Information where it is needed
26/01/2022 Stratus Technologies Systems Ltd
By Greg Hookings, Head of Business Development – Digitalisation, Stratus Technologies
Process industries face certain challenges that come from strict regulations and the constant need to be more efficient without costly infrastructure changes. Energy use in the sector is no exception and is an important way to improve efficiency and reduce unplanned plant downtime.
No matter where a machine is, whether in a purpose-built pharmaceutical facility or facing the elements on an offshore platform, properly maintained equipment uses less energy. And to have a properly maintained machine, there needs to be a steady stream of information keeping managers updated about its operational health.
Stranded Assets
However, a good portion of equipment in a process plant is remote from the IT capability required to maintain a real-time monitoring of its energy usage.
An offshore platform is perhaps the most extreme example of a stranded asset – or perhaps more accurately, many, many stranded machines. Equipment on an offshore rig is designed to be operational for a long time, but as that equipment ages, it becomes less energy efficient and suffers more maintenance-related downtime. Without an effective maintenance programme using actual machine usage data and real-time monitoring and visualisation, the rig quickly becomes much less productive and much more expensive to run.
However, the kind of maintenance required relies on an active data link between the equipment and the enterprise management software, which is usually a long way from the rig. Traditionally with offshore enterprises, this communication has relied upon satellite communications, but this connection is not fast enough for actionable changes to be made in the name of energy efficiency, and the knock-on consequence is a lack of visibility into deteriorating parts and minor faults that can cause failures and shutdowns.
Computing Where it Is Needed
With the maturation of Edge Computing, this traditional limitation is being overcome, and maintenance cost savings are now within reach without fundamental redesign or large capital expenditure. While extreme, the offshore example is applicable for any industry that has stranded assets. The same principles apply whether those assets are at sea, or remote from the rest of the network for any other reason. In short, if an enterprise doesn’t have visualisation of live data from all of its assets, its capability to run a proactive maintenance strategy is compromised, and it is very unlikely to be as energy efficient or resilient to unplanned downtime as it could be.
Intelligent decentralisation of certain IT capabilities can reduce the need to move as much data and remove the lag that prohibits timely decision making. It does not prohibit a data strategy that continues to centralise less time sensitive data which enables other effective digital transformation approaches to improved operations such as those which require the processing capability of cloud computing. Edge Computing, executed well, empowers operators and managers at the machine level to make better decisions about machine upkeep and tuning based on live information, allowing for localised, real-time visualisation of equipment performance and energy consumption data.
Simple, Protected & Autonomous
In addition to the installation of an edge computing platform which is capable of withstanding the harsher environments of the machine level, the deployment of computing at the edge requires consideration of three key factors, since it is unrealistic to expect the same level of IT support for remote computing architectures. A strong edge platform will be highly automated and run virtual machines (VMs) with fault tolerance capability to all-but-eliminate IT failure related downtime. It will also be simple to deploy and operate requiring little or no specialist IT experience to repair by using hot-swappable nodes that keep the system online in the event of an IT failure. It must also have inherent security features, such as easily configured host-based firewalls and restricted USB ports.
With such a solution installed, local operators can now see, in real time, exactly how their equipment is running. For instance, when a bearing starts to wear and operate at a slightly lower frequency, they can factor maintenance into scheduled downtime and reduce the potential for unplanned downtime caused by failure while simultaneously maintaining equipment at a higher level of energy efficiency, reducing operational costs throughout the extended lifecycle. Thus, a minor fault doesn’t turn into a major fault and cause a shutdown or pull-down extra energy from the grid.
Conclusion
Modern Edge Computing architectures are now a very important tool in digital transformation strategies. They can help bring legacy equipment into a proactive maintenance programme that has the potential to make businesses much more profitable. They can offer both local and centralised operators and managers a window into the operational status of stranded assets, and they can provide a simple, autonomous and secure route to cost savings throughout the business while complementing other data strategies using cloud, fog, or on-premise, data centre IT architectures. If an edge strategy is not part of your enterprise digital transformation approach, it should be.
Print this articleFor more information, please contact:
Catherine Roberts
Stratus Technologies Systems Ltd
Waterman's House
Waterman's Court
Kingsbury Crescent
Staines
Middlesex
TW18 3BA
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1784 415220
Email: catherine.roberts@stratus.com
Web: https://www.stratus.com
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