Up until now, many companies have continued to maintain their furnaces based solely on a scheduled calendar.
Now, using data collected by the new tools offered by Industry 4.0, it is already possible to improve these maintenance plans to make them predictive and it means operators can act at the most opportune moment.
Predictive maintenance: prevent today to benefit tomorrow
Predictive maintenance uses furnace operating information allied to a system designed to predict when a component will fail or if the process is not optimized correctly.
Anticipating harmful failures provides great benefits such as more stable production, shorter downtimes, optimal operating conditions and longer component life.
Other benefits that you can obtain by implementing preventive aspects within your maintenance plan are:
• Optimization of energy consumption.
• Access to energy consumption simulations to analyze if expected savings/performance have been achieved and how they can be optimized.
• Detection of faults in specific temperature control areas, and exact location of the faulty component.
• Greater temperature uniformity in all furnace sections, leading to higher quality in production.
Predictive maintenance applications for your industry
With our Nutec Bickley Industry 4.0 platform, there is an infinite range of possibilities, applications and uses.
Our platform is 100% editable, allowing for the creation of new variables for monitoring and also for the programming of personalized alarms to notify the user in case of unforeseen events: for example, if the temperature in a particular device exceeds a set limit, alerts can be sent to defined personnel.
The information you get is accessible from any device connected to the internet, without the need to install any new software.
By applying appropriate monitoring sensors for each application, the behavior of multiple variables can be analyzed in real time, such as the following:
1. Vibration within important components such as the recirculation fan, so you can ensure that the equipment is in proper operating condition
2. Monitoring valve flow and pressure and verifying that these are in the specified range
3. If the product is at risk of oxidation, it is possible to measure furnace oxygen levels in order to minimize the damage
4. Detecting temperature variations in the most sensitive parts of furnace motors in order to prevent damage to production
Our Industry 4.0 platform is linked to technical services, giving us access to information from the team in order to understand which areas are the most problematic and which parameters are out of normal levels – all of which leaves us better prepared when making repairs.
At Nutec Bickley, we are experts in the development of technologies focused on improving operational performance for all sorts of industries.
We also have a wide variety of custom furnaces, manufactured according to the needs of our customers. Contact us to find out more.
