Written by John Evans, Technical Writer & Moderator for Webcast Experts℠, a division of Krishnan & Associates
Probably many of you do not remember the 1960’s Addams Family series where Gomez Addams and his wife Morticia ghouled around their creepy mansion. Maybe you do remember the show’s resurrection on Broadway where Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia charmed the audience. The background character “Thing” was a fully functional finger who could fetch the family’s mail, hand out and light cigars for Gomez, and hold wool for Morticia while she knitted.
Ah, but could “Thing” multitask? He (or it) certainly predated the Industrial Internet of “Things” (IIoT) which provides a means of consistently capturing, communicating, and recording real-time and historic data from networks of physical objects such as process equipment and vehicles with embedded sensors, software, and network connectivity. IIoT components can collect and exchange data and allow plants to detect equipment problems and process inefficiencies sooner, resulting in efficiency improvements and reductions in costs.
The ever-changing competitive environment in today’s power generation market is forcing owners and operators to maintain their assets in satisfactory operating condition. Traditional monitoring of selected equipment or processes is labor intensive with parameters being monitored one at a time, recording their conditions, and analyzing trends. In addition to consuming valuable man-hours and creating potential dangerous situations, traditional monitoring results can be inaccurate thus increasing downtime and maintenance costs.
Condition monitoring a power plant’s assets for temperature, pressure and humidity – specifically on off-turbine applications – is made possible using smart sensors coupled with mobile software packages. SensoNODE™ Blue smart sensors coupled and SCOUT™ Mobile software, provided by Parker Hannifin are used to enable predictive maintenance solutions rooted in the IIoT.
Our Addams Family’s “Thing” must have had Smart sensors and integrated software to do all of his tasks –OR DID HE?
SNAP SNAP