Preventing Unplanned Downtime During the Holiday Season and Beyond

Implementing remote condition monitoring modernizes maintenance practices and moves warehouses to a predictive work environment. Image courtesy of Regal Rexnord.

How remote monitoring and predictive maintenance can transform warehouse efficiency.

By David Goldman, Business Development Manager for Perceptiv™ Intelligent Reliability Solutions at Regal Rexnord

As the hustle and bustle of the holiday season settles in, you’ve prepared your warehouse staff for the busiest time of year. Then, tragedy strikes. A component on your warehouse equipment has a sudden, catastrophic failure that causes an unplanned shutdown. Little did you know, this component had been slowly declining over time but with thousands of moving parts in your facility, it wasn’t caught until it was too late.

Moving from Manual Warehouse Operations to Remote Solutions

When equipment fails, especially in large footprint warehouses, the downtime spent manually finding and repairing the down component can add up quickly. Unexpected failures can also mean the replacement component is not readily available for maintenance teams to install, causing even more time spent ordering the replacement and waiting for it to arrive. Now multiply that by the number of individual components throughout your facility. Each down part can mean hundreds of hours and dollars that you couldn’t afford to spend.

Automating these processes and getting ahead of equipment failure can make or break the difference between hitting your targets and being in the red. Combined with a predictive maintenance plan, remote condition monitoring allows you to track each component in your warehouse to see potential failures before they occur and schedule maintenance when it is most convenient. These monitoring systems can also streamline ordering replacement parts.

The Tag-It Program powered by the Perceptiv™ Intelligent Reliability Solution allows warehouses to easily find important information about their equipment and its health. Image courtesy of Regal Rexnord.

Real-World Application: Warehouse Maintenance Team Saves $2.5M

A national distribution center was seeking a faster, more accurate way to complete change-outs of motors and gearboxes, while also streamlining and standardizing their inventory. The maintenance team spent five hours identifying a down component, writing down the part numbers, determining availability through inventory or purchase order, awaiting part arrival, and then finally scheduling and completing the necessary repairs. This manual process was costing the company over $6.5M in downtime and labor annually.

To alleviate downtime and mitigate order errors, the facility chose the Perceptiv™ Intelligent Reliability Solution to provide a combination of equipment cataloging, condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance in a single platform. An on-site survey was conducted to digitally record mechanical asset information, helping the facility understand the equipment they had in operation as well as shelf stock to help consolidate spare part inventory. The team also deployed vibration and temperature sensors to monitor assets in real-time, proactively managing the facility’s equipment and helping the staff understand asset performance before a failure occurred.

The combined solution delivered immediate impact for the distributor, including:

• $2.5M Cost Savings: Streamlining the MRO replacement process and moving to a preventive maintenance model saved on labor and downtime expenses.
• Optimized Supply Chain: Product information such as part number, image, and interchange was immediately available in the platform, with links to instantly purchase the correct replacement products from their preferred distributor.
• Product Standardization: Deeper understanding of the assets and components in operation, as well as on the shelf, allowed the staff to standardize gearboxes and motors to help speed replacement time and enhance product knowledge.
• Improved Staff Satisfaction: The site reduced unit replacement by 1 hour per replacement, helping staff work more efficiently and independently.

The combination of condition monitoring, preventive maintenance, asset data cataloging, and efficient replacement ordering has helped this national distribution center positively impact profitability and staff satisfaction. By implementing remote condition monitoring they have modernized maintenance practices and moved to a predictive work environment that achieves their smart factory KPIs and keeps their facility operating efficiently.

Tag-It Program: Inventory and MRO Management

The Tag-It Program allows warehouses to easily find important information about their equipment and its health.

1. Asset Survey: Equipment information is captured through in-depth site survey.

2. Data Upload: Equipment information is uploaded to the dashboard for easy viewing.

3. View Information: See all of the surveyed applications, including product information, images, and product interchange for easy component ordering.

4. Intelligent Reliability: Add sensors, gateways, and reliability reporting to monitor equipment health, notify of failures, evaluate asset health over time, and predict future failures.

Preventing Unplanned Downtime in Your Warehouse

As consumer demand continues to rise, ensuring your warehouse operations are operating at peak efficiency is non-negotiable. Properly managing inventory, limiting unplanned downtime, and boosting productivity is crucial to remain competitive and meet your goals. By implementing reliability solutions such as remote condition monitoring and a preventative, proactive maintenance plan, you can stay ahead of unplanned downtime and failures.

These solutions can provide peace of mind for smooth operations through the busy holiday season and beyond. The ability to keep an eye on every moving part in your facility at once is a game changer for warehouse operations and can be the difference of millions of dollars in your pocket.

About the Author

David Goldman is the Business Development Manager for Perceptiv™ Intelligent Reliability Solutions at Regal Rexnord. As a high-performing sales professional and leader, David has a proven track record of helping customers achieve reliability through intelligent solutions, leveraging innovative technology to meet their unique needs. With three years of experience in selling within the manufacturing industry, he brings a wealth of expertise in solution selling, from Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to Comprehensive Maintenance Solutions. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Pittsburgh. For more information, visit: https://www.perceptiv.com/