At Rockwell Automation, we are seeing two major innovations and trends relative to control and predictive maintenance:

• Integrating condition monitoring technology into the control system architecture


• Support services that enable a maximum ROI for predictive maintenance investment.

Both of these innovations/trends support a larger trend in the industry of viewing maintenance activities as a competitive advantage -- strategic maintenance.

Strategic maintenance -- Built upon the lean principles of targeted cost reduction and cost prevention, an effective strategic maintenance program utilizing predictive, preventive, and reactive maintenance activities is an investment in the factory of today and tomorrow. Strategic maintenance seeks to maximize asset performance by applying the right activities at the right stage in the asset lifecycle.

In order to implement a strategic maintenance philosophy, organizations must recognize that equipment maintenance is quickly evolving beyond simple routine, preventive activities into a proactive strategy of asset optimization. This means knowing and achieving the full potential of plant floor equipment and performing maintenance only when it is warranted and at a time that minimizes the impact on the overall operation. To achieve this "maintenance nirvana," companies need to be able to gather and distribute data across the enterprise in real-time from all process systems, including maintenance.

Integrating condition-monitoring into the control system (online distributed protection and monitoring)

Until recently, the majority of condition monitoring was performed on a walk-around or ad hoc basis. In the past, companies couldn't justify the cost or lacked the sophisticated technology needed to efficiently gather critical machine operating data. Typically, this high level of protection was reserved for a privileged few -- those machines deemed most critical to production. The protection systems that companies did leverage were centrally located in a control room and operated independently from the control system. This required extensive wiring to these machines and used up valuable plant floor real estate. Additionally, many of the systems were proprietary, so they did not easily integrate with existing operator interfaces or factory networks. Not only was this approach costly to implement and difficult to troubleshoot, but it also gave plant managers a limited view of overall equipment availability and performance.

Fueled by market demand, technological advancements have led to a new approach to condition monitoring -- online distributed protection and monitoring. Building on the principles of distributed I/O and integrated control, distributed protection and monitoring systems replace large, centralized control panels with smaller control systems and puts them closer to the process and machinery being monitored.

In recent years, advances in technology and a staggering array of new tools are helping to dramatically improve maintenance functions and optimize performance. While maintenance success is relying on ever-more-powerful data collection and process tools, spectacular gains in maintenance efficiency and dollar savings have resulted from integrating modern condition-based monitoring systems into existing manufacturing processes. Even more important, an emphasis on a distributed approach is not only delivering real-time diagnostic data from the field, but is enabling companies to achieve major savings in wiring, material, and labor costs.

By using a facility's existing networking infrastructure, online distributed protection and monitoring requires significantly less wiring than traditional rack-based protection systems. Inherent in online distributed protection and monitoring systems is the scalability of the architecture. By using more modular components, manufacturers are able to connect more than one device to a wire and add machinery into the system as needed.

Open communication is also key to maximizing asset management technology. While condition monitoring equipment suppliers are now providing products that communicate using open communication protocols, this has not historically been the case for condition monitoring and asset management solutions. The development of industry standards by groups like OPC (OLE for process control) and MIMOSA (Machinery Information Management Open Systems Alliance) is giving MRO applications open access to condition monitoring, diagnostic, and asset management information from intelligent instruments and control systems.

Today, new distributed monitoring and protection systems, such as the XM Series™ from Rockwell Automation, can be placed alongside machinery and sensors, cutting down on the need for wiring dedicated exclusively to condition monitoring. Tools like the XM Series condition-monitoring module integrate machine monitoring and protection by leveraging an organization's existing industrial communication network. The XM Series provides continuous monitoring and protection of critical plant floor machinery and equipment, allowing maintenance personnel to identify developing equipment faults and take corrective action before production is impacted and improve the efficiency of maintenance practices. These modular systems help streamline system design, and the ability to interface to digital communication networks allows users to economically take measurements at multiple points, which reduces wiring and installation costs and accelerates information transmission.

For example, by using an integrated environment that combines vibration, temperature, and oil analyses, users get a single view of the maintenance status of a plant's machinery. And, by using one common platform to combine and compare various data sources, a cross-technology scoring can be achieved. This yields a prioritized ranking so that facility managers can schedule plantwide repairs in order of urgency.

Additionally, the new networking technologies are offering more power and transparency and are breaking down the barriers of integration and distributed computing. For example, by using online diagnostic software, such as Rockwell Automation Emonitor® software, managers can review the status of wired machinery simply by logging onto their network to view real-time data or obtain a complete analysis. Though most managers still get written reports, they now have the ability to send data over the Internet, as well as through electronic wireless connections like digital cell phones and pagers.

With these advancements, the elements are in place to enable greater access to machine data, resulting in more informed, more accurate decision making. As manufacturers look to more closely integrate real-time maintenance of all of their plant assets, these open networks and software will play an ever-increasing role in connecting the disparate pieces of equipment found throughout a plant.

For a more detailed data analysis, online distributed protection and monitoring systems can transfer data to internal or third party condition monitoring specialists via Ethernet or a company's wide area network (WAN). For companies with limited capital and human resources, outsourcing this task offers a cost-effective option. In addition, this type of remote monitoring transitions on-site maintenance engineers from a reactive to a preventive mode -- freeing them to focus their attention on optimizing the manufacturing process rather than troubleshooting problems.

Support Services

In addition to technology -- leveraging a customer's existing control and network infrastructure to facilitate the gathering of condition monitoring information for predictive maintenance activities -- Rockwell Automation sees a growing trend that focuses on how support services enable a maximum ROI for investment in controls for predictive maintenance. As organizations adapt to increased globalization, greater competition, price pressures, and erosion of margins, they are embracing collaboration strategies that not only reduce costs across the board but also increase operational efficiency. By engaging in collaborative partnerships with service providers to support non-core functions, manufacturers can more effectively utilize their production assets and are better positioned to adapt quickly to changing business environments.

Rockwell Automation's philosophy entails a blend of technology and services that span customers' equipment, people, and processes with a slant toward equipment. Key examples of blending knowledge and technology include:

• Integrated Condition Monitoring (Reliability On-Line)


• Continuous Process Monitoring (In.Site)


• Network Services.

The starting point is to apply control technologies that are designed with maintenance in mind, which can then be leveraged by on-site or off-site maintenance professionals to stop downtime events from having a detrimental effect and keep equipment running to specifications. With the right technologies in place, a little predictive maintenance knowhow goes a long way. Maintenance data, auto-diagnosis, and distributed control only become predictive if you know what to do with them as downtime indicators are discovered.

Rockwell Automation's Integrated Condition Monitoring professionals can help apply Integrated Architecture to ensure the right elements of a production line are being monitored to provide pre-downtime data. Well-suited for facilities with limited capital and human resources for maintaining effective on-site condition monitoring, Reliability Online™ allows companies to outsource the analysis of machine condition data -- via the Internet. Reliability Online provides maintenance employees with access to critical machine condition data, along with expert analysis, without adding to the organization's infrastructure. A Reliability Online service agreement then monitors that data to indicate critical trends to equipment and prioritize maintenance schedules to address them.

For those companies needing more comprehensive support, In.Site Continuous Support uses a high-speed broadband connection to the plant floor to provide companies with around-the-clock troubleshooting support and comprehensive analysis of real-time production data for the entire process line. This off-site support service allows Rockwell Automation engineers to proactively identify potential problems, suggest corrective action, and respond immediately. This service is designed to fully leverage a customer's control architecture through real-time monitoring of control systems, allowing companies to leverage data.

As networks are becoming more embedded in the operation of production lines, the data needs, bandwidth, and health of the network are often overlooked, particularly when it comes to predicting maintenance issues. Nearly a third of all factory floor networks tested illustrate marginal or intermittent media issues due to installation errors alone. Rockwell Automation's Industrial Network Services provide a comprehensive suite of services that can optimize the performance of plant-floor networks and make them more reliable, scalable, and secure. Highly trained and experienced network consultants and engineers provide services in consulting, design, installation, certification, maintenance, troubleshooting, and training in order to keep networks up and data moving. Involving support services during the design and installation of a network system not only prevents many of these issues from occurring at all, but also provides a baseline from which periodic checks can actually predict when new problems may arise.