Database and portal keep track of rotating assets

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Dec 5, 2007

Novel online portal and asset database enables companies with large quantities of rotating machines to manage their assets more effectively and profitably.

Maintenance management specialist Deritend has developed a novel online portal and asset database to enable companies with large quantities of rotating machines to manage their assets more effectively and profitably.

The two-part modular system gives users complete transparency and certainty with regard to their motor, gearbox and pump assets.

It delivers real-time interactive database management, providing key features such as trending and failure mode analysis, identification and search for individual assets; and also key data such as repair history of each asset, work in progress, repair information and completion dates, and cost analysis per plant sector.

"Our objective with the portal and real time interactive database system is to address the problems of asset management of electric motors and their related units, bringing greater transparency and certainty into their life process, and maximising uptime and reliability", says David Hawley, General Manager of Deritend in Wolverhampton.

"The portal provides considerable added value for customers, via improved efficiency, improved use of resources, and historical data highlighting problem areas of plant through cost allocation to cost area".

"Unlike off-the shelf asset management systems, ours is a proprietary, bespoke and fully rounded operational system designed primarily to map motor, gearbox and pump assets".

"In addition to its many operational advantages, it offers the key benefits of being able to be tailored to suit customer specifications, and the ability to interface to SAP systems".

"In most instances our software can interface to clients' CMM and run alongside scheduled maintenance systems, inputting and outputting data".

The first element of Deritend's motor asset management system is ClearView.

This gives access to a client's current jobs; due completion dates for work in progress - with auto-generated e-mails; and a historical account of the last 50 jobs, together with costs, that Deritend has undertaken on the client's behalf.

These data can be complemented by engineering reports: the reports are accessible through the portal, and provide all of the above data, together with an outline description of the activities completed during the work; plus failure mode identification and special notes where required.

Integrating seamlessly with the first stage ClearView portal, the complete AssetView database is constructed in a manner that replicates the departmental hierarchy of the client's business, enabling him to achieve total transparency and control of his motor stock.

With this system, every motor is tagged (and photographed) and entered on a live database, which holds a library of motor information that is accessed remotely via the Internet.

The enhanced functionality of the database enables clients to identify individual assets, noting their specification and plant location; and provides the ability to drill down into their history.

It also provides a crucial search capability - especially useful during breakdowns - to identify the presence of an equivalent asset elsewhere on the plant, or in a known stores location.

An additional benefit of employing the AssetView database is that the repair history of each motor becomes transparent.

This means that all activities associated with an asset can be accessed, with full repair data identifying failure modes, trends, problem areas, repair activities, and any associated predictive maintenance work, such as vibration analysis and thermography that has been undertaken.

The client is able to access all of this data on-line, and through comprehensive report generation capabilities.

These identify failure numbers by plant location, area, cell or any other category selected by the client.

They also allow the allocation of repair costs using the same criteria as above.

"What our new system effectively gives clients is a window into the history of their motor assets, and a path to improved profitability", says Hawley.

"For the first time motor users can drill down into their systems and determine why failures are occurring, where they are occurring, and the nature of the failures: mechanical or electrical".

"They can judge the reliability of different equipment types; assess the effectiveness of preventative maintenance measures; perform cost analyses per area; and, above all, determine where all the money is being spent".