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Where the IoT meets the Facility Engineer

kellyhensen

In the good old days (two facility engineers talking).

Engineer 1:  “The conveyor in the southeast corner is making that noise again.”

Engineer 2:  “The grinding noise or the squeak?”

Engineer 1:  “The grind.  I hit it with the wrench yesterday afternoon and it was fine the rest of the day, but it’s making the noise again this morning.”

Engineer 2: “Better order what you need to repack the bearings before is seizes up again.”

 

Enter the IoT. . .

Engineer installs sensors on 127 mission critical areas of the facility measuring rotations, temperature, noise levels and power consumption.

Engineer has to convince IT department to invest in a server to store all the data that the sensors are collecting – outside of the DMZ, so the consultants can access the data real-time.

Wireless gateways are installed throughout the facility to communicate with the sensors and send the data to the new server.

Data is collected.

Data is modeled.

Predictive analysis algorithms are developed and tested.

 

And then, in the brave new IoT world. . .

A sensor monitoring noise attributes starts logging higher than usual levels.

An order is automatically placed for replacement parts.

The engineer receives a work order for preventative maintenance to repack the bearings.

 

The question is:  Is it all worth it?  And how to we prove that it is (or it isn’t)?

  • 0

    Ah, this is an age old issue. Calculating the ROI on a project where the real cost is not well known

     

    The cost of re-packing the bearings is known

    The Cost of replacing the bearings because they were not repacked may not be

    The cost to add all those sensors and infrastructure is an estimate

    What was the cost of the outage because the bearings failed due to lack of maintenance (Noisy does not mean failed, just annoying)

     

    Is this cheaper that just looking at how often you have been re-packing now and setting a standard schedule slightly more often than that with no technology other than a calendar

     

    I have worked on so many projects where the ROI (Return on Investment) is based on speculative estimation and the "Wet Finger approach", the trick is having a good argument for the project and pretty graphs that management can relate to. Technical Facts do not help management make decisions, $$$$ saved do.

  • 0

    Ask an experienced MBA executive this question and he will commission a team to work out the business case. The business case will be ambiguous, with a bunch of "if" qualifiers because nobody wants to be wrong. The executive will make a decision, because that is what they are paid to do. If the decision is to automate, and it turns out to be exorbitantly expensive, the original decision will never be revisited because current conditions are different from when the decision was made. This isn't good or bad, it is just the way it works - ask any executive - their decisions are based on the best information available at the time.

    Ask an experienced scientist this question and he will go away and do a scientific study which concludes something unexpected - like the Internet isn't secure enough to trust with motor maintenance. He will be correct but it will leave more questions than answers. Because good science is like that.

    Ask an experienced engineer this question and he will always say automate. Ask him why and he will say - its the same reason engineer 1 and 2 knew what to do with the motor bearing - training and experience. Ask him what about Internet security and he will say - if that is a problem, we will fix that too.

  • 0

    Hi Kelly!

     

    I like comment observing that engineers would state "if [there] is a problem, we will fix that too". It is natural for us to want to solve everything, to make everything as automated and as efficient as possible.

    There is an interesting book called 'The technological Society', and while I don't necessarily agree with it all (after all it was written by a philosopher, not an engineer : ) it suggests that we have no choice in the matter, because automatically any method that is more efficient (and efficient can include safety, security, and other attributes) wins whether we (humans) like it or not. We would optimise ourselves and our fellow workers out of jobs or worse, whether we wanted to or not (there was an article today in the news about such a thing).

     

    Today (for many reasons), we have no social brake mechanisms to this*, unlike in the past where invention and efficiency were not a priority (e.g. in Greece, apparently Archimedes would dismantle his creations afterwards).

     

    So basically if IoT is more 'efficient' than the previous state-of-the-art, then it gets used whether we like it or not..

     

    * I think from memory this was a fear of the 'unabomber', and in his mind he thought he was trying to stop technological advance.

  • 0

    I was having a discussion this morning along a similar line.

    The Improvement cycle process is 4 steps, with different labels depending on is running this flavour.

     

    Essentially

    1.     Identify a problem (noise)

    2.     Identify how bad the issue is, how frequent it occurs, what downtime, solutions available to resolve

    3.     Implement the solution.

    4.     Check to see if it has resolved the issue, and repeat if necessary

     

    Most people tend to go from 1 to 3 without exploring all the options available, or without understanding why there is a problem.

     

     

    I think you forgot to add the two levels of management involved.

    One for the IoT and the other to ensure that the PM's were generated and completed.

     

     

     

    Surprisingly we had an issue of bearings failing in the Anenometers.

    These are small bearings that were failing after a very short life in service (generally they last longer than the tech that last worked on them)

    Replacements didn't last much longer, and it was finally discovered that the oil used by the manufacturer had a shelf life of 1 year.

    If the bearing was sitting, the oil would seperate which lead to premature failure.

     

    We started only stocking bearings with 6 months from manufacture and checking before installation.

     

    Mark

  • 0 in reply to gadget.iom

    Part of me still prefers the wrench approach.

    All of me prefers that .... at least it was getting fixed.

  • 0 in reply to mcb1

    All of me prefers that .... at least it was getting fixed.

    True 'dat!

     

    Now the difficulty is getting the engineers away from their computer.