Industrial EKG

Energy, electrical, and mechanical health monitoring by sensing and interpreting the pulse of industrial machinery and processes
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Applications and Strategies for Implementation

Electric motors and generators are far and away the workhorses and prime movers of today's industry. Studies consistently report that 60-65% of the world's entire electrical power generation capacity is consumed by industrial motors, the vast majority of which are induction type. Estimates of the number of electric motors installed in industry today are consistently well over 1 billion units.

Most facilities have continuous improvement programs to identify and schedule upgrades that improve efficiency and reduce energy and other operating costs. There are two high level approaches that dominate industrial operations improvement practice today.

First, recognizing how commonly processes are designed with motors over-sized for their application, most facilities realize significant returns from programs that simply and regularly cycle out older equipment and replace it with inverter drives and more efficient motors.

The second most common strategy for energy and operational cost reduction comes from gains in operational efficiency. These are achieved by monitoring the equipment and processes regularly, identifying which machines and processes are degrading and at what rate, and using this information as a driver for maintenance. The most common opportunities for major gains in energy savings, in particular, are surprisingly easy to identify: unbalance, misalignment, loose connections, unbalanced voltages, and degrading mechanical efficiency (for example, material buildup in piping systems). Taken collectively these faults, which are commonly found in all facilities no matter how advanced the maintenance practices, can easily account for 10-15% of energy costs. Identifying and correcting them easily repays the cost of monitoring, many times over.

And energy cost savings go straight to the bottom line, with benefits and ROI easily calculated without the need to resort to gains on the positive side of the ledger such as downtime that was avoided or failures that didn't happen.

In a typical medium to large industrial facility, 5-15% of the equipment is typically considered critical, which is usually defined as halting output of the facility's product if it's not available. Close attention is paid to this equipment, consequently the majority of online monitoring equipment is installed on these systems.

Most customers will also install online monitoring equipment on second tier, or “important” systems, where the strategy is to spread the cost of an online monitoring solution across multiple systems. The remaining plant equipment is either monitored on a regular or infrequent walkaround basis, or simply run to failure.

Where to start? Identify and classify your equipment according to criticality and energy consumption, rank these, design a program and budget, and begin implementing.

Most Common Equipment Our Customers Monitor:

Fans – FD, ID, squirrel cage, bladed, high speed, low speed
Pumps – Vertical, horizontal, centrifugal, reciprocal, submerged, water, LNG, gas, oil, chemical
Compressors – centrifugal, reciprocal, gas, air, nitrogen
Conveyors – escalators, moving walkways, industrial, mining

Our Customers Also Monitor:

Alternators – industrial local power generation
Drills – water, oil, gas
Generators – AC induction, synchronous, commercial, industrial, turbine & motor driven
Motors – AC, induction, synchronous, inverter or direct drive, LV & HV
Transmissions – belt, gear, fluid, clutched, any mechanical coupling

Industries Where Systems are Installed:

Airports – moving walkways, escalators, baggage conveyors, climate control
Automotive – air and paint pumps in spray paint booths, conveyors, shop air, power generation
Consumer Product Manufacturing – shop air, fluid pumps, mixers, conveyors
Chemical – agricultural, pharmaceutical, pelletized plastics and industrial precursors, pumps, fans, compressors, local power generators, conveyors
Food & Beverage – mixing, transferring, filling, brewing, bottling, local power generation
Electronics Manufacturing – clean room air delivery, local power generation, water delivery
Marine – military and commercial cruise line bilge pumps, seawater cooling pumps, power generation alternators & generators, climate control
Mining – long (km) conveyors, crushing, slurry & water pumping, mixing, barge load/unloading, local power generation
Oil & Gas – lifting, transferring, LNG loading & unloading, local power generation
Pharmaceutical – liquid delivery, packaging, shop air, local power generation
Power Generation – large synchronous generators, cooling pumps, fans, air compressors
Steel – large air compressors, local power generation
Transportation – subway escalators, lifts, power generation, air delivery
Water – clean and waste water delivery & transport, deep well lift pumps, slurry management, flood control
White Goods – motor QA testing, shop air, conveyors


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