24/7 service of RONDS intelligent operation and maintenance platform under new corona virus epidemic situation

Right now, more and more countries has confirmed cases of COVID-19. Staying at home has become the most effective solution to stop the spread of the virus. However, industrial enterprises such as steel, petrochemical, and power generation, as the pillars of the national economy, with a large daily output and related to the stable and good operation of the society, shall be guaranteed for continuous production. One-day shutdown or even an hour of shutdown will cause immeasurable losses. Hence some key personnel who guarantee the operation of the equipment are still sticking to their posts, including non-production personnel such as equipment inspection personnel and equipment maintenance personnel.  

In order to control the spread of corona virus, Chinese industrial enterprises are facing two actual problems: 

The first is the serious shortage of equipment management personnel. Due to the CNY holiday and the outbreak of epidemic, some staff can not be back to work as scheduled. 

The second is that management can't grasp the real time operation status of key equipment. In this special period, more attention shall be paid to the production safety, for guaranteeing the normal production of the enterprise.

In order to solve these two problems, it is necessary to achieve "less people" or even "unattended" mode in the production field. As a high-tech enterprise that provides intelligent equipment predictive maintenance solution and services, RONDS organized the vibration analysts of the remote diagnostic center to work from home when the epidemic broke out, and continued to provide 24/7 service for our industrial customers. In case of equipment failure, RONDS will communicate with the customers in time to help them resolve the equipment management problems of unguarded and unattended equipment during epidemic situation period.  

24/7 monitoring case 1| Trace to the root cause
"Identifying a problem is often more important than solving it, because it is a creative action, and tracing the root cause can prevent the problem from happening again!" 

22nd Jan.2020
Many companies have already started the Chinese New Year holiday, but the staff from Ronds remote diagnosis center are still on duty.
At 5:00 am, the vibration of the air induced fan unit of the No. 1 furnace from the second hot-rolled plate workshop of a large iron and steel plant in East China some out an alarm. RONDS diagnostic engineer found that the machinery imbalance situation became more serious than before, and the vibration trend is deteriorated, which is related to the running state of the coupling.  

At 6:40am, RONDS engineer called the on-site duty room to check the specific situation and submitted the diagnostic conclusions and maintenance recommendation at the same time.

At 9:10am on January 22nd, the customer sent their feedback and stated that the fan vibration was severe. They turned down the inlet valve slightly to see if the vibration is dropping or not. However, the latest vibration was not dropped under close observation by RONDS engineer, so the customer decided to shut down the machine and proceed with overhaul.

Based on the conclusions of RONDS diagnostic center and several rounds discussion and verification with this customer, we located the problem and the root cause, and confirmed the final maintenance solution. 

There are many reasons that will cause high vibration amplitude for machines, and the components are related to each other, if we don’t explore the root cause, it may cause more serious problem in the future. While the main function of RONDS predictive maintenance system is find the potential problem of machines, realize comprehensive estimation for machines through data acquisition, condition analysis, failure diagnosis, condition prediction and maintenance strategy.  

24/7 monitoring case 2 | Plan ahead
“I firmly believe that discovering small problems can curb big accidents. Proactively troubleshooting equipment through the predictive maintenance system can ensure uninterrupted production and avoid the risk of accidents.

28th Jan. 2020
A LPG feed pump in a large petrochemical plant in south China come out an alarm. Ronds diagnostic engineer Mr Niu made diagnostic analysis referring to historical data and determined that the rolling elements at the pump end bearing worn out in the early and middle stages.

Mr Chen from the customer site checked the equipment immediately after receiving notification from Ronds. It is reported that there was no abnormality in the on-site operation, and the general controller had been required to control the flow. Mr Niu determined there may be rapid deterioration according to the trend of vibration data of this device, so he included this device as a key focus device. 

The feed pump alarmed again in the afternoon, and continued to deteriorate. Mr Niu re-issued inspection and maintenance recommendations based on the latest situation. He recommended the site to check and improve the pump end bearing lubrication as soon as possible, and pay attention to the abnormal noise at the pump end during inspection. If the vibration continues to rise and the abnormal noise does not improve, prepare spare parts for bearings replacement.

The on-site personnel coordinated for the switch and the maintenance immediately after receiving the recommendations from Ronds. Two days later, Mr Chen from site sent the overhaul photos. From the photos, the bearing rolling elements were obviously peeling.

Through the predictive maintenance system to grasp the equipment operation status in real time and timely discovering equipment failures, it is conducive to make preparations for switching and maintenance, proactively eliminate failures, and ensure uninterrupted production; at the same time, it can avoid possible equipment and accident risks. 
The diagnostic engineer Mr Niu from Ronds said: “Under the current epidemic situation, each of us should do our best! We ensure the health of industrial enterprise equipment, guarantee the 24/7 operation of production machines, and help the production equipment to recover quickly. This is what I mean as an equipment diagnostic engineer! 
Whenever you face any difficulties,
Ronds remote diagnostic center is continually escorting your equipment.
Medical staff face the virus in the front line,
Ronds take care of your equipment in real time behind.
Unite to overcome difficulties, make industries better!

Credit: Kiki Xie, Overseas Marketing Director, Anhui Ronds Science & Technology.