Public industrial automation initiatives such as Industry 4.0 and the broader Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) approach have profound effects on manufacturing. They promise more efficient, profitable and agile industrial processes and organizations, and are based on data capture and analysis, as well as increasing performance with available production assets. To increase performance it is necessary to maintain optimal working conditions and constantly monitor for signs of wear and potential failure. Downtime needs to be carefully managed and kept to an absolute minimum. This article explores how IIoT technologies are enabling the transformation of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) as well as the key role sensors play in enabling this transformation.
Industry 4.0 and MRO
Industry 4.0 is based on the “smart factory”, in which cyber-physical systems monitor the physical processes of the factory and make decisions in a decentralized way. Here are some of the typical features of an Industry 4.0 factory or system:
- Collaboration: Machines, devices, sensors, and people connecting and communicating with each other.
- Information transparency: Systems create a virtual copy of the physical world through sensor data to contextualize information.
- Technical assistance: the ability of systems to help people make decisions and solve problems and the ability to help people with tasks that are too difficult or dangerous.
- Machine Learning/AI: The ability of cyber-physical systems to make simple decisions on their own and be as autonomous as possible. The increased sophistication of production processes driven by Industry 4.0 technologies increases the demand for MRO; As the environment becomes more competitive, the need to increase earned asset value increases, especially in capital-intensive sectors such as aerospace, oil and gas, mining, chemicals, and metal processing. Maximizing the performance of assets requires extending their useful life and keeping them online as much as possible while complying with regulations, safety and other regulations. The importance of MRO as a business discipline initially driven by the airline industry, where MRO accounts for 12 to 15 percent of operating costs, has grown in line with the increasing attention paid to asset performance.
Scope and factors driving MRO
The airline industry has arguably spearheaded the evolution of MRO since the early 1950s due to business model innovation fostered by the number of existing providers. The factors that have driven MRO strategies vary depending on the sector, but they have in common the reduction of operating costs and the improvement of productivity. Other factors, such as security, regulatory compliance, and customer satisfaction, may be just as important depending on the industry. In the airline industry, for example, safety is paramount, while in a factory unscheduled downtime can cause lost production, resulting in decreased turnover and/or lower satisfaction levels. the client's. A prescriptive maintenance situation is described below.
A modern aircraft in flight is capable of generating terabytes of data from the sensors on board, since the engine alone has up to 5.000 elements that are monitored at all times. This data can be constantly analyzed during the flight and used to identify any maintenance issues or requirements. Orders can be placed with suppliers and the work of maintenance teams can be scheduled in mid-flight so that, when the plane lands, everything is ready: technicians, documentation, parts, etc. in order to ensure a rapid response, that is, that the aircraft is attended and ready for its next flight after spending the minimum time on the ground. The time of action on the ground (Aircraft on Ground or AOG is a crucial factor; every second that a civil aircraft is not flying represents an economic loss for the company).
The example above also indicates the scope of MRO, which includes data acquisition, data transmission, storage and analysis, maintenance procedures and documentation, and ERP functionality, such as resource organization and supply chain operations. Other areas that may also belong to this environment are intelligent stock management and customer-facing processes such as baggage tracking. Other similar environments can be glimpsed in sectors where the growing deployment of IIoT sensors makes it possible to detect the first signs of fatigue or failure of an asset before they are critical. Traditional MRO methods based on preventative maintenance can be expensive in terms of labor, parts, and the consequences of downtime. For example, shutting down an oil refinery can cost up to $1 million per hour.
Work is performed whether or not it is needed, parts are replaced during the down window, and production capacity is lost or impacted for the duration of the down window. The emergence of IIoT technologies therefore creates an opportunity for organizations to transform their MRO strategies and move closer to the prescriptive maintenance model described above. The technologies themselves are a critical part of this transformation, as is the ability of organizations to integrate these technologies into their MRO processes.
IIoT and MRO
In this section, we'll take a closer look at how IIoT is enabling the transformation of MRO strategies and review some of the IIoT technologies and applications critical to this transformation.
Things: sensors and actuators
The exponential growth in the number and diversity of “things” is driving innovation in embedded sensor design, and these devices must pack an increasing level of functionality into smaller packages. Since many applications work in real time, this requires more data processing “at the edge” and remote applications require very low power devices. A typical sensor will have the following characteristics:
- External Variable Sensing – Typically requires analog technology and possibly amplification
- Analog to digital conversion
- Local processing capabilities
- RF transceiver functionality
- Low power and ever smaller size, for example in wearable devices These requirements, and especially the demands related to size and power, are difficult to meet with discrete components, so the number of sensor installations based on the custom silicon design, or System on Chips (SoC). A SoC, which is slightly larger in size than a CPU, offers much greater functionality and, due to its very high level of integration, offers considerably lower power consumption than a solution based on discrete components, a fundamental aspect in many IoT applications. SoC production is carried out by companies specializing in silicon design and manufacturing techniques, such as Dublin-based S3 Semiconductors. Over its 20 years of experience, S3semi has developed a catalog of intellectual property for sensor technologies that it can license for custom designs and incorporate into custom platforms, such as its SmartEdge SoC (figure 1).
Local network: communication protocols
As with sensors, the evolution of communications protocols has been a fundamental factor in driving the IIoT forward. The communications protocols used by the embedded sensor depend on the environment in which the device must operate, and the requirements for IIoT sensors are so diverse that there is a single communications technology that can meet all of them in terms of range, consumption, size and cost. Although Wi-Fi may seem like the obvious choice for some applications, new network technologies allow low-cost, low-power solutions to be developed. These technologies facilitate the creation of extensive networks made up of very small intelligent devices. Figure 2 describes provides an overview of some of these technologies. There are also numerous specialized wireless networks for various sectors, such as 6LoWPAN, ANT, Zigbee/Zigbee IP, Wireless M-Bus, ISA100 and others.
Gateways/Internet/Back-end services: IIoT platforms
Due to the large amount of data that industrial processes and systems handle, the challenge that organizations face is to make sense of all of it, as well as to make decisions and carry out actions in real time. This requirement has led to the emergence of IIoT platforms that offer capabilities such as IIoT endpoint management and connectivity, data analysis, IIoT application development, and integration tools. In sectors with more mature MRO processes, which have extensive data on assets, companies are making large investments in software and applications that will process the enormous volume of data available (big data) to gain better understanding and facilitate decision making. decisions. In the aviation sector, for example, AFI KLM is a joint venture of Air France and KLM that has been established to provide MRO outsourcing services to other airlines. AFI KLM's engineering teams have developed a platform called PROGNOSIS, which incorporates a series of algorithms that use data automatically downloaded over Wi-Fi from the plane during its stops at Paris-CDG airport.
The results are transferred in real time to the Maintenance Control Center, where specialists receive component alerts that can start maintenance operations automatically. In the factory/process control sector, two Japanese companies, Yokogawa Electric Corporation and Iwaki Co., Ltd., are collaborating to develop proof of concept for a remote pump monitoring service. Yokogawa is developing an IIoT gateway device that will receive sensor data from a pump over a low power wide area network (LPWAN) or other wireless link or analog/digital communications interface. . Once in the cloud, this data can be accessed via a cellular or landline network. With this proof of concept, Yokogawa intends to create a system for greater application in industrial processes that simplifies the process of connecting to sensors and other instruments, and transferring that data to the cloud.
Conclusion
IIoT technologies are increasingly based on the effectiveness of MRO business processes. Accurate and reliable data capture is a critical requirement, and as developments in embedded technology have fueled the proliferation of smart sensors, the volume of data from operational assets has grown exponentially. The challenge for MRO operations is capturing and understanding what the data indicates and making the decisions and responsive actions. The ultimate goal in MRO is prescriptive maintenance, which can identify problems before they manifest and take all the necessary steps to perform maintenance in a way that minimally affects asset operation. Leading organizations are investing heavily in the capabilities of their IIoT platform, as application software will enable a transformation of their MROs. In many cases these organizations are establishing joint ventures to share investments, knowledge and technology.
