Resin Conveying in Factory
Vacuum pumps are the heart of a conveying system, and drive the heartbeat of a plastics factory as they move resin material from one point to another. Often, this vital piece of equipment is placed in remote areas of a plant and forgotten, until material stops flowing, production stops, and frantic workers scramble to bring the system back online. Learn how adding vacuum and vibration sensor data and analytics can decipher both pump and conveying system operating health, maximize blower life and conveying performance, and minimize maintenance and service costs.
Case Study
Tier One Automotive Supplier Maximizes Uptime and Meets Delivery Deadlines Using MachineSense’s Predictive Maintenance and Analytics Technology
Customer:
A tier-one supplier in the automotive industry had suffered an incredible lose in revenue and credibility when their downed conveying system cost them over $500,000 in lost production and late delivery penalties. They came to MachineSense looking for predictive maintenance technology for their resin conveying system.
The Challenge:
The customers conveying pumps were in an isolated, difficult to access area off the plant floor. Due to the inconvenient location personal observation and routine maintenance of the vacuum pumps was not being performed as needed. This caused a catastrophic failure of two pumps on the same day, which caused a significant loss in revenue and harmed their reputation as a valued supplier.
The Solution:
MachineSense developed technology that allowed this customer to monitor the operating condition and trend health of their pumps and blowers, and in turn their resin conveying system 24/7. The sensors were installed to the pumps exterior to constantly measure vibration and vacuum, plus ambient temperature and pressure. Their sensor data transmits to a gateway and is then sent to cloud-based servers running powerful continuous data monitoring and analytic software. The analytics algorithm tracks and compares the collected data against an established baseline to determine overall pump and blower health. Alerts are sent to assigned recipients in the form of actionable maintenance advice via email or text when a change in performance is detected. This allows the customer to quickly and accurately diagnose a problem before it happens, making their plant maintenance personnel much more effective and helping to minimize unplanned downtime.
The Benefits:
The customer can now schedule when the conveying system will be offline avoiding costly unscheduled downtime and late delivery penalties.
An easy-to-understand dashboard shows measured parameters, current conditions and trends 24/7/365 of the pumps and blowers. Measure parameters include: pump on-time, pump utilization under load, blower health, filter condition, operating vacuum, vacuum pattern and frequency, check oil (viscosity and low level). Sensor installation is also monitored.
MachineSense sensors and analyzers were fitted to the exterior of the pumps and blower housings.
