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Industrial EKG
Energy, electrical, and mechanical health monitoring by sensing and interpreting the pulse of industrial machinery and processes
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Applications and Strategies for Implementation
Electric motors and generators are far and away the workhorses and prime movers of today's industry.
Studies consistently report that 60-65% of the world's entire electrical power generation capacity
is consumed by industrial motors, the vast majority of which are induction type. Estimates of the
number of electric motors installed in industry today are consistently well over 1 billion units.
Most facilities have continuous improvement programs to identify and schedule upgrades that improve
efficiency and reduce energy and other operating costs. There are two high level approaches that
dominate industrial operations improvement practice today.
First, recognizing how commonly processes are designed with motors over-sized for their application,
most facilities realize significant returns from programs that simply and regularly cycle out older
equipment and replace it with inverter drives and more efficient motors.
The second most common strategy for energy and operational cost reduction comes from gains in
operational efficiency. These are achieved by monitoring the equipment and processes regularly,
identifying which machines and processes are degrading and at what rate, and using this information
as a driver for maintenance. The most common opportunities for major gains in energy savings,
in particular, are surprisingly easy to identify: unbalance, misalignment, loose connections,
unbalanced voltages, and degrading mechanical efficiency (for example, material buildup in piping
systems). Taken collectively these faults, which are commonly found in all facilities no matter
how advanced the maintenance practices, can easily account for 10-15% of energy costs. Identifying
and correcting them easily repays the cost of monitoring, many times over.
And energy cost savings go straight to the bottom line, with benefits and ROI easily calculated
without the need to resort to gains on the positive side of the ledger such as downtime that was
avoided or failures that didn't happen.
In a typical medium to large industrial facility, 5-15% of the equipment is typically considered
critical, which is usually defined as halting output of the facility's product if it's not
available. Close attention is paid to this equipment, consequently the majority of online monitoring
equipment is installed on these systems.
Most customers will also install online monitoring equipment on second tier, or important systems,
where the strategy is to spread the cost of an online monitoring solution across multiple systems.
The remaining plant equipment is either monitored on a regular or infrequent walkaround basis,
or simply run to failure.
Where to start? Identify and classify your equipment according to criticality and energy
consumption, rank these, design a program and budget, and begin implementing.
Most Common Equipment Our Customers Monitor:
Fans FD, ID, squirrel cage, bladed, high speed, low speed
Pumps Vertical, horizontal, centrifugal, reciprocal, submerged, water, LNG, gas, oil, chemical
Compressors centrifugal, reciprocal, gas, air, nitrogen
Conveyors escalators, moving walkways, industrial, mining
Our Customers Also Monitor:
Alternators industrial local power generation
Drills water, oil, gas
Generators AC induction, synchronous, commercial, industrial, turbine & motor driven
Motors AC, induction, synchronous, inverter or direct drive, LV & HV
Transmissions belt, gear, fluid, clutched, any mechanical coupling
Industries Where Systems are Installed:
Airports moving walkways, escalators, baggage conveyors, climate control
Automotive air and paint pumps in spray paint booths, conveyors, shop air, power generation
Consumer Product Manufacturing shop air, fluid pumps, mixers, conveyors
Chemical agricultural, pharmaceutical, pelletized plastics and industrial precursors, pumps, fans, compressors, local power generators, conveyors
Food & Beverage mixing, transferring, filling, brewing, bottling, local power generation
Electronics Manufacturing clean room air delivery, local power generation, water delivery
Marine military and commercial cruise line bilge pumps, seawater cooling pumps, power generation alternators & generators, climate control
Mining long (km) conveyors, crushing, slurry & water pumping, mixing, barge load/unloading, local power generation
Oil & Gas lifting, transferring, LNG loading & unloading, local power generation
Pharmaceutical liquid delivery, packaging, shop air, local power generation
Power Generation large synchronous generators, cooling pumps, fans, air compressors
Steel large air compressors, local power generation
Transportation subway escalators, lifts, power generation, air delivery
Water clean and waste water delivery & transport, deep well lift pumps, slurry management, flood control
White Goods motor QA testing, shop air, conveyors
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