The Rexroth company began in Germany in 1795 with a hammer mill, so you might say that they’re just going back to their roots with ODiN, the Online Diagnostics Network.
Odin, in Germanic mythology, was the father of Thor, whose hammer is well known from movies, even to those of us who didn’t put in much time studying mythology in school. Odin turns up in the saga of Siegfried, too, on therefore in Wagnerian opera and in epic video games.
As ODiN, the system takes advantage of the Internet of Things to monitor machinery for impending breakdowns — and the impending part is important, because this allows the systems to be corrected before the breakdown, which is the best possible time.
Rexroth compares ODiN to Amazon. If you’re an Amazon customer, you know that the retail giant pays attention to your purchasing and browsing behavior, and offers you things you might like on that basis. If you bought a patio chair, you might also want a cushion, a patio table, and a grill. You might not realize that it also compares your behavior with other patterns it has captured, and uses that data as well. If someone else bought that patio chair and followed it up with a lawn mower and a rake, you’ll be seeing gardening gear in your recommendations.
ODiN uses the same kind of self-learning algorithm to identify and respond to changes in your factory. Worn parts are replaced, but not entire units when there’s just one worn part. Compared with scheduled replacement of parts based on the passage of time, this can mean a huge cost savings.
Rexroth recommends this approach for industries that can’t tolerate downtime, such as sugar refining or mining. And it’s not yet available for electric motion control systems.
For those using Rexroth electric motion control, there are two takeaways. First, Rexroth continues to be among the most forward-thinking companies, even as it continues to support its legacy products. Second, it makes more sense to check your components for ongoing support than to replace them just because of what it says on the calendar. Call us for a check up.