How Cognite Data Fusion reduces unplanned failures and maintenance costs for manufacturers

IN SHORT

Yokogawa used DataOps provided by Cognite, including Cognite Data Fusion (CDF), to develop solutions that enable workers to conduct maintenance on equipment based on its actual condition. Equipped with easy access to live data in the cloud, workers can quickly view alarms and use interactive engineering diagrams.

CHALLENGE
Yokogawa's data was trapped in complex, siloed systems. 

Many manufacturing companies run their maintenance operations on a schedule, tasking workers to conduct routine inspections of equipment at set intervals. In addition to scheduled maintenance, workers also conduct reactive maintenance, such as when a sensor alerts them to a potential issue involving equipment. This approach to maintenance means that workers may spend several hours of their day inspecting equipment that is in good working condition -- hours that could instead be spent performing other tasks that generate value for the company: Savings form optimizing maintenance routines, instant access to data on equipment conditions, and signals sending alerts to CDF, notifying users of issues for action. 

SOLUTION 

Data liberation and contextualization helps manufacturing realize the value in Smart Maintenance.

Yokogawa and Cognite used the liberated, contextualized industrial data stored in Cognite Data Fusion (CDF) to build maintenance solutions in Asset Data Insight, Cognite’s flagship application for smart maintenance. One such solution is an alarm overview that reduces unnecessary inspection of equipment. The overview shows a bird’s-eye view of the manufacturing plant and live sensor data from the pumps on-site. If a pump’s vibration exceeds a predetermined threshold, one of Yokogawa’s systems will send a signal to CDF, which will visualize it as an alert.

When a user clicks an overlaid label associated with a pump on the infographic, the user is taken to an asset explorer page. The user can then view asset metadata, search and filter time series, events, and documents such as the instruction manual. This enables workers responsible for the plant operation to diagnose the issue and decide whether it needs to be corrected immediately. Another solution combines the process diagram of the plant’s energy center with live sensor data. By clicking on the individual components that together form the energy center, workers can easily view all the information about the equipment available in Yokogawa’s maintenance system. The information can also be displayed in convenient charts that reveal how different factors may be connected, for example pump flow rate, temperature, and vibration.

IMPACT

Instant access to data allows companies to conduct maintenance on equipment based on its actual condition, as opposed to running its maintenance program on a set schedule.