by Gary Mintchell | May 7, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Automation, News, Operations Management, Technology
Fluke invited a group of partners, customers, and bloggers to its Everett, WA corporate facility on May 6 in order to take a deep technology dive into where Fluke is and where it is going from a product/technology point of view. The tone of the gathering was one of conversation where Fluke presented ideas and asked for push back and ideas from us.
And feedback was what they got. The small group I was part of came up with four flip chart pages of ideas regarding proposed new products and products we thought it should pursue.
We also toured labs and manufacturing. Here are some brief impressions.
Fluke has an impressive metrology lab, actually two. The electrical lab has been around for a long time. A new thermography lab has just been constructed. I’m familiar with measurement, but the level of measurement and the dedication to standards was amazing. The science behind all the Fluke tools is solid.
Manufacturing is probably a poster child for the Danaher Production System—the company’s Lean implementation. The facilities are clean, organized with information clearly posted at the cells.
Fluke is also moving further into software—databases and analysis. Initially, Fluke Connect was a cool collaborative app for smart phones. Now it is evolving into helping smaller companies who may not have CMMS or other systems improve asset management through the information gathered from Fluke tools.
This is a product that holds great promise for many who need to start along the predictive maintenance path. “We’d like to help change behaviors in the maintenance and reliability areas.”
Given that, here is the press release for the unveiling of Fluke Connect Assets.
Fluke Connect Assets is a cloud-based wireless system of software and test tools that gives maintenance managers a comprehensive view of all critical equipment — including baseline, historical, and current test tool measurement data, current status, and past inspection data — enabling them to set up and sustain a predictive maintenance (PdM) or condition-based maintenance (CBM) system easily with minimal investment.
It features one-touch measurement transfer from more than 30 Fluke Connect-enabled test tools, eliminating manual recording of measurements so maintenance managers can be confident that the equipment history is accurate.
The company says it’s easy to set up with minimal investment and no need for support from the IT department.
The system’s features allow maintenance managers to analyze multiple types of predictive data (for example, electrical, vibration, infrared images) all in one program, side by side, in a visual format that enables easy scanning. In fact, it’s the first software that offers results across multiple deployments (smart phone, web browser). This intuitive display of multiple measurements enhances the productive use of data and the ability to identify a problem, since each measurement type tests a different aspect of equipment health and together they present a more complete picture.
Key features of Fluke Connect Assets include:
- Asset Health Dashboard — Asset Health is a hierarchy based overview of aggregated status over time, aggregated alarms over time, and equipment status timeline, all with drill downs with more details. This permits managers to quickly identify where they need to focus efforts as part of a morning routine. They can trend and compare thermal, electrical and vibration data over time for each piece of equipment and drill down to the data needed for repair/replacement decisions.
- Asset Status Dashboard — allows managers to quickly scan the most recent status updates for key assets so they can better monitor team and equipment activity.
- Asset Hierarchy and Test Points — allows managers to easily create inspection routes, schedules and instructions and assign technicians to measure specific test points to create repeatable, comparable data.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 16, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Automation, News, Operations Management, Safety
Asset management, analytics, modeling, safety—some of the significant trends highlighted at last week’s ARC Industry in Transition Forum in Orlando—all popped up at the Bentley Systems press conference session. Highlights were acquisition of C3global and its Amulet Operational Analytics, acquisition of Acute3D and its reality modeling solution, and added process safety and risk management capabilities.
Operational Analytics
Bentley Systems has acquired U.K.-based C3global, provider of web-based Amulet software for operational analytics. Bentley’s AssetWise platform, which serves configuration management, asset health monitoring, inspection, maintenance, and compliance for infrastructure assets, can now deliver additional actionable insights as asset performance management is extended, through AssetWise Amulet, for asset performance modeling. AssetWise Amulet offers unique value in applying predictive and prescriptive analytics that are easily configurable at industrial scale to leverage just-in-time data for improved operational efficiencies.
Gartner recognizes C3global as part of the industrial analytics transformation helping digital businesses (as noted in Gartner’s “Industrial Analytics Revolutionizes Big Data in the Digital Business” report [G00264728], published August 19, 2014). Among the many infrastructure owner-operators benefiting from Amulet operational analytics are water utilities, oil and gas, and power transmission grids. User organizations include Babcock, BP, Chevron, Danfoss, Emerson, MWH, National Grid, South Australian Water, and Total.
AssetWise Amulet can be readily configured to build sophisticated applications tailored to infrastructure operations needs without having to know a programming language. It bridges the gap between information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT), enabling advanced analytics to be an integral part of all aspects of the business process. Through AssetWise Amulet’s interactive and easily configurable operational dashboards, owner-operators are provided with the context they need to be confident in their decisions and are afforded an easy method of measuring and managing the outcomes.
AssetWise Amulet is designed to integrate and analyze “big data” generated by a wide range of external applications and systems – from SQL or Oracle databases to enterprise data warehouses, industrial data historians, and control systems, as well as maintenance and work order management systems. The data can be structured or unstructured and include systems data, photos, video, log books, Microsoft Excel files, event failures, scanned notes, witnessed events, and more.
Once data from the IT and OT systems has been captured and aggregated, the software applies the users’ business rules, models, and knowledge to provide an improved view and understanding of operational performance for decision support. In conjunction with AssetWise-certified integrations to SAP EAM, IBM Maximo, and Oracle eAM, AssetWise Amulet will help drive the right actions at the right time, reducing operational risks and improving operational efficiency.
Reality Modeling
Bentley Systems also announced that it has acquired France-based Acute3D, provider of Smart3DCapture software for reality modeling. Through reality modeling, observations of existing conditions are processed into representations for contextual alignment within design modeling and construction modeling environments. Rapid technology advancements in scanning and photography – and especially the burgeoning application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for these purposes – are making the capture of such observations broadly and continuously affordable in sustaining infrastructure.
Acute3D software automates the generation of high-resolution, fully-3D representations from digital photographs taken with any camera, whether highly specialized or embedded in a smartphone. Scalable from site to city, and with precision limited only by the quantity and quality of photography, Acute3D technology can assure that existing conditions are contemporaneously considered throughout the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations of any infrastructure asset. Now that photo sequences from UAVs are likely to become the most feasible source for surveying, construction monitoring, and inspection workflows, Acute3D’s industrial-level accuracy and unlimited scalability are making it a preferred technology for UAV manufacturers and professionals around the world.
Process Safety and Risk Management
AssetWise APM V7.3 the enhanced version of Bentley’s asset performance management (APM) offering – an all-in-one analysis and information management software platform for asset reliability and asset integrity – now also advances process safety.
Alan Kiraly, Bentley senior vice president, server products, said, “Our AssetWise APM V7.3 meets the demanding requirements of reliability, integrity, safety, and maintenance managers and engineers in industries ranging from oil and gas, petrochemical, and mining and metals to power generation and other utilities. The software ensures assets are safe and reliable and that they are inspected and maintained to reduce or eliminate risk. Users further benefit from the elimination of unexpected downtime, increased asset availability and utilization, reduced maintenance costs, and support for regulations and safety standards, including ISA 84, IEC 61511, IEC 61508, and IEC 61882.”
AssetWise APM V7.3’s new process safety features help users manage the integrity of safety systems and hazardous processes, thereby preventing failures and catastrophic incidents and keeping people, assets, and the environment safer. Capabilities include safety instrumented function (SIF) analysis, safety instrumented systems (SIS), safety integrity level (SIL) and safety provisions, overrides, and incidents. AssetWise APM V7.3 also provides version control and approval, the analysis of loss of containment scenarios, and the identification and assessment of risks at the system level, as well as for related assets (risk matrix).
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 13, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Automation, News, Operations Management
Asset performance management joined the Industrial Internet of Things as a key topic at the 2015 ARC Forum in Orlando. Here is a release from Meridium that reflects many of the trends—data collection, analysis, configurable display, mobility.
Meridium Inc., global supplier of asset performance management (APM) software and services, announced the availability of Asset Answers V2.0. The company claims this as the only cloud-based asset performance diagnostics solution that provides comparative analytics, delivering instant visibility into asset data, and supplying organizations with the insights to drive safer, more informed, and more profitable decisions.
Asset Answers 2.0 delivers next-generation APM insights into industrial assets and their health and overall performance, an improved user interface that includes dashboards and enhanced mobility on a variety of handheld devices that provides true anywhere/anytime availability. Since the introduction of Asset Answers to the market, more than 130 sites in the Petrochemicals, Oil & Gas, Power & Utilities, and Manufacturing industries rely on Asset Answers to support continuous improvement initiatives with the ultimate goal of achieving operational excellence.
For example, Dow Chemical was able to collect and analyze reliability audit report data for 25 production units across 4 plants in less than 1 day, saving 175 man-days of effort and remain focused on cost, availability, and reliability optimization for the company. Another Asset Answers client, Profertil, reduced costs for 30 straight months and was able to readily identify and highlight savings of $900,000 and counting.
According to Roy Whitt, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Asset Answers, “For organizations in asset-intensive industries, Asset Answers 2.0 uncovers the true cost, reliability and availability of asset groups and individual pieces of equipment with the click of a mouse. Subscribers can easily view performance criteria across sites and benchmark themselves anonymously against global industry peers. Combining data mining and preconfigured metrics, reliability engineers can investigate equipment data to identify assets that represent the best opportunities for improving maintenance costs and reliability. With access to the objective truth about asset performance, management can act with confidence to intelligently cut costs while increasing production, especially in times of shrinking margins.”
Asset Answers can identify and evaluate better performing equipment manufacturers and highlight predominant failure modes for specific equipment models. With this analysis, Asset Answers also can create opportunities for equipment improvements and automatically track the savings these improvements have provided.
Whitt also added that, “Asset Answers uses comparative analytics or ‘intelligent benchmarking’ that enables organizations to conduct ‘apples to apples’ comparisons of industrial equipment in production units across multiple plants within an organization. That same information helps organizations compare the relative performance of their assets against industry peers to gain a deeper understanding and a competitive advantage, optimize total cost of ownership (TCO) for critical assets and make better asset purchasing decisions.”
This approach both improves collaboration between Reliability, Engineering & Maintenance and also enables continuous and systematic improvement of operations and production output over time. Benefits of Asset Answers 2.0 include:
- A proven, systematic and secure approach to continuous improvement and Operational Excellence
- Improved plant and operator safety
- Mitigated operational and financial risk
- Improved insight into non-financial performance
- Lower asset total cost of ownership (TCO)
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 3, 2015 | Automation, Data Management, News, Operations Management, Technology
Here is a product release in the area of critical asset management. Prediction data is becoming more prevalent and critical in high performing production plants.
Emerson Process Management has expanded the protection of critical assets to include basic prediction capabilities with only minimal time and wiring investments. These basic prediction capabilities for the CSI 6500 protection system are available in the recently released version 5.61 of AMS Suite: Machinery Health Manager.
Using an Ethernet connection from the CSI 6500, users receive periodic parameter trends and spectrum/waveform data delivered on specific intervals. This data is particularly useful for determining the health of sleeve bearings on turbo machinery. This automated process for acquiring prediction data eliminates the need to connect to buffered outputs on the protection system and reduces the risk of inadvertently causing a machine trip.
In addition, waveform data from the CSI 6500 is now incorporated onto the circular polar plots available in AMS Machinery Manager v5.61, facilitating diagnosis of developing valve faults in reciprocating compressors.
“Expanding the capabilities in our technology is just one way Emerson offers additional value to our users,” said Nathan Pettus, vice president of Emerson’s Reliability Solutions business. “Emerson is committed to developing customer solutions that capture more of the right data, and delivering it in a way that allows users to make real-time, quality decisions on how to operate their assets.”
Emerson’s AMS Machinery Manager integrates data from route-based, online, and wireless vibration solutions as well as third-party oil and infrared analysis data to provide a complete picture of machinery health.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 13, 2015 | Automation, Education, Internet of Things, Leadership, News, Operations Management, Software, Technology
Let the debates begin! Jim Pinto has published his 2015 prognostications in the latest JimPintoBlog.
Check out his entire list and enter your thoughts on his blog. I’ll highlight some of his thoughts and add some of my own.
Automation Industry Trends
New inflection points will change the leadership lineup.
GM—I do not expect big changes in the automation leadership lineup. Mitsubishi, Rockwell Automation and Siemens are dominant in their home areas and fighting it out in China and India. Siemens has a bit of an edge having been international for a longer period of time. But as automation commoditizes, perhaps some new entrants will grab some share. If Bedrock Automation can market well, watch out for it. On the process side, Invensys is gone, absorbed by Schneider Electric. So the process automation business becomes even more of a minor part of the overall businesses, like ABB, Emerson Process Management, and Yokogawa. The only interesting situation in that market area is Honeywell Process Solutions. But I don’t really expect any change there.
I think 3D printing (additive manufacturing) is a game changer and one of the most important things from last week’s CES. It’s not strictly automation, though.
From Jim:
- Internet of Things (IoT): The Industrial Internet will transform the next decade. Intelligent sensors and networks will take measurement and control to the next level, dramatically improving productivity and efficiencies in production. Growth in 2015 will be bottom-up, not top-down.
- Smaller, Cheaper Sensors: Everyone is looking for or working on smaller, cheaper sensors for widespread use in IoT. Expect fast growth for sensors this year.
- Cloud Computing: Cloud computing technology reduces capital expenditures and IT labor costs by transferring responsibility to cloud computing providers, allowing secure and fast access for data-driven decisions. The significant gains in efficiency, cost and capability will generate continuing rapid growth in 2015.
- 3D Printing in Manufacturing: Today, do-it-yourself manufacturing is possible without tooling, large assembly lines or multiple supply chains. 3D printing is reshaping product development and manufacturing.
- Mobile Devices in Automation: The use of WiFi-connected tablets, smartphones and mobile devices is spreading quickly. Handheld devices reduce costs, improve operating efficiency, boost productivity and increases throughput. More and more employers are allowing BYOD (bring your own device).
- Robotics: Millions of small and medium-sized businesses that will benefit from cheaper robots that can economically produce a wide variety of products in small numbers. The next generation of robots will be cheaper and easier to set up, and will work with people rather than replace them.
- Control Systems Security: In spite of apprehensions over consumer security breach events, industrial cyber security has mostly been ignored due to lack of understanding of solution costs. Many companies struggle to justify what is seen as added cost to secure their operation. Major security breaches will change this attitude.
Business Technology Trends
Gartner’s top trends for 2015 (3) cover three themes: the merging of the real and virtual worlds, the advent of intelligence everywhere, and the technology impact of the digital business shift. There is a high potential for disruption to the business with the need for a major investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
Here are the top Gartner trends:
- Computing Everywhere: As mobile devices continue to proliferate, there will be increased emphasis on the needs of the mobile users. Increasingly, the overall environment will need to adapt to the requirements of the mobile user
- 3D Printing: Worldwide shipments of 3D printers are expected to grow 98 percent in 2015, followed by a doubling of unit shipments in 2016, reaching a tipping point over the next three years.
- Advanced, Pervasive and Invisible Analytics: The volume of data generated by embedded systems generates vast pools of structured and unstructured data inside and outside the enterprise. Organizations need to deliver exactly the right information to the right person, at the right time, so analytics will become deeply, but invisibly embedded everywhere.
- Smart Machines: Advanced algorithms will allow systems to understand their environment, learn for themselves, and act autonomously.
- Cloud Computing: The convergence of cloud and mobile computing will continue to promote the growth of centrally coordinated applications that can be delivered to any device. Applications will evolve to support simultaneous use of multiple devices.
- Risk-Based Security and Self-Protection: All roads to the digital future lead through security. Organizations will increasingly recognize that it is not possible to provide a 100 percent secured environment. They will apply more-sophisticated risk assessment and mitigation tools. Every app needs to be self-aware and self-protecting.
GM—My take is that the biggest thing in this area is analytics combined with improved visualizations and dashboards that take advantage of smartphones and tablets. Cloud is here. IoT is here. Security will forever be an important part of business.
2015 Consumer Electronics Show
- Wearable Devices: The time is right for wearable devices.
- Practical green tech.
- Sustainability and transportation: Tesla Model X all-electric SUV with the doors that open like a Delorean. Electric-assisted bike technology; electric scooter with swappable batteries and dashboard analytics.
- Kid-Tech: Apps to help teach children science, math, and tech. Fun little robots that teach kids computer programming concepts. Drawing, design, and color patterns to help kids learn about robotics and computer programming.
GM—as I’ve already written, autonomous vehicles could be a game changer and 3D printing was huge. The outlier is drones. Who knows where that might go?
Future Prognostications 2015-2025
Here are ten prognostications for the next decade, picked from the World Future Society (7) forecasts, plus other readings and discussions with Futurists.
- – Education: A major shift to on-line education and certification is already happening, and will continue steadily.
- – Jobs: Advances in artificial intelligence will eliminate human workers.
- – Robot Work Force
- – Middle Class Impasse: delaying retirement, income stagnating
- – Driverless cars
- – Speak to Computers.
- – Robotic Augmentation (exoskeletons)
- – Health & Well-being: sensors everywhere
- – Brain scanning will replace juries
- -Energy: Futurist Ray Kurzweil notes that solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years while costs have been dropping. He says solar energy is only six doublings (less than 14 years) away from meeting 100% percent of energy needs.
GM-There are going to be some disruptions and huge benefits from a number of these. Autonomous vehicles and health advances are fantastic. I wish education would change more quickly that it does. Even those who wish to disrupt education mainly only have the political agenda of “teachers’ unions” and driving down salaries. (Why is it a political agenda to drive down salaries. Shouldn’t we be trying to improve everyone’s lot in life?)
I’m not a fan of Kurzweil. 100% is not realistic—maybe residential, but not everything. Don’t think there’s enough volts there!
I think we are going to need those labor-saving, productivity-enhancing advancements because we’re actually facing a labor shortage in 10 years. Time to start thinking farther ahead.
Humans have a way of adapting to thrive. I am optimistic about the future!
Yes, Jim, I’m with you there!
Fluke invited a group of partners, customers, and bloggers to its Everett, WA corporate facility on May 6 in order to take a deep technology dive into where Fluke is and where it is going from a product/technology point of view. The tone of the gathering was one of conversation where Fluke presented ideas and asked for push back and ideas from us.
