Digitalisation in drive technology: Customer added value from drive data Predictive maintenance is the systematic continuation of condition maintenance with the aim of proactively maintaining machinery and equipment and detecting changes, reducing downtimes and increasing the efficiency of the entire plant. A status-oriented maintenance replaces the traditional time-based maintenance. Especially for drive systems in demanding production environments where industrial gear unit installations are usually used in sensitive applications and their failure can cause severe damage, for example in intralogistics, the food industry or the heavy duty sector, condition monitoring supplements the triad of gear unit, electric motor and frequency inverter with improved safety and reliability. This is where condition monitoring for
Fast, efficient and comprehensive evaluation of analogue and digital data by the intelligent PLC in the NORD drive technology forms the basis for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. Image: NORD DRIVESYSTEMS is a key factor for oil ageing in gear
directly shift into the drive. In smaller
units. This information in combination
production areas, this scalability offers
with available gear unit parameters
the possibility to gain first experiences
and specific operational parameters
before reorganising the plant. There are
condition data in the inverter’s own PLC
make it possible to precisely calculate
three configuration levels available. At
and pre-process it together with data
the oil change time. A physical
the first level, the drive unit PLC only
of connected sensors and actuators.
temperature sensor is not required.
performs the drive monitoring. The drive
The result of the pre-processing or
The pre-processing of drive data
parameters are pre-processed in the
the complete data can be optionally
takes place in the NORD frequency
PLC and communicated to the higher
transmitted to an edge device. There,
inverter’s integrated PLC that is used
level control system that is responsible
data of all subsystems is managed
as an evaluation unit. The customer
for drive and process control. At the
and evaluated. It is then available as
can access the calculated data via all
medium level, the PLC integrates the
pre-selected and edited smart data for
common interfaces.
drive control and also runs drive-related
predictive maintenance comes into play: Based on intelligent algorithms and software in an IIoT environment, the networked drive units can collect their
further use and clear visualisation.
functions. At the higher configuration
DATA ANALYSIS INSTEAD OF JUST DATA READING
THE RIGHT PLC SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE FOR EACH SOLUTION
A concrete application example is
The drive equipment can be optionally
control unit, a local data management
the sensorless determination of the
extended and adjusted to the respective
without internet connection can
optimum oil change time based on
automation task. Customers can select
optionally apply the data.
the oil temperature. This is based
what tasks (drive monitoring, drive
on the fact that the oil temperature
control, process control) they want to
54 FDPP - www.fdpp.co.uk
level, the inverter PLC completely replaces the higher level control system. Apart from the communication to a
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