Predictive Maintenance of a Boiler (Hololens Experience)

Many industrial manufacturers struggle to increase the uptime of their production lines, and maximize the productivity of their plant operations while ensuring operating costs and customer satisfaction levels are maintained. Predictive Maintenance solves these challenges by leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Combined, these technologies are beginning to transform the aftermarket service sector. So what exactly should a predictive maintenance solution do, well firstly one needs to be able to sense what is going on in the piece of equipment, so hundreds of sensors would monitor temperature, humidity and stress levels etc while the equipment is in operation. Next, the sensor information is sent to an IoT platform where the sensor information is aggregated and then analyzed to monitor what is happening on the equipment. Based on real time sensor information, historical sensor information and other factors, the third step would involve or recommend some form of action to take place. For example, the AI platform could make a recommendation to repair or replace the part that is about to fail.

In essence, sensors detect a problem on the machine for example a motor or a boiler, AI platform analyzed a series of different pieces of information to then recommend a course of action. The final stage is to then access a digital twin of the machine and instigate the recommendation made by the AI platform, for example to replace one of the motor parts as soon as possible. The digital twin of the machine or rather digital representation of every part and sub-system is stored in a central content repository, meanwhile a network of sensors on the machine provide further information on the digital representation of the machine by monitoring the physical components, movement and condition of all key parts and sub-systems on the machine. This combination of sensor information from the machine and digital information held in the central content repository provides the information that a maintenance team needs to ensure the maximum uptime for the machine and hence the improved productivity of the factory. Finally, thanks to the Virtual/Augmented Reality powered glasses the maintenance engineer is able to perform all the maintenance work in a complete hands-free and paper-less manner. The video below shows this in action.

By providing instant access to a central content repository containing the digital twin of the machine, the downtime for the machine is minimized and hence the machine is put back into service in a fraction of the time that a normal maintenance procedure would take. This results in maximizing the productivity of the machine and more importantly ensuring that operational costs and of course customer satisfaction levels are maintained.

Watch Demo Video