Predictive maintenance & condition monitoring


Predictive maintenance in food and beverage manufacturing


With any unscheduled downtime being a cause of major headaches for food and drink manufacturers, John Rowley of Mitsubishi Electric highlights how predictive maintenance can provide an easy-to-implement solution Take, for example, the add-on


supply that can seem, at best, challenging and at worst highly unrealistic, improving productivity is a priority. Tight timescales mean many lines are already running on a near 24/7 basis, leaving little leeway even for scheduled maintenance, let alone an unexpected breakdown. This can lead to overcautious service and maintenance regimes, which are expensive to support, but preferable to unscheduled downtime which is the worst possible scenario. Short supply or delayed delivery due to plant


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failure damages reputations and impacts on customer relationships. In addition, many production line failures are not characterised by a sudden fault that results in immediate line stoppage. Often it is a gradual degradation that impacts on product output. That means before the line eventually grinds to a halt, it might have spent a considerable period producing inconsistent goods. So we can see that both unscheduled


downtime and the developing causes of that downtime both impact directly on productivity, with a direct link to increased costs. The good news is that random equipment


failure does not have to be a fact of life. Modern condition monitoring sensor technology can be easily retrofitted to rotating plant and equipment, while many of today’s plant and machine controllers have advanced monitoring and diagnostics functions built in, ready to use. Taking advantage of these technologies can


quickly take food and beverage companies into the realm of predictive maintenance, where businesses can see advanced warning of impending equipment failure.


Evolving fRoM pREvEntativE to pREdictivE MaintEnancE A conceptual and technological leap forwards from preventative maintenance, intelligent predictive maintenance ensures an asset is serviced only when needed, not based on routine helping to increase both productivity and efficiency. Predictive maintenance spots equipment problems as they emerge and develop, providing ample warning of impending failure, and so helping to maximise asset availability. They also help combat inadvertent neglect. Importantly, these predictive maintenance


solutions are not complex; frequently they are simple and cost-effective to implement, and often they can be built from functions that already exist within the plant’s control equipment.


34


ith food manufacturers being continually squeezed on price by retailers and asked to fulfil orders for


sensors that have been developed to monitor the increases in operating temperature, excessive current draw, changes in vibration characteristics and significant shifts in other operating parameters that can all be indicative of impending problems in rotating machines. Today these sensors come with embedded ‘smart’ functionality, revolutionising condition monitoring.


A simple add-on to pumps,


motors, gearboxes, fans and more, these sensors used a simple traffic light system of red, amber and green lights to provide at-a-glance monitoring of the condition of the machine. They can also be connected into wider factory automation networks using Ethernet and a managing PLC for a smarter solution. In isolation, sensors offer a great start point to


implementing preventative maintenance strategies, but of course there are limitations to the traffic light warning system. While it indicates that a problem is developing, it gives no real clue as to what the problem might be or just how serious it is. It is these limitations that Mitsubishi Electric has


addressed with the Smart Condition Monitoring (SCM) solution. The kit provides an integrated approach to monitoring the condition of individual assets and enables a holistic approach to be taken to monitoring the asset health of the whole plant. Individual sensors retain the traffic light system for local warning indication at the machine, but at the same time information from multiple sensors is transferred over Ethernet to a Mitsubishi Electric PLC for in-depth monitoring and detailed analysis.


Muntons Malt Muntons Malt, one of the UK’s largest producers of malted barley is reaping the benefits of the SCM system to protect fans and motors vital to its large- scale and sensitive production process. The operation team had previously experienced issues with difficult-to-reach bearings inside a large fan housing, realising too late that a problem existed, and was forced to make an unscheduled stop to one of the lines to make repairs. Determined to learn from this, Muntons Malt


installed the SCM system on two large 315kW fan sets and a single 90kW fan set, referencing the electric motor, power transmission coupling and main fan shaft bearing on each. The company is now acutely aware of the health of the fan sets and has a very clear picture of any maintenance way in


advance of needing to make physical changes. Remote monitoring and fast diagnosis of any issues has also made the company very responsive should the operating parameters that have been set, even be approached. With the technology, live information and any


alarms are displayed on a GOT Series HMI mounted in the control enclosure. The system can work autonomously of any other automation, with multiple sensors located and recognised by unique IP addresses. However, at Muntons Malt the visual information as well as the alerts were connected into the existing automation software platform. This ease of connectivity illustrates further


benefits of today’s condition monitoring technologies, which can provide immediate, visible alarms anywhere in the world on smart devices. For multi-site businesses, this can aid in quickly changing over production schedules from one plant to another to fulfil the most pressing orders or can alert remote maintenance teams of the need to perform more detailed diagnostics. This information is not just coming from external


sensors. Modern drives, PLCs, SCADA systems and other automation products have comprehensive diagnostics capabilities inbuilt, monitoring not only their internal workings but also parameters such as current draw, voltage and temperature in connected motors, pumps, fans and compressors. All of this helps to build a detailed picture of the health of plant assets. And with a simple plant network backbone, this information can be shared around the plant and beyond. We can see, then, that predictive maintenance


strategies can offer comprehensive analysis on the health of individual machines as well as a holistic overview on the health of the wider plant. The result is vastly improved scheduled maintenance and optimised asset lifecycle management.


Mitsubishi Electric gb3a.mitsubishielectric.com


October 2019 Instrumentation Monthly


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