Machine Condition Monitoring for A Caribbean Resort
2019-05-20
Challenge
A Caribbean resort has numerous buildings spread out across a scenic campus. One of the company’s most important concerns is reliable air conditioning, as guests will be very upset if they are uncomfortable. Downtime is not an option. But if air conditioning equipment fails completely – a compressor, for example — the replacement has to be shipped in from another country at an inflated price. The resort realized that closely monitoring their equipment would enable preventative maintenance, and greatly extend the useful life of their air conditioning systems. But how do you monitor things like pumps and compressors when they have no network interfaces and they are scattered across a very wide area?
Solution
There are simple, measurable parameters that can be used to predict when a machine will need maintenance. Comparing things like temperature, vibration, and current use to historical readings will raise a red flag if the newer numbers exceed acceptable parameters. So a local system integrator installed the Wzzard Intelligent Sensing Platform from B+B SmartWorx. The Wzzard platform creates a complete connectivity stack between sensors at the network edge and applications at the network core or in the cloud. It uses two pieces of IoT technology to do so; wireless Wzzard Intelligent Edge Nodes and the network Gateway.
The Wzzard Intelligent Edge Nodes connect to new or pre-existing industry standard sensors, read their data and wirelessly transmit it to the Spectre Network Gateway. Every node has routing capabilities, so they are able to form extremely reliable, highly scalable, self-sustaining wireless mesh networks. Individual nodes need not be within wireless range of the gateway, as they can route the data across fellow nodes until it reaches its destination. The Spectre Network Gateway then provides secure network connectivity via either wired Ethernet or cellular data connections, with automatic failover.
Attaching industry standard sensors to the air conditioning equipment, and attaching those sensors to Wzzard nodes turned each piece of equipment into a node on a modern network.
The Product
The Wzzard Intelligent Sensing Platform
- Wzzard wireless mesh networks cover distances where a wired sensor network would be cost prohibitive.
- Wzzard is an easy retrofit – it works with existing, industry standard sensors
- The monitored machines need no data ports – Wzzard collects the relevant information from external sensors
Benefits Enabled by the Wzzard Platform
- Real-time access to data through a remote dashboard
- Data analytics not only detects failures, it predicts failures.
- Alert levels set to provide real-time text message or email notification of thresholds exceeded
- Diminished downtime and related costs.
- Machine condition data is made available wherever it is useful.
- Automatic alerts on your computer, tablet or smart phone
