Editor's Picks
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Improving Agility In Manufacturing Plants
An effective ‘Enterprise Life-cycle Management (ALM) solution’ for monitoring and managing the performance and maintenance of organizations Assets, is the most important tool for preventing operational surprises and uncovering hidden profits. For several years, SCADA systems have provided the best option for monitoring and controlling of process and manufacturing systems. An uninterrupted production process is the key factor for performance and success. Machines involved in a production process should work without interruption to guarantee 24/7 operations.
However, enabling engineers in a control room to monitor production parameters, condition monitoring of machines and process data, does not guarantee that the information is actually reaching the technician on-time; there by appropriate action is taken instantly, when required. In most the places, the central control room gives alarm and may a times alarm is reset due to high number of alarms. This sometime puts the plant into worst situations. What is more important is to make sure that alarms, condition monitoring exceptions and process parameters reach a group of expert technicians wherever they are, so that immediate action can be take care.
The ability to view process information, production data and condition monitoring on their mobile device, makes plant monitoring and control more accessible and controllable. It is particularly valuable with remote facilities in hard-to-access places. Plant engineers can gain through the ability to access trends associated to machine parameters.
A mobile solution can not only make things more efficient, it can also help guard against disaster. If machine operators and managers are notified of problems immediately wherever they are, it’s possible to take action before product is wasted, or the machine is damaged. Regulations, such as FDA 21 CFR Part 11, require that alarms be acknowledged and traced to the user who acknowledged them.
As operators are inundated with more alarms and warnings than ever before, ensuring the correct response to critical issues is key to helping companies reduce liability exposure and costs. While traditional systems enables operators to acknowledge alarms, they do not help prioritize and resolve issues, which can lead to improper actions.
The return on investment (ROI) for online Condition Monitoring framework, is usually achieved with the detection of a single problem, that unnoticed would normally cause considerable costs, unexpected production downtime including unnecessary machinery failures. Real-time data from industrial automation systems - Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) allows real-time data into meter-based preventive maintenance and condition-based monitoring critical assets, triggering automatic work orders/ notification (SMS and email) when performance degrades beyond pre-defined thresholds.
MobileSCADA is the way forward for organizations that want to minimize capital, and maximize plant monitoring and control.
