Oil and gas, energy, manufacturing, and aerospace industries benefit from digital technologies in terms of scalability, quality, effectiveness, and cost efficiency.
FREMONT, CA: As informational technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) converge, they can completely change industrial processes and transform industrial organizations into digital enterprises. The development of technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and the industrial internet-of-things (IIoT) is making it easier for large industries such as oil and gas, energy, manufacturing, and aerospace to increase the scalability, quality, effectiveness, and cost-efficiency of their processes.
Many significant trends are emerging in industrial maintenance, resulting in a new paradigm for maintenance and new business models.
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Additive manufacturing in maintenance: During the past few years, 3D printers have become increasingly popular for producing parts for various applications. Industrial and consumer settings have embraced additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing. According to a study conducted by PwC, almost 66 percent of industrial manufacturing processes are either utilizing or considering additive manufacturing. You can provide obvious advantages by using 3D printing to manufacture spare parts for industrial equipment maintenance. In such cases, additive manufacturing can produce a part promptly, allowing maintenance times to be expedited as well as inventory costs to be reduced. Numerous instances exist where an equipment malfunction occurs unless a component is replaced.
Internet of Things, Wireless Sensor Networks, and Automated Data Collection: Assets and equipment data must be collected reliably to gain insight into maintenance. Multiple sources, including vibration detectors and acoustic and thermal imaging sensors, collect most of the maintenance data. It is possible to analyze this data in the future using sophisticated algorithms and expert systems.
This data collection process has been radically changing due to the advent of wireless sensor networks and the IoT, enabling trained personnel to access equipment. However, it was a manual process only a few years ago. As a result of the development of low-cost, multi-purpose sensors and sensor networks that are available to us, industrial equipment can now connect to these sensors in various ways. It is common for modern plants to employ hundreds of sensors to collect maintenance data. Moreover, the IoT allows for the formation of smart networks for these sensors, including networks of wireless sensors, allowing for a more automated way of collecting sensor data.
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