Advanced Monitoring Software Boosts Predictive Maintenance, Enables Remote Troubleshooting

With Olis Robotics’ new app, operators of packaging cells can now easily and safely connect a mobile phone or tablet directly to an industrial controller (PLC) without any additional hardware being required. A connection that will deliver remote automation monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities. Image courtesy of Olis Robotics

By Fredrik Ryden, CEO, Olis Robotics

Anything you can do to prevent unexpected downtime in your automated packaging systems helps to improve efficiency and reduce costly downtime. Predictive maintenance strategies are intended to put maintenance technicians one step ahead of potential faults by helping them catch and identify issues before they cause a hard stop. Predicting that automated cells will fail or lose efficiency eventually for one reason or another is not the tricky part – the tricky part, from the maintenance perspective is identifying when that failure is likely to occur and getting in early to prevent it happening.

This explains why monitoring tools are such an essential part of any predictive maintenance effort. These solutions monitor robot logs and PLC information, along with robot performance over time. Often, they are combined with video data to add an extra layer of visual information to your automation analysis, diagnostics, and management capabilities.

Invisible to the Human Eye

Consider a packaging line that typically runs on a 60 second cycle time. That cycle time could go from 60 seconds to 61 seconds over the course of a day -an imperceptible change to human observers, but that extra second is meaningful. Monitoring tools enable facilities to pick up on these changes before they become obvious to the naked eye -and before they lead to a costly stop.

By combining real-time data from sensors, control logs, and performance monitoring tools, packaging facilities can track actual equipment health. This means that maintenance technicians can intervene when early signs of failure appear. Moreover, predictive maintenance helps packaging facilities optimize resource allocation, extend equipment lifespan, and reduce downtime.

Monitoring software is a powerful tool in any automation-related preventative maintenance strategy, because it allows you to pinpoint problems -a dirty sensor, perhaps, or a robot operating at 120% speed, 24/7 for extended periods- before the system stops working. And so, instead of dealing with the crisis of unexpected downtime, you can go in and maintain the sensor and get back up at running at maximum efficiency.

Levels of Monitoring, Levels of Comfort

Not all monitoring software tools provide the same level of functionality, of course.

The most primitive monitoring system you might conceivably use in a robot cell is a baby monitor or Nest-type camera. Such a setup enables you to see what’s going on from the outside, but since you’re not getting telemetry right from the controllers, these simple camera-only monitoring approaches don’t offer the type of functionality required to make well-informed, data-driven decisions.

The next level up is being able to see live telemetry of what’s going on inside of the controller. Many benefits flow from being able to access this information, from improved insight into performance, the ability to define KPIs like Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and receive alerts when your packaging cell deviates from customized settings.

Advanced automation monitoring systems, such as those provided by Olis Robotics, are not limited to common metrics such as OEE (Overall Equipment Effictiveness). They provide the ability to track any variable or PLC value – like for example motor current draw or temperature – further enhancing your predictive maintenance initiatives. Image courtesy of Olis Robotics

Visual Feeds and Data Feasts

Combining synchronized video feeds with fault logging enables you to watch what happened in the moments leading up to a failure -thereby bridging the gap between real-world conditions and raw error codes. For example, if a robotic arm misplaces a part, video footage can confirm whether it was due to an obstruction, a mechanical fault, or an operator misfeed -and whether maintenance teams need to get involved.

On the next level, there are remote monitoring systems that track the history of the automated system over time. This enables you to compare what the system looks like right now versus what it looked like when it was installed.

Being able to understand what has changed over time is extremely beneficial in terms of performance analysis and even forensics in cases of robot failure. This understanding over time is also extremely useful for predictive maintenance, because you can receive alerts when customized metrics such as cycle time slow down – often an indicator that some maintenance needs to be performed.

Consider an automated packaging cell that has a five second longer cycle time than it had the previous month. Your monitoring software can alert you to the slowdown and you can check the robot logs -and video feed- to see where the issue lies. For example, your packaging cell might have vision sensors that need to be realigned, incorrect infeed of material due to misconfiguration, or boxes that are softer or stiffer than expected, making it harder to grip with a particular vacuum gripper.

Advanced monitoring software can provide clues here by letting you know that the ‘part present’ signal is taking longer to come through. It can be very hard for operators to understand the nitty gritty details of a machine, so if you can catch early errors you can make sure to include that in the operator training for everyone.

Advanced automation monitoring systems are not limited to common metrics such as OEE. They provide the ability to track any variable or PLC value such as -motor current draw or temperature- further enhancing your predictive maintenance initiatives. In addition, the most advanced monitoring tools can even help with auditing initiatives by providing a log of all the actions performed by an automated system.

The most advanced monitoring tools even allow you to view a combination of video with overlay telemetry. This enables you to watch a video of what your packaging cell was like at a certain point in time and, as it is playing, to see overlaid on the video all the key values as they changed over time.

The Holy Grail is monitoring systems that provide remote troubleshooting functionality. Such systems enable you to remotely connect to the cell, connect an external utility program -even if that is twenty year old Rockwell software, for example- and update the PLC logic, change a program, change variables and remote control the robot. This is all subject to a range of safety permissions and policies and settings – you need a system that can manage all those safety settings- but once safety is under control, people can use the software to remotely jog a gripper, for example, or reprogram the cell. This ability not just to identify potential maintenance issues, but to resolve and troubleshoot provides extra reassurance.

Usability Matters

Advancements in usability have further lowered the barriers to adoption of remote monitoring systems. If early solutions in this space often required considerable expertise regarding PLCs and robot-specific programming languages, today the most advanced remote monitoring solutions dashboards can be accessed -via a secure link- on any browser. This convenience is key as it means anyone can download the app and get going with the software, but behind it lies a technical innovation that promises to open up a huge range of possibilities for automation deployments – mobile devices can now talk to your industrial controllers. Moreover, you don’t need to buy a custom piece of industrial hardware – you can extract data from the PLC using any Android device.

Enabling safe, industrial-grade automation monitoring and troubleshooting in such an easy way hints at an interesting new era in industrial automation where facilities can easily download various app for different purposes, such apps for automated quality control or apps that can tell you whether the pick on a gripper is correct. The latest and most advanced monitoring tools, accessed via simple Android app, are early examples of the benefits of augmenting -and even retrofitting- your industrial automation with new capabilities from simple mobile phone and tablet software.