Summer shutdowns are a well-known phenomenon in large industrial production sites. During the months of July and August many plants stop manufacturing operations for 2 to 4 weeks and put full focus on maintenance and revamping. Existing equipment receives a lot of attention, critical components are replaced where necessary and, when relevant, new pieces of machinery are installed. The goal: ensure that in the following months production keeps on running flawlessly and efficiently.
Also for us at Zensor these are super busy times as, in a number of cases, these are the only moments where we can get our solutions implemented at the site, as people and equipment are available. This creates some additional pressure on us with regards to planning, but also has some advantages:
- As this period means that very often the installations are not running, it allows for a faster installation or deployment, interfering less with production (in the end: our goal is to maximize production, not to hinder it)
- After this recess the machines at the plant have received proper care and are most often in top condition. As a subset of our algorithms uses data coming from the specific individual asset to learn further about what is good or bad, the moment of restart is an ideal point to commence this learning process.
- In some cases unfortunately the maintenance run wasn’t concluded as expected. Some bolts might not have been tightened sufficiently, or a piece of tooling was left behind in the installation. After restarting the anomalies created by such issues are soon noticeable in the data and often we can help avoiding serious follow-up damage.undefined
… and after this intense period for the operations crew, the same starts for our analysis specialists. As the mills and plants restart, some of the algorithms will have to be parametrized again to be in line with the new conditions, as these may have changed in some cases.
So: while you’re enjoying a good read on the beach or a relaxing hike in the mountains, quite a few people are busy, proudly preparing our critical manufacturing industry for yet another year of efficient production.