The industry is constantly evolving, and to follow this lead, WEG provides the market with digital solutions focused on the digitization of manufacturing plants, generating useful data and information about the production process and its respective assets. Thus, enables the adoption of predictive maintenance practices.

Concerned with the efficient management of its equipment, a world leader in chemical specialties, with a long tradition of technological innovation, carried out research on the solutions available on the market for monitoring vibration. During the evaluation of the options, aspects related to the hardware (sensors and gateway), the software, the solution's capacity for data analysis, and maintenance management were observed.

This project emerged within the company with the aim of initially monitoring the vibration of critical equipment that was difficult to access or with operational specificities (load/speed variation) and required continuous monitoring, such as: screw compressor (motor and compressor) and homogenizer (motor and gearbox). At the end of the evaluation process, the WEG Motion Fleet Management and WEG Motor Scan digital solutions were chosen and applied at the customer’s plant, in Curitiba, Brazil, in various equipment and assets. 

Ventilador (blower) e bomba com sensor IoT WEG Motor Scan para monitoramento

Fan (blower) and pump with IoT sensor WEG Motor Scan for monitoring

Currently, the customer's quality control team, based in Curitiba, has a dedicated screen in its office to do the monitoring of the assets of the three plants, two in Brazil and one in Uruguay.

Sala da equipe de confiabilidade com acompanhamento online de duas plantas no Brasil e uma planta no Uruguai

 Quality Control room with online monitoring of two plants in Brazil and one in Uruguay

After observing operational gains with the online monitoring of the first assets, the customer's quality control and maintenance team proceeded with the project, expanding the monitoring in the plant in Curitiba (Brazil), in the boiler’s sector, and also taking the technology to the resins factory located in Uruguay.

A relevant point observed during the adoption of the solution is ease of installation and low implementation cost, as it adopts battery-powered wireless sensors, eliminating the need for cables between devices. The solution is ready to use by registering on the platform and configuring the sensors and gateway to obtain the first monitoring information in the palm of your hand. In one of the cases, a thermal abnormality was detected and after the corrective action, the cabin ventilation and the thermal operating pattern of the equipment was normalized. 

Visualização da temperatura do motor com gráfico maoa de calor (heatmap) e detecção de anormalidade térmica na cabine do equipamento

Motor temperature visualization with heat map chart and thermal abnormality detection in the equipment cabin

Before adopting the WEG Motion Fleet Management solution, the customer only had measurements offline, that is, through periodic measurements or as needed via portable equipment, for vibration analysis. Such measurement is random and limits the trend and evolution assessments of the monitored quantities, something essential for the quality control team. With WEG online monitoring, both trend and spectrum analysis are possible in a single solution.

In another case, it was possible to identify the change in the pump operation pattern through vibration measurement (global value and multiples of the fundamental) and thus confirm that such behavior was related to the production process, which requires a different operation adjustment for pumps.

Visualização da vibração global e múltiplos para determina a mudança do padrão operacional do motor e bomba

Global and multiple vibration visualization to determine the changing operating pattern of the motor and pump

Below you can see one of the vibration’s analyzes performed by the quality control team. In this MFM software environment, it is possible to perform the analysis of multiple vibration spectrums, which in this case was a compressor.

Ambiente no software MFM utilizado para análise de vibração com múltiplos espectros

Environment in MFM software used for multi-spectrum vibration analysis

“Based on the digital monitoring system, the company was able to detect some specific and random conditions that it was not aware of until then, we were able to follow the evolution and then generate an adequate reasoning to plan the predictive maintenance,” explains Odair Silva, responsible for the quality control team.

Some of the advantages observed by the customer after the implementation of the WEG Motion Fleet Management digital solution:

• Possibility of remotely monitoring multiple plants or units, including in other countries, with a geolocation tool, greatly facilitating the correct identification of monitored assets;

• Implementation of predictive maintenance routines based on the asset's operational behavior and additional analysis by the quality control team;

• Transfer of the quality control and maintenance teams when it is really necessary, based on the condition of a certain asset;

• Increase in the availability of equipment critical to the process;

• Possibility of implementation in stages and in a highly scalable way;

• Constant and consistent support from the supplier's technical support during the implementation process, both in Brazil with technical support from WEG Digital team and in Uruguay through the local distributor, FIVISA.

This and other supplies show WEG Digital Solutions' focus on helping its customers in the search for industrial and business operational excellence, globally and with state-of-the-art technology.