November 2021

New software brings AI to asset performance management for increased uptime Maintenance Matters Problem Solver 20 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk November 2021 A German wine producer has improved its productivity by retrofitting an anti-corrosion chain on its conveyor system. The company invested in a Tsubaki Neptune chain that has increased service life and reduced downtime with less frequent replacement and maintenance requirements. The upgraded chain has also reduced the total cost of ownership. The upgraded chain has also reduced the total cost of ownership. A wine producer in Germany bottles the wine and uses a series of conveyors to transport the bottles through the production process. At the end of the system, the bottles are buffered and accumulated on a spiral conveyor. The spiral conveyor is driven by a roller chain, however as it’s a wet environment the chains rapidly corrode and become subject to high friction. This results in a short wear life. The chain’s position is difficult to reach from a maintenance perspective and, because of the wet environment, relubrication is difficult. With an irregular lubrication regime combined with the corrosive conditions, the conveyor’s chain required replacement every two years. Frequent chain replacement increased procurement costs and, because of the chain’s difficult to access location, it also increased downtime, reducing the wine producer’s productivity. The wine producer replaced the spiral conveyor’s chain with Tsubaki Neptune, designed for use in corrosive environments. The Neptune has significantly outlasted the two-year service life of the previous chain and has already reduced the total cost of ownership. Crucially, the chain’s extended service life has minimised downtime with less frequent replacement and servicing, which has also reduced the time and cost of maintenance. Tsubaki says that its durability is a result of its coating that is applied to provide resistance to corrosion and chemicals. With a two-layer coating including resin covering the links, plates, bushes and pins, the Neptune is tested to withstand 700 hours of saltwater spray. The chain is also tested for 2,000 hours’ resistance against sodium hypochlorite and sodium hydroxide, which are frequently used as cleaning agents in the food and beverage industry. Other anti-corrosion type chains such as stainless-steel variants must make concessions in the strength department. However, the Neptune is a carbon steel chain with the same tensile strength and allowable load as Tsubaki’s standard, hard-wearing roller chains. The special coating also protects against friction, which speeds-up chain wear, by minimising severe dynamic contact between the roller and sprocket. The treatment to reduce corrosion can create harmful environmental consequences and for the wine producer, it was crucial to avoid these effects. Tsubaki’s Neptune chain is free from harmful hexavalent chromium and other potentially dangerous elements such as arsenic, lead, mercury, or cadmium. As a result, the Neptune chain is RoHS compliant. Because of the anti-corrosion properties, the Neptune chain is frequently used in applications that are subject to frequent and rigorous alkaline cleaning and wet environments. Typically, this includes applications in the food & beverage industry, waste treatment, packaging, and PET bottle sterilisation. Reduced downtime with new anti-corrosion chain A BB has launched it Ability Genix Asset Performance Management (APM) Suite for condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and 360- degree asset performance insights for the process, utility and transportation industries. The Genix APM Suite makes it easy to add asset condition monitoring to existing operational technology (OT) landscapes, enables prioritisation of maintenance activities based on AI-informed predictions, and provides a comprehensive overview of asset performance. Genix APM Suite also empowers significant improvements in operational sustainability. By assessing the remaining useful life of industrial assets, Genix APM generates a plan for preventive maintenance, which can extend equipment uptime by as much as 50% and increase asset life by up to 40%. With reliable data insights, decision makers are provided with the information required in order to identify gaps and areas of improvement for energy efficiency and tighter control of operations, increasing asset availability and improving profit potential. “Poor asset availability and reliability is a major problem that results in unplanned downtime and unexpected maintenance costs, and also impedes strategic planning and procurement,” said Rajesh Ramachandran, Chief Digital Officer at ABB Process Automation. “It’s not that industrial customers lack data; it’s that many lack effective ways to use their data to improve operational and business performance.” Genix APM is built on the ABB Ability Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite. ABB Ability Genix is a modular, IIoT and analytics suite, which integrates IT, OT and other enterprise data in a contextualised manner, applying advanced industrial AI capabilities that support new insights to optimise operations.