout manufacturing industries and in automatic conveyor belt type logistics and warehousing. WearDetect sensors are often located individually on key assets but the high number of assets in large production or logistics facilities can make constant monitoring of high numbers of units difficult and time consuming to achieve.

Solution

Using a wear debris sensor with output options such as Modbus, one of the most popular and simple communications protocols, enables the sensor to be readily integrated into a central system. This removes the reliance on regular physical checks and allows the data to be analysed and alerts to be generated when required and directly communicated through the networked system, triggering targeted preventative maintenance action, lowering the likelihood of unplanned shutdowns.

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Conveyor drive condition monitoring is enabled at scale using ferrous debris sensors with outputs, such as Modbus, which readily integrate with existing manufacturing systems.