Maintenance Technology October 2016 - 23


RELIABILITY SOLUTIONS
efficiency, even when there is a great deal of
data available.

and OPC UA (open platform communications-unified architecture) protocols.

MT: What key barriers prevent
companies from fully embracing
emerging technologies?
PETTUS: There are a couple of key barriers
that companies tend to mention when
they're evaluating an organization-wide
rollout of emerging sensing technologies.
One is cybersecurity. Many organizations
are already partnering with cybersecurity
experts, who is are paving the way for
advanced reliability data transmission.
Another is culture. The demographics of
the plant are changing rapidly. We're shifting
from operators who have been in industry
for a long time, and who are used to
"fighting fires," to a new generation who are
data-driven and often expect things to just
work. The millennial generation comes to
the workplace with a deep familiarity with
mobile devices and are already prepared for
emerging technologies. If we can provide
them with a platform to take advantage of
that familiarity, they'll be able to do amazing
things. Finding a balance between these
two generations' work philosophies can be
difficult, but it's becoming ever more crucial,
given the numbers of baby boomers leaving
the workforce.

MT: How are mobile devices
changing the way sites manage
their assets?
PETTUS: Getting data out to organizations
isn't the only key element in successful
communication and monitoring. It is also
vital to get the right data to the right people
in relevant time. By this, I mean delivering
only essential data to the individuals who
need it, exactly when it will be most useful.
Everybody in the plant has some stake in
reliability. The vibration analyst may have
a very visible role, but he or she is far from
the only person exposed to or affected by
reliability issues. Instrumentation engineers,
production planners, safety officers, plant
managers; every one of these people has
some kind of stake in reliability.
The future that we see is that all of the
plant assets send data to a central system
that organizes and distributes the information to stakeholders, wherever they are.
With the robust mobile devices available
today, users can collaborate with messaging,
image sharing, knowledgebase access, and
equipment histories. The flexibility will only
increase as technology improves.

MT: How can operations leverage
these technologies to overcome
challenges such as the skills
shortage?
PETTUS: Numerous plants are toying
with the idea of unmanned facilities and
processes, particularly when sites are
stranded in the middle of nowhere. Even
plants that are in desirable areas are often
finding skilled workers expensive and
hard to find. As a result, we've seen many
organizations working toward centralized
remote-asset monitoring. They can take
data output from an offshore oil platform or
a mining operation in the Arctic Circle and
push it to a centralized monitoring- andanalysis center where SMEs can work in an
office environment yet effectively manage
remote or short-staffed facilities.
Though this is mostly targeted,
application-specific monitoring right now,
we're beginning to see operations bring
more and more systems under this umbrella
through private clouds, wide-area networks,
OCTOBER 2016

MT: What trends are surfacing
in asset management that will
improve the human-machine
interface?
PETTUS: Much of the value in reliability
tools comes from ease of use. If a device
or a piece of software is complicated and
cumbersome, technicians simply aren't
going to use it, and the purchase will have
been a waste.
Future diagnostic products will be
even more focused on ease of use. We are
going to see many more app-store-style
interfaces because they are familiar to
people. Data transfer and collaboration
between personnel and devices will
become increasingly intuitive and mirror
many of the user-interface tools that are
common in today's mobile market. The
ultimate goal is to make devices easier to
use so that they will be used. MT
For more information, including details on
Emerson's recently released AMS ARES Asset
Management Platform, visit emerson.com.

Is the equipment
in your plant
operating at
peak performance?

IDCON Can Help!
We specialize in
equipment reliability and
maintenance management
solutions that will
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For more information about
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go to www.idcon.com or
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MAINTENANCETECHNOLOGY.COM | 23
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maintenance Technology October 2016
