Increasingly, factories rely on remote monitoring of machinery performance to make sure that everything is working well.
Increasing automation makes sense; the more processes can be automated, the more cost-effective they’ll be. In many plants, the increase in automation has led to reduced manpower, and there just aren’t enough man hours to cover direct monitoring throughout the facility.
However, remote monitoring devices may be missing some of the problems. Rexroth recently reported that 70-80% of hydraulic failures are caused by oil contamination, which isn’t caught by remote monitoring systems. The solution is to monitor the oil.
In this case, Rexroth was able to identify the underlying problem and come up with a solution that extends remote monitoring and keeps it practical. If remote monitoring doesn’t seem to be cutting it in your facility, it makes sense to explore the process and identify any points of failure that could be monitored more effectively.
We don’t work with hydraulics, just with electric drives and controls and servo motors, but the point is still a good one for our clients. Often the drives and controls are hooked up to remote monitoring systems that alert the engineers to any issues.
That’s great when they catch the issues. It’s certainly better than waiting for the machines to quit.
Unfortunately, it can sometimes still happen that the machine quits in spite of the monitoring. When that happens, if you’re running Indramat or Indradrive, you should call us. We can often provide support over the phone. If not, we can take care of factory repairs. If you don’t have time to wait for factory repairs, we can fly out a replacement unit immediately.