Top 10 reasons to implement a remote monitoring system leveraging IIoT

Top 10 reasons to implement a remote monitoring system leveraging IIoT

Does your company struggle with maintaining SCADA systems, want more efficient services for your customers, or want to save money by having a company set-up a cloud-based remote monitoring solution?

What is a remote monitoring system?

Remote monitoring and controling system are designed to collect data about the operations of any given unit and transmit that data back via the cloud, enabling machine builders to provide peak level service response time.

You may benefit from leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). OEMs, end-users and systems integrators have already seen the benefits of implementing a remote monitoring system that lead to increased productivity, reduced production costs and enhanced user experience.

Benefits of implementing a remote monitoring system leveraging IIoT

Improve Productivity

Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE, is a productivity measurement that combines downtime, production rate and quality. Using OEE in IoT has long been the gold standard for increasing productivity, but the Industrial Internet of Things has made OEE much more affordable and easier to implement than ever before. It is likely that productivity improvements can be seen from 15% to 50%.

Information at Your Fingertips

Line operators, maintenance crews and production supervisors all have a significant impact on the productivity of the manufacturing lines. Without information readily available, it is more difficult to address the highest priority production issues within a timely manner.

Reduce Operating Costs

Most machines and processes have raw material that needs to be reordered.  If the equipment runs out of raw material it is no longer producing revenue. Automatic reordering helps assure that the consumable products will be available without excessive onsite inventory costs or last minute expedited fees.

Data Reliability

It’s not uncommon to see people using clipboards to copy data from gauges, operator interface screens or field sensors. Automated data collection is more efficient, more reliable and more consistent than manual data collection. The IIoT can provide seamless data flow starting at the device level and pushing the data directly to mobile devices, enterprise level software or other reporting systems.

Improve Quality & Streamline Processes

Raw materials, operator actions and environmental factors can all affect the quality of a customer order. Recording and analyzing this information gives insights into quality and productivity improvements and can allow you to isolate a quality problem to specific customer orders for targeted recalls.

Reduce Downtime

Email and text alerts can provide immediate downtime alerts allowing you to address the issue as quickly as possible.  Root cause analysis allows you to diagnose the specific cause of a downtime event, and downtime analytics allow you to evaluate the true cost of each type of failure.  A remote monitoring solution is an easy and cost effective way to incorporate all of these techniques to increase the reliability of your equipment.

Attract New Talent

Millennials currently make up about a third of the workforce.  That number is projected to rise to 46% by 2020, and will undoubtedly keep rising from there.  Most millennials are accustomed to literally having information at their fingertips, and will be reluctant to use equipment that cannot provide this. Whether you are trying to attract and retain employees, or make your products more valuable to customers, ignoring the needs of millennials will eventually prove fatal to your company.

Hands-Off Approach to Software Updates

When plant floor data collection and reporting software is installed and managed by in your plant, the user is responsible for installing updates, troubleshooting errors, managing the database, and dealing with software license issues. Cloud hosted solutions, whether remote or on premise, are managed and maintained by the software provider.

More about: Cloud Based Alternative to SCADA

Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance techniques can be used to monitor and analyze vibration, motor current, or temperature patterns and identify potential problems before they cause a shutdown. This can also reduce maintenance costs because maintenance can be performed when it is actually needed rather than simply scheduled.

Intuitive Dashboards

Your car’s dashboard can tell you the remaining oil life, miles to empty, tire pressure, and more. Manufacturing lines need much more maintenance than a car, but required maintenance is usually not available from the industrial equipment. EdgeScout enables you to be more intelligent about your equipment – making the maintenance required a more streamlined process. User friendly dashboards on mobile friendly apps also provide quick and easy access for your customers or end users.

 

The article was written by Tom Craven, the Vice President of Product Strategy at RRAMAC Connected Systems, a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) company that provides remote monitoring, analytics, and mobile apps for industrial equipment. Read the full article here.