Plant & Works Engineering September 2022 Issue

A ccording to FutureBridge , 20% of industrial machinery manufacturers are expected to invest 10% of their annual revenues in the next three years on digitalisation. However, historically, pumps and valves have been among the last devices to be digitalised in plants. Industry 4.0 technologies, like advanced diagnostics and machine-to-machine communications, are being increasingly used in manufacturing environments and are proven to enhance overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). In fact, a Gartner study indicates that 80 per cent of organisations surveyed that adopted the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have achieved better-than-expected results. These technologies benefit maintenance to a significant degree, by reducing time and costs. Thanks to the flexibility and decreasing cost of sensors, these advantages can be increasingly applied to industrial valves and pumps. Be proactive Operating conditions, such as heat, usually change during the life cycle of a pump, so much that a pump no longer runs at the optimum operating point. The load usually peaks at shutoff, at which point long-term operation can reduce pump component life and reliability. This also applies to newly installed pumps. Plant managers should look to digitally optimise a pump’s performance, keeping this as simple as possible by avoiding the use of complex analytics. But where do they begin? A good starting point is to align new digital platforms with a plant’s maintenance strategy whether the strategy is corrective, preventive or predictive. Failure to have a proper maintenance strategy can impact the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the pump and the facility’s overall bottom line. For example, digital solutions, like WEG’s motion fleet management platform (MFM), monitor the operational status of several industrial assets. MFM also uses cloud computing and IIoT technologies that are deployable across a range of industrial assets, including industrial pumps. Used mainly by maintenance engineers, the technology monitors OEE through data collection and processing, generates valuable real-time insights to share with plant managers and leads to improved asset management. For instance, the software enables new verifications, such as pump surface temperature, for engineers to migrate from component substitution to a fully-fledged 4.0 maintenance plan. In turn, this reduces damage and wear on industrial assets and, therefore, reduces unplanned downtime. Process, Controls & Plant Focus: Pumps & Valves Digitalisation can help increase equipment life in pumps 22 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk September 2022 Marek Lukaszczyk, Europe and Middle East marketing manager at the motors and drives specialist WEG, looks at how Industry 4.0 has evolved to now support increased equipment life in pumps.