We help users in finding more effective and sustainable ways to manage industrial assets and people.
Industry 4.0
Process & Machine Monitoring
What it is
Wireless real-time data streaming from smart sensors monitoring industrial assets enables remote access to operational data across long distances.
Challenges:
- Monitor assets to reduce downtime due to breakdowns and improve effectivity.
- Costly and inefficient process to manually check and document assets status.
- Workforce could be redirected to jobs with higher added value.
Benefits:
- Optimize costs by reducing resources used for manual monitoring tasks.
- Guarantee compliance with the norms and regulations.
- Increase safety and reduce production downtime.
- Drive improvements on operational efficiency.
World class industrial producers are continuously challenged to optimize the production processes with efficient and scalable solutions that drive improvements on operational efficiency and guarantee compliance with the norms and regulations.
Remote asset monitoring is the evolution of the error-prone, costly and inefficient manual task of checking and documenting asset states in person.
Industry leaders are accelerating the adoption of smart sensors to optimize operational effectiveness (OEE), increase safety and reduce costs of monitoring remote assets, allowing for real-time and continuous monitoring of critical parameters such as temperature, pressure, water and fuel levels, energy consumption, malfunctions, etc.
It has been proven that such solutions pay off in a relatively short time due to the meaningful cost optimization achieved by the reduction or elimination of manual tasks that require physical travel to offsite locations, factories, warehouses, mines, etc.
The combination of the automation of data collection and improved remote connectivity allows users to perform automated reports or define alarms based on predetermined conditions and triggers, significantly improving quality and reducing downtime.
What can you monitor?
- Water, electricity, gas metering
- Tank fill level
- Liquid or gas flow
- Presence and proximity
- Weight
- Pressure (gases or liquids)
- Gas presence (CO2, O2, CH4)
- Actuator status
Industry 4.0
Fleet Management
What it is
Tracking and tracing the real-time location of individual vehicles either on-site or while in transit. Visualization of vehicle location, utilization status, driving time and other metrics.
Challenges:
- Tracking and managing fleets in real-time is a complex task.
- Existing solutions depend on coverage from cellular service providers or GPS.
- GPS contracts and cellular solutions are expensive to implement at scale.
Benefits:
- Use real-time location and operation statistics to improve route planning.
- Reduce costs with cellular providers.
- Increase capacity utilization.
- Decrease losses and reduce operational costs by avoiding wasteful utilization.
Fleets of cars, scooters, trucks, boats or any other means of transportation are complex to track and manage in real-time when in operation.
Today, most fleet management solutions are reliant on wide-area connectivity, such as cellular (3G/4G) which requires the dependence on coverage from network service providers or expensive contracts to guarantee global GPS coverage.
Several new, low-cost IoT technologies such as LoRaWAN present a more competitive option to this use case so that vehicle fleets are always truly connected at a reasonable price.
The integration of fleet management solutions using smart sensors enables users to increase capacity utilization, improve route planning, decrease losses and ultimately reduce operational costs by avoiding wasteful utilization.
What can you monitor?
- Cars, vans, trucks, boats
- Motorcycles, bicycles, scooters
- Speed during routes
- Intrusion detection (security)
- Preventive maintenance
- Vehicle utilization
- Acceleration peaks
- Temperature onboard
Industry 4.0
Product Tracking
What it is
Tracking product location and conditions in transit to determine its movement, geographic position and physical state in real-time.
Challenges:
- Tracking products at scale with cellular providers is expensive and impractical.
- Certain products and services would bring more value to clients through a tight control of temperature, location, movement, delay.
- Businesses incur significant losses due to shipping mistakes and lost orders.
Benefits:
- Understand product utilization patterns by users.
- Reduce losses by finding lost items or mitigating theft.
- Guarantee quality and safety for sensitive items (e.g. pharmaceutical, gourmet food & beverage or luxury).
Companies who want to stand out from the competition need a distinctive approach to their product distribution. Monitoring the geographic location, movement, delay, shock, and temperature of goods is a growing demand in industries such as pharmaceutical, gourmet food & beverage or luxury, but also expanding to other sectors.
Temperature sensor data is one of the most important parameters for this use case since it guarantees the safety of the final product by close monitoring throughout the entire supply chain, both in transit and in storage.
Tracking the location of an asset can be beneficial for businesses to both the vendor of the products (e.g., by understanding usage patterns) and the customer (e.g., by finding a lost item or by mitigating theft) but also for private users who wish to secure valuable items or vehicles with real-time location tracking directly available on a mobile app.
Premium bike brands are offering anti-theft services to their customers based on location tracking of their products. For a monthly fee, the company sends its “bike hunters” if a customer’s bike is stolen. The bikes are connected and tracked via the LoRaWAN network.
What can you monitor?
- Palletes, boxes and containers
- Liquid tanks
- Location of goods
- Temperature and humidity
- Tilting of fragile goods
- Indoor/outdoor positioning
Industry 4.0
Predictive Maintenance
What it is
The use of real-time smart sensor data and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to determine when maintenance should be performed on specific equipment.
Challenges:
- Industrial processes are impacted by downtime and equipment breakdown.
- Lack of predictability for maintenance is costly and affects supply chains.
- A large part of breakdown situations could be avoided if detected in due time.
Benefits:
- Identify increased temperatures, unusual noises, water leakages, etc.
- Send automatic alerts for staff to intervene, preventing or quickly solving breakdowns and malfunctions before the production line needs to be stopped.
- Anticipate and avoid future breakdowns and production losses through machine learning applied to the operational sensor data collected.
Companies are investing in solutions at the intersection of IoT and Artificial Intelligence to forecast the remaining useful life of assets and ensure they are repaired before they fail.
Real-time monitoring of industrial machines and components is an essential practice to optimize manufacturing capacity, reduce losses and prevent costly downtime on the production line.
Smart sensors can detect increased temperatures, unusual noises, water leakages and automatically alert staff to intervene, thereby preventing or quickly solving breakdowns and malfunctions before the production line needs to be stopped.
The data collected by the sensors is a key input for the utilization of machine learning algorithms that continuously monitor and interpret the behavior of the machines and allow managers to precisely anticipate and avoid future breakdowns and production losses.
What can you monitor?
- Machines or vehicles operation
- Assembly lines
- Temperature and humidity
- Gas concentration (CO2 ppm)
- Noise and vibration
- Pressure
- Electrical conductivity
- Water leakage (spot/zone)
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