Ask Our Experts: Enabling digital services for all equipment at production site

I understand the potential that visibility to the actual condition and status of singular equipment brings. Trouble is that we have a very long manufacturing history on our site and the equipment we use are from variety of different brands. I’ve understood that the benefits would be found best when all the equipment at the production site would be under digital services. What kind of solutions there are for this?

Tommi M, Finland

Thank you for your question, Tommi. If we think about the benefits that could be achieved when all equipment would enable digital services, three things come to mind;

1) Efficient and quick summary views – critical status and condition can be spotted, even when the amount of equipment would be large. Then corrective actions can be started as soon as possible. Traffic light principles are great here.

2) Comparison of the equipment with each other – usage, criticality and costs, for example, could be viewed in graphical form. That way actions can be directed where they are needed the most.

3) Manufacturing process planning becomes possible. If a site includes machine tools, fork lifts and other lifting equipment, the bottlenecks can be spotted by viewing the usage levels of all equipment. This way possible new investments are done based on actual usage data. We sure don’t want to make investments with our gut feeling, right?

As an answer to your original question, I suggest you approach the service providers in your area. There are players who can enable digital services for many different types of equipment from many different manufacturers.

Ilkka Blomqvist, Product Group Manager, Digital Services at Konecranes

 

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