INTRODUCTION
Sulzer – A global leader in fluid engineering
Sulzer is a global leader in fluid engineering and the world’s largest developer of pumping, agitation, mixing, separation, and application technologies. Sulzer operates via its network of 50 manufacturing facilities and 100 service centers across the globe.
Sulzer Sense – Wireless condition monitoring solution
In 2019, Sulzer introduced the wireless IoT condition monitoring solution, Sulzer Sense, which was developed in cooperation with Treon. Sulzer Sense increases Sulzer’s customers’ productivity and efficiency by allowing them to take care of their process equipment in an easy, safe, and convenient way.
THE CHALLENGE
Condition monitoring – A new way of doing things
If an organization has been operating with breakdown maintenance or regular planned maintenance, a changeover to condition monitoring can improve the plant availability and reduce costs significantly. Machine vibration and surface temperature are typical examples of condition data that can be collected from rotating equipment, including AC induction motors, pumps, compressors, conveyors, blowers, fans, and more. Changes in temperature or vibration patterns can indicate arising faults, or a need for maintenance.
Wireless sensors- The key to scalability
Only critical equipment is usually monitored with wired sensors. The high cost of installation and maintenance presents the biggest scalability challenges. That’s why the rest of the plant equipment – motors, pumps, fans, or gears may not be monitored effectively. This gives rise to the need for wireless sensors for condition monitoring. A wireless battery-operated sensor is easy and much more cost-efficient to deploy than a wired one. It can be up to 4x less expensive per measurement point and even 15x faster to deploy than a wired sensor.
THE SOLUTION
The wireless IoT sensor, co-developed with Treon
The wireless IoT sensor, co-developed with Treon, is the key component of Sulzer Sense. The sensor devices are attached to the pump, agitator, motor, and other rotating equipment to measure temperature and vibration. They send the data to the cloud to detect possible imbalance, misalignment, looseness, and bearing wear, and thus enable predictive maintenance. The sensors are provided with interference-tolerant wireless mesh connectivity to transmit data to the cloud via a gateway. The fully wireless design means that the devices are easy and cost-efficient to deploy and operate. No separate wireless network infrastructure is required. The scalability of mesh-network combined with easy deployment and the low total cost is the perfect combination that enables monitoring every machine in the factory.
THE RESULTS
Predict potential faults early to avoid downtime
Sulzer’s customers can now identify changes in equipment condition parameters and predict potential faults in due time to avoid downtime. Sulzer Sense is a result of a fruitful development cooperation project where Treon brought its expertise in developing industry-grade, wireless IoT products. Additionally, Treon’s customizable IoT gateway platform enabled the companies to build a robust end-to-end solution quickly.
