How switching to predictive maintenance can boost production – even for legacy assets

Sector: Industry and Infrastructure

Challenge: Asset Management

For plants with a complex infrastructure of assets built up over time, identifying issues before they threaten production and incur downtime could save huge amounts of time and money.

Some 70% of companies lack awareness of when assets are due for maintenance or upgrade – and, according to corporations like Emerson Electric, almost two-thirds of scheduled maintenance is unnecessary.

Assets that are not performing at their best efficiency point consume more energy, require more maintenance, and are less efficient – resulting in more costly downtime. But a condition-based maintenance approach can improve asset reliability, prevent risks and failures and optimize the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) by extending the overall asset lifetime.  

Using insights to understand reliability of assets

There are different types of smart solutions within industry, everything from digital twins to simulate and optimise processes to decentralised and autonomous assets to full plant automation.

A digital performance management system is central to the operation of an effective optimisation programme. This involves using insights from descriptive analytics and data visualisations to build a real-time view of asset health and reliability.

Digital performance management automates the generation and presentation of the key metrics and qualitative information that companies use in their reliability programmes. This kind of automation is a powerful improvement lever, freeing maintenance staff from the time-consuming and error-prone process of data collection and analysis.

And it supports rapid trend identification, fact-based decision-making, and timely intervention, as well as changes in equipment investment, processes, and policies.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. By identifying the desired outcomes that drive value, rather than digitalisation for its own sake, we can achieve tangible benefits and determine exactly how to implement smart solutions that add real value.

Working with knowledge and insights across the whole water cycle can help to navigate the huge range of options. It is here that knowledge as a service can be a major asset to industrial partners, connecting specialist water focussed understanding of technology with business insight and decision intelligence to tailor a solution to achieve your unique business outcomes.

What is Smart Asset Management?

One example is Xylem’s Smart Asset Management Performance & Reliability Optimisation (SAM PRO) framework that connects to any electrical driven asset to provide real-time data and enable plant operators and asset management maintenance teams to optimise their assets and systems and deliver resilience and agility.

SAM PRO works across the whole water cycle within industry – water intake; process; wastewater and smart water management. Applications include high-value boosters and aeration air blowers, complex assets like ground water submersible pumps, or critical surface cleaning pumps.

It is an entirely unique system that provides a comprehensive solution to optimise the technical operation, energy consumption and maintenance efficiency of industrial machines driven by electric motors. It can be retrofitted to any asset that has a motor of any size, and it integrates directly with your existing SCADA system to create a real-time digital twin to simulate and optimise complex processes.

Leveraging the existing infrastructure

We know that no two industrial water handling situations are the same: many factories are designed around complex asset sets which need to be managed at an enterprise-wide level. And that’s why digital transformation can offer unique opportunities in meeting new and fast changing demands in this complex environment.

Digital performance management and predictive maintenance mean the industry’s priorities for action regarding risk, condition and maintenance are simplified as prescriptive insights can illustrate the specific type of potential damage or failure.

This smart approach and capabilities can be expanded or integrated into other unit processes or parts of plant, leveraging the existing infrastructure and offering more reliable processes, efficiency through optimisation, quality by meeting regulatory requirements, and increased productivity through automation.

Together with our customers we start at the desired outcomes that drive value, instead of connecting digital sources for the sake of digitalisation. Let our insights, led by our experienced and knowledgeable teams, become your best asset.