Wireless Monitoring of Converter Machine Prevents Downtime and Generates Positive ROI in Two Days

Wireless Solutions Kits are fully integrated and easy-to-use solutions for monitoring assets and solving specific applications. They are designed to make it easy for users of any experience level to setup a wireless network, collect remote data, and create visualization tools, warnings, and alarms.

Customer Requirements: Monitor motors running in machines that output corrugated cardboard packaging, to preempt and avoid critical part failures and associated work stoppage for repairs.

Solution: Wireless Solutions Kit

Why Banner? Banner’s wireless condition-monitoring kits collect trending data from automated equipment and use machine-learning algorithms to quickly determine the mechanisms’ expected behavior. Then, if the machines deviate from this established baseline, the monitoring system immediately alerts employees to the need for maintenance. Having the technology to do in-house asset monitoring is much more cost-effective than outsourcing this process to an external contractor. Users receive condition-based maintenance notifications, so they can quickly address the issues and avoid catastrophic failures, expensive repairs, and costly unplanned downtime. Long-term condition monitoring can also help companies keep machines running at optimal efficiency to avoid future maintenance issues.

Customer Benefits

Early Warning: Wireless condition monitoring kits capture and report constant real-time data about machine functions, compare it to expected behavior, and immediately alert operators about potential problems before they cause downtime.

Machine Learning: Sensors record how machines (whether new or old) operate under normal conditions, and the monitoring system applies algorithms to set baseline performance thresholds.

Easy Installation: Monitoring solutions are modular and simple to install, with an emphasis on plug-and-play hardware setup. This allows customers to continue regular maintenance tasks with peace of mind. The machine-learning capability mentioned above eliminates the need for setting alarm thresholds manually. Customers can choose to start monitoring a small number of machines, and then they can expand their system by incorporating additional sensors for other production-line components over time.

Background

When manufacturing and packaging companies rely on preventative maintenance schedules, subtle signs of mechanical fatigue are not always obvious or detectable. Switching to predictive maintenance, using real-time data, gives early warning signs to identify problems, so that the companies can resolve them in time to prevent production downtime and lost profits—potentially saving them millions of dollars for large-scale operations.

Challenges

The operators of a corrugated cardboard packing company had an opportunity to test out a Banner Wireless Solutions Kit for monitoring vibration and temperature of their machines, over a weekend that coincided with scheduled predictive maintenance. This turned out to be perfect timing, because within a day after the kit was set up, it detected that a converter machine’s motor was running hot. The motor in question was supposed to run at 40 to 45 °C, but the wireless monitoring system sent an email alert that it was actually running above 50 °C. The team reviewing this data noticed that the vibration velocity trend increased from the baseline as well, indicating signs of a failing bearing.

Solution

Maintenance teams were able to avoid unplanned downtime by scheduling time to replace the faulty bearing when the machine was not in use. The company estimates that without taking this action, the machine would have suffered a catastrophic failure, resulting in production being shut down for a minimum of two days. Instead, the advance warning from the monitoring kit allowed the team to make repairs during the regularly scheduled maintenance break and keep production moving on schedule. The team reported that the Wireless Solutions Kit was exceptionally user-friendly, and they are now in the process of expanding Banner’s initial solution with additional sensors to monitor assets across the rest of the plant floor.

The value of wirelessly monitoring this machine data throughout the production process was evident instantly:

Outfitting the factory with this technology costs less than two days of lost production time.
It also costs less than having to fully replace a blown-out machine motor.
It costs much less than outsourcing asset monitoring to an external contractor.
The Banner system works 24/7. (This is in contrast to traditional condition monitoring on a weekly or monthly basis, which has the potential to miss early warning signs that could lead to unexpected failures.)
The system greatly reduces the likelihood of running into unplanned maintenance issues in the future.

This insight-driven approach to maintenance reinforces the adage that “prevention is better than cure.”

Featured Products

Wireless Solutions Kit

Wireless Solutions Kits make it easy to monitor remote and mobile assets, collect and act on data, and solve specific applications, such as tank level monitoring, industrial temperature monitoring, and wireless vibration monitoring.

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