The customer, a leading flour producer in Saudi Arabia wanted to address the random, unexpected failures of its various non-ABB motors across different processes, especially in the critical areas of its flour mill and feed mill. Their production plant enrolls more than 300 motors ranging up to 250kW, one of the main reasons why the maintenance team requires to be fully vigilant and ready with their plans to make sure the plant KPIs are met.
The company invested in ABB’s condition monitoring services for motors, for early detection of performance issues. Enabled by ABB Ability™ Smart Sensors, ABB’s condition monitoring services help customers to monitor the health and performance of their equipment and to plan maintenance in advance. Customers can plan maintenance according to their actual needs rather than based on time intervals or operating hours alone. This cuts maintenance costs and reduces or even eliminates unplanned stops.
The customer installed several units of ABB Ability™ Smart Sensors as a pilot project on their critical applications and machines. Smart Sensors convert traditional equipment, such as motors, pumps and mounted bearings into smart, wirelessly connected devices. With the help of the sensors, the flour mill can avoid unplanned downtime, optimize efficiency and improve safety of its motors. The maintenance operators can check the status of the motors any time with the smartphone via the ABB Ability™ Smart Sensor app. The interface includes a ‘traffic light’ display to give a quick overview of all the motors that are being monitored. They also receive clear recommendations on how to optimize maintenance and save costs.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, ABB Smart Sensors alerted the customer about an abnormal vibration in a 127kw motor running the feed mill fan. The early detection enabled the maintenance team to take the required transportation permissions, thus delivering the services on time and preventing a big production failure at the mill. The motor was inspected in ABB’s workshop, was overhauled and had its bearing replaced and was returned to the customer on time.
“ABB introduced the ABB Ability™ Smart Sensor motors as an enabler for proactive detection of motor problems regardless of the brand, increasing machine lifetime and improving plant reliability. The customer embraced the idea that was not only giving them peace of mind, but also was encouraging the digital transformation in-line with the Saudi Arabia 2030 vision and installed several units of ABB Ability™ Smart Sensor as a pilot project on the applications that are paramount to the manufacturing process”. said Murad Aljondi, Digital Lead Motion business, ABB in Saudi Arabia.
