Industrial Automation – It Doesn’t Have To…
Join us as we explore all things Industrial Automation. Brandon Ellis, owner & president of elliTek, has seen the good, the bad, and the great when it comes to automation. We'll delve into the challenges that manufacturers face, find out what it doesn't have to..., and have some fun!
Industrial Automation – It Doesn’t Have To…
Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To... Be Unmonitored
This is a HOT topic -- Condition Monitoring (CM). Brandon pierces through the sales and marketing fodder to expose some really cool stuff.
Sales and marketing would have you monitor just temperature and vibration. But wait, there's more! Remember the refrigerator analogy? What indicators are really enough?
Manufacturers are developing some fantastic capabilities for sensors that allow users to grab data without being invasive. We call it the EKG method. Condition monitoring sensors are a way to do that.
Most condition monitoring systems out there are just going to alert you by sending a text or email, which is good.
Why not take it to the next level?
Why not take the next step by having the ability to monitor AND the ability to do something about it -- Machine to Machine Artificial Intelligence (M2M AI).
elliTek and Balluff have formed an alliance to take you to that next level.
Balluff has a phenomenal condition monitoring sensor that's the size of a postage stamp, their BCM sensor. This compact sensor can monitor not just one but FOUR physical variables.
elliTek's IIoTA™ (Industrial Internet of Things Appliance) can connect directly to Balluff's BCM sensor.
By using the IIoTA's drag and drop dashboard, you can display the data from your BCM sensor on any viewable device connected to the local network or a static IP address.
See data from Balluff's BCM sensor being displayed by the IIoTA SCMs (Smart Condition Monitoring System).
Reach out to us with any questions or future topics!
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If you don't want to click on those links, pick up the phone to call us at (865) 409-1555 ext. 804.
Brandon Ellis 0:00
Hello, and welcome to "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To". Today we're going to be talking about machine condition monitoring. So, join us.
Brandon Ellis 0:08
Hello, everybody and welcome to "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To". In case you're new, I'm Brandon Ellis and I'm your host and also the owner of elliTek. As we jump into today's episode, I just want to ask you to hit that follow button and Subscribe Button depending on the platform that you're listening on. And if you're listening on Apple podcast and you enjoy what you hear today, please go to the Show page, scroll to the bottom and leave the podcast a five-star rating and review. Now that we've got the marketing out of the way, I want to say thanks for tuning in. So, let's get started with today's episode.
Brandon Ellis 0:45
And welcome to "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To". I'm Brandon Ellis, your host. And I'm here with my good friend Beth Elliott, our marketing manager. Hey, Beth.
Beth Elliott 0:53
Good morning, Brandon. It's a little chilly out today.
Brandon Ellis 0:57
It doesn't want to be spring.
Beth Elliott 0:59
No.
Brandon Ellis 1:00
We keep getting these chilly mornings, but I know soon. I'll be wishing for a chilly morning.
Beth Elliott 1:08
I was wondering what winter this is. Is it whippoorwill winter? Because we had dogwood winter.
Brandon Ellis 1:13
Yeah, we've had dogwood, there's whippoorwill, there's also a cotton britches winter. So, these are all winters in the southeastern United States.
Beth Elliott 1:21
I've never heard of that one, cotton britches.
Brandon Ellis 1:23
Yeah, I read about that. That's when they, maybe it's called; yes, something like that. Maybe cotton britches, cotton short shirt, something because it's not that it's so chilly. But it's the time when the old farmers would switch from their winter wear, the heavier shirts.
Beth Elliott 1:40
The flannels. Okay, to the cotton.
Brandon Ellis 1:42
To the lighter cotton.
Beth Elliott 1:43
All right,
Brandon Ellis 1:44
Because it's gonna be warm from for the next few months.
Beth Elliott 1:47
All right.
Brandon Ellis 1:48
It's the last winter. And we have like seven, I think.
Beth Elliott 1:51
There's too many.
Brandon Ellis 1:52
Yeah. So anyway, it's interesting living down in the southeastern United States.
Beth Elliott 1:56
It sure is.
Brandon Ellis 1:57
It's also hot at times.
Beth Elliott 1:59
So, what have you been hearing on the streets here lately, Brandon? What have we been getting calls about?
Brandon Ellis 2:06
As far as industrial manufacturing, industrial automation, or just in general?
Beth Elliott 2:11
We're going to get on topic industrial automation, yeah.
Brandon Ellis 2:13
Because there's a global semiconductor shortage that's just giving everyone difficulty. But as far as industrial automation, you mean, the cool, what all the cool kids are doing?
Beth Elliott 2:13
Yeah.
Brandon Ellis 2:14
Well, you know, we touched on it in one of our last podcasts, not the last one, but the one before. Well, I guess both is automation, but specifically, there's a push for robotics in general. That includes collaborative robots. So, a lot of people are trying to automate, I'm not sure if that's labor shortage, based upon labor shortage, or if it's labor reduction type moves, but we're hearing a lot of that, and doing a lot of that. And so, I always want to do more, so call us.
Beth Elliott 2:53
Yes, yes. And the restaurants are having a hard time finding people to work. So, the restaurants are having a hard time too.
Brandon Ellis 2:59
We're on the, we're coming out of the pandemic, which is good. But you know, there was a lot of pain going into it, a lot of pain, certainly during it, and now it's interesting to see the pains of coming out of it. So, food shortage in the restaurant industry. I remember this time last year, we were discussing, farmers having to throw out spoiled food because the restaurants weren't there, the schools were closed, there wasn't any place for it to go. Well, now, they've adjusted and now everybody's thankfully, going out to eat again, schools are going to be, of course it's summer, so that'll help, but as kids get out for the summer, but some schools are year-round. So, lunch, lunchrooms are going to be bustling again, restaurants are going to be bustling again. So, it's great to see the economy coming back. But it's going to take some time to get the machine going.
Beth Elliott 3:51
Yeah, yeah. And what about that semiconductor shortage?
Brandon Ellis 3:54
Well, that's just that's affecting everybody. And apparently, it's because or so I've heard is the fact that during the pandemic, everyone decided suddenly or had to suddenly use electronics so all of your remote meetings, your web based things, all your devices that you were using, but also they cited video game usage was through the roof so and I guess maybe Netflix and that kind of stuff, you know the streaming videos and things of that nature but just it's interesting how we were unplugged from the office and unplugged from society and so are our need for virtual went through the roof and so social media and all those things have been blamed for the run on the semiconductor market. So, but now it's affecting everything from automotive, to general electronics, things of that nature. And so, yeah, it's making life kind of difficult right now. So hopefully that'll be short lived. You know, there's a saying that being too busy is a good problem to have, but it doesn't, it can hurt during the, during the adjustment. So hopefully that's not too bad. The other thing I've been hearing a lot about is machine monitoring.
Beth Elliott 4:11
Yeah.
Brandon Ellis 4:18
And that, of course, is what we're going to be talking about. So hit us with the title there.
Beth Elliott 5:13
Alright. Today's title is "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To... Be Unmonitored."
Brandon Ellis 5:20
That's right.
Beth Elliott 5:21
So, do you want to hear what Wikipedia's definition of condition monitoring is?
Brandon Ellis 5:25
If it's on Wikipedia, it has to be true.
Beth Elliott 5:29
I suppose.
Brandon Ellis 5:30
Typically, it's pretty close.
Beth Elliott 5:31
Yeah. Okay. So, condition monitoring is also CM.
Brandon Ellis 5:35
An acronym?
Beth Elliott 5:36
Yes.
Brandon Ellis 5:39
Condition monitoring.
Beth Elliott 5:41
It's the process of monitoring a parameter of condition in machinery, vibration, temperature, those kind of things in order to identify a significant change, which is indicative of a developing fault. It's a major component of predictive maintenance.
Brandon Ellis 5:59
Great job, Beth and Wikipedia.
Beth Elliott 6:00
Yes. But I want to know, and I think the listeners would like to know what Brandon's definition is.
Brandon Ellis 6:06
Alright, so what do I think? Well, I think condition monitoring is certainly important. But I also think there's a lot of marketing surrounding it right now.
Beth Elliott 6:22
Yeah,
Brandon Ellis 6:22
I think there that if you can wade through the marketing and sales pitches, you can get some really, really awesome stuff. And it really comes down to what you're comfortable with in that regard. And so, we can talk a little bit about that. But in general condition monitoring is, is monitoring something. Marketing would have you monitor temperature and vibration.
Beth Elliott 6:44
Yeah, according to Wikipedia.
Brandon Ellis 6:46
Yeah, and maybe humidity.
Beth Elliott 6:48
Okay.
Brandon Ellis 6:49
But technically, you can monitor anything that is of value. I don't know if you recall, when we had our, the preventive maintenance podcast with Keary. And he and I kind of got into a little bit of a debate about what exactly is a Key Performance Indicator, a KPI. And I said, I feel like a KPI is anything, that's key in determining your performance, and it's not a specific thing, or a specific formula. Because you know, different things can be very telling to different people based upon their expertise within their process. And so just because I see a temperature rise in my process on a certain motor or bearing or something like that does not necessarily mean that a temperature rise for someone else on a certain thing or environment will mean the same thing. And so, it really comes down to the fact that everybody knows their process, and they're experts, they should be experts at their process more than, you know, the marketing at some manufacturer that's making condition monitoring equipment. And so, if they think about it from that standpoint, they can do some really fantastic things. And so that said, condition monitoring is monitoring, I'll say something that is significant to your process that's going to hopefully prevent something from happening or can even take care of something before it happens.
Beth Elliott 8:15
Oh, now that's another level. Now, when we were going over this, you were talking about some similarities between product data and process data. Is that what your
Brandon Ellis 8:28
That's what I'm getting at.
Beth Elliott 8:29
Okay. Okay.
Brandon Ellis 8:30
So, if you're measuring, let's say vibration.
Beth Elliott 8:34
Okay.
Brandon Ellis 8:35
You know, during that same Keary Donovan podcast, when we were talking about preventative maintenance, I made, he actually was referencing a previous prodcast where I used. Prodcast, did I say prodcast? It's, it's, it's, it's early, and I'm apparently tired. If you're just, we talked about a refrigerator and about what I was talking about indicators, what indicators were enough. So, if it was just enough to know that the refrigerator is running. Did it really tell you what you need needed to know? That the refrigerator was actually cooling. That there was food in the refrigerator or not. That the food was good or bad. All you know that it's running and everything past that, beyond that is an assumption. And so, if you're measuring just vibration on a bearing or something like that on a motor, and that's typically what we would do, is we would, we would measure these things. And then I'll also say the cool thing about condition monitoring is a lot of the manufacturers are developing some really cool capabilities as far as sensors and things of that nature, that are going to give us the ability. We've referred to it as the EKG method before, the ability to grab data without being invasive. Does that make sense?
Beth Elliott 9:52
Yes, yes.
Brandon Ellis 9:53
And so, we're talking about condition monitoring sensors, and then those connect to a system, things of that nature. But those sensors can be attached on the outside. So, in this scenario, and it's a common scenario, we would put one of those condition monitoring sensors, which measure vibration, that's done with what's called an accelerometer. And usually, you have three accelerometers in each direction x, y and z.
Beth Elliott 10:18
Okay.
Brandon Ellis 10:18
Because vibration doesn't always happen in one direction, but you may only be interested in one direction for your process. But nevertheless, if we're just measuring vibration on a motor bearing, and we're looking for, I think Wikipedia said a significant change, is the term. And so, we're looking for a change in that vibration. Well, just because we see a change in the vibration, doesn't mean the bearing is about to go bad. Especially if we're monitoring it from millions, not millions, hundreds of miles away, maybe millions, maybe you're in space. But because what may have happened is someone may have set a new piece of equipment next to it that's a big old multi huge tonnage press or something that's just shaking the earth every time it strikes the dies, and it's picking it up.
Beth Elliott 11:11
Yeah.
Brandon Ellis 11:12
So, you really need to know more about what's going on. So that's where we bring in temperature. So, if a bearing is starting to vibrate, and we see the temperature starting to change, usually, when a bearing is about to fail, or just before it fails, it's a process in the process of failing, there's more friction, more friction equals heat, and we see a temperature rise. But you also have to make sure that someone didn't install something that is exhausting from an oven and hitting the sensor. So, you have to use some logic about it, when you're installing them to know what you're looking for. So, a lot of times we will take an average. But yes, absolutely. Just like the refrigerator, we want to decide what is our key indicators? And then what is considered a significant change? And then usually, does that change maintain itself? So, I mean, in the scenario of the press, if the press stops running, and all the vibration goes away, and then all of a sudden it comes back, you know, you can start putting, connecting the dots on those things. The interesting thing is when you start trying to, well, we'll get to that in a minute, try to try to do that automatically. But we'll get to, we'll circle back to it. So, for right now, most of the time, we're just monitoring.
Beth Elliott 12:31
Okay. What equipment is typically monitored?
Brandon Ellis 12:35
Like I said, things, things that usually rotary bearings is where a lot of people tend to go with this, but we are, we are being asked to put condition monitoring sensors on robots. And of course, that's a bearing. But on each joint or each axis, things of that nature, if you're looking for those bearings to start wearing out and the harmonic drive systems and things of that nature. And so, but usually it's anything like a gearbox or reciprocating pump, or centrifugal pump, those kinds of things, pumps, electric motors, combustion engines even, any anything that we're usually monitoring, we're usually monitoring for vibration on a bearing, that seems to be where everybody likes to be. But you can also do it on like a hydraulic system, things of that nature. So, you're monitoring the temperature on the return lines of the of the hydraulic fluid, if it's starting to go up, maybe the cooler is not working things of that nature. If the compressor is starting to work harder than it should, or the pump, then you're looking for temperatures as well as vibration and things of that nature. So again, those are those are a few things. And then there's also humidity, the humidity can be measured as well, just the environmental type components. And so, if the humidity starts going up, and it's supposed to be managed by an HVAC system, things of that nature, then you might be able to say, you know, the compressor bearing is vibrating, the temperature is going up, and I'm seeing the humidity move. And maybe, you know, maybe you're measuring room temperatures, well, then you can say, okay, the air conditioner compressors going out, it needs to be fixed.
Beth Elliott 14:18
Is it where's the sensor placed when you're doing humidity measuring?
Brandon Ellis 14:21
I think I think it varies based upon what you're trying to do.
Beth Elliott 14:27
Oh, okay.
Brandon Ellis 14:28
I mean, because every process has got to be different. Maybe stick it on the wall. Maybe you actually put it in a machine, maybe. Maybe it's inside the duct work. You know, I don't know. I think it’s; I think it really comes down to every process is going to be measured differently.
Beth Elliott 14:46
Okay, all right.
Brandon Ellis 14:47
There's a lot of places that you can take your temperature if you're a human.
Beth Elliott 14:51
Yeah, some are more invasive than others.
Brandon Ellis 14:55
Yeah. You know exactly what I'm talking about, and so does every parent out there, I'm sure. You know,
Beth Elliott 15:03
So, we want to do it is less invasive as possible.
Brandon Ellis 15:06
I think that's the point is we're trying to we're trying to see what the heart's doing without doing open heart surgery is usually the goal. And again, this usually comes down to, for most plants, from my experience, this is more a maintenance and predictive maintenance type of goal and handled by maintenance departments, facilities departments, less so than production engineering or controls engineers that are more about production and getting things out. Of course, maintenance has to be over all that. You know, the maintenance guys are having to be experts at everything. But yeah, I think, I think that's it. The thing that bothers me a little bit about the marketing, though, is everybody wants to, wants you to use their sensors, a lot are pushing for cellular based cloud connectivity, and then pay them a subscription to monitor your stuff for you. And then they just send you an email or a text telling you, it's out, it's out of level. Or their system, you can set it up yourself and not pay them. But it's still going to just send you an email or a text. And that's pretty good. You don't have to have somebody sitting there watching all the time to notify you that something's happening.
Beth Elliott 16:24
So that's one of the traditional techniques?
Brandon Ellis 16:27
Yeah, of course, I guess the most traditional is you don't have anything electronic, you just have somebody sit there and watch the dial. And if the dial goes out of the red. Actually, I'm sure there's plenty of plants that have a schedule where someone is assigned to walk around a certain area, and check gauges, make sure everything's in the green, that kind of thing and acceptable level. And if it's not, then we need to take action, maybe they go once an hour, once a day, twice a day, something like that. But in this case, condition monitoring has a lot of value, because it can monitor 24/7, you know, every, usually we don't do every second, I mean, temperature can only change so fast, usually. If it's changing really, really fast, there's something worse going on, typically, but so you don't have to measure temperature; it's not like a high-speed data log situation, but still measuring it fairly constantly. And there's nothing wrong with sending a text or an email to say, you know, this, this sensor is seeing something that's significant change. The problem I've got, do you remember, do you remember, maybe our listeners remember some years ago? I don't remember who it was, it was an identity theft or something like that commercial company. And they talked about the difference between being a a credit monitor versus whatever they were.
Beth Elliott 17:47
Like a credit repair?
Brandon Ellis 17:49
Yeah, something like that.
Beth Elliott 17:49
Okay. Okay. So, they were
Brandon Ellis 17:50
The jokes were always, you know, the house is on fire. Well, can you put it out? No, I'm just a house fire monitor. So, I'm not actually going to do anything, I'm just going to be Captain Obvious and tell you something's going wrong.
Beth Elliott 18:05
So that's what that cell, cellular alert and text are doing?
Brandon Ellis 18:09
Well, whether it's cellular or not, that's what that's what I feel like when and maybe that's enough. Maybe that's enough for the person. It really comes down to what their process is because you certainly don't want a third-party company trying to fix it remotely. I wouldn't. And you know, the cellular stuff you know how I feel about that with the IT guys. And I feel like that unless the IT guys are, are checking it off to say it's okay, that introduces a potential vector. Being cloud-based, you may not know who's managing the server. Cloud-based means you're just renting your server space and hoping someone else keeps it secure. And for your IT experts and cybersecurity experts, they can't honestly say that it's secure. That they know it is because they're not actually managing it. Whereas the hosted server, the server's they manage, they know they're keeping up with it, they know how secure or unsecure it is. So not having that control doesn't always sit well with many of the IT engineers, network engineers and cybersecurity folks that I'm friends with. And rightfully so, I mean, if it's out of your control, you, how can you possibly guarantee it. But out, stepping outside of the cybersecurity with the cellular, it's really, they may, they may not be cellular, they may give them direct access to a cloud-based system. But most third parties are not going to do something about it.
Beth Elliott 19:37
They're just letting them know.
Brandon Ellis 19:38
They're just gonna let you know. So, my question is, what if you had the ability to monitor, set up your monitoring, but also had the ability to do something about it?
Beth Elliott 19:52
Yeah, like automatically?
Brandon Ellis 19:54
Well, if the temperature if you're monitoring an HVAC system, and you're seeing or, yeah, let's say you're monitoring HVAC system in a room, you've got to keep the temperature at a certain level, things of that nature. And, or you're monitoring a machine with a heater on it or something like that, and you've got temperature controls on it. Temperature controls are set. And you're seeing that suddenly, the temperature is going above a certain level, you could send a text and say this temperature is going too high. But why not? If the if it's not a critical. Now, if this is a nuclear reactor or something like that, I mean, there are processes that I agree with, with production management and folks that say, if this happens, I want somebody to have to go down there and take a look and see what's going on. You know, I'm not being all encompassing. But I have to ask the question, what if you had a system and it wasn't, you know, anything super critical that the temperature went too high, it would interface with a temperature controller and say, bump down your setpoint a little?
Beth Elliott 20:58
Oh, that's the other level, isn't it?
Brandon Ellis 21:02
Well, that's what we call machine to machine artificial Intelligence.
Beth Elliott 21:06
Okay.
Brandon Ellis 21:07
AI, and
Beth Elliott 21:08
M2M AI.
Brandon Ellis 21:09
Yeah. M2M AI. Yeah. So, I mean, automation is what we do. It's what we seek. Robots. We, we would love to have a robot that had enough intelligence, and we're trying to do that, to learn when I do this process, I need to do it this way and it works, but this way doesn't work. So, we use AI in sensors to pass fail things. We were it learns all the possible, you know, it says this is a bad I think, and we say Nope, that's a good and it corrects it and says, Okay, I'm going to remember that this situation is good from now on. And as it builds up its knowledge of goods and bads, it begins to learn that way. And so, it has more data to compare for that's, that's artificial intelligence and within machines. If we can do it on the line in real time, while we're looking for goods and bads and products. Why not take condition monitoring one more step? And let, and again, I think, I think that it's reckless to have an outside company do this, third party.
Beth Elliott 22:15
Because they don't know your process.
Brandon Ellis 22:16
They don't know your process. So, I think you have to be able to take ownership of it. And I'm sure for some folks, maybe most folks, that that's the part, they're just like, we don't know how, we don't have a way to do that. And that's true. Most condition monitoring systems out there are just going to tell you.
Beth Elliott 22:30
Okay.
Brandon Ellis 22:32
Except for one.
Beth Elliott 22:33
Yeah. Tell me about it. Tell us about it.
Brandon Ellis 22:35
We have partnered with, more of an alliance capacity, with a company called Balluff.
Beth Elliott 22:43
BALLUFF
Brandon Ellis 22:46
That's right. And Balluff has been around, a European company, been around for decades and decades. And there you make condition monitoring equipment. Mainly, they make a condition monitoring sensor. It's called their BCM sensor. And what I've been really, what I love about it is it's about the size of a postage stamp.
Beth Elliott 23:03
Sweet.
Brandon Ellis 23:04
Yeah. And it's got three accelerometers. It's got a thermocouple; that's for measuring temperature. And then it's got a, what's the word? Hygrometer? Remember that?
Beth Elliott 23:16
Yes. hygrometer, h y, g, r, o, m, e, t, e r.
Brandon Ellis 23:21
Yeah, you had notes.
Beth Elliott 23:23
I do. Yeah.
Brandon Ellis 23:24
So, hygrometer. That's the measurement of humidity,
Beth Elliott 23:27
Humidity, yes.
Brandon Ellis 23:28
And so, they have that all on the size of a postage stamp. And we have taken at their request, and ours to, we have used our IIoTA platform to connect directly to, there's multiples of these sensors, and have integrated in with the dashboard and the visualization and things of that nature. And it's all hosted, it's not a cloud-based deal.
Beth Elliott 23:52
Internally. Okay.
Brandon Ellis 23:53
And then based upon those levels, we can change certain things. We can certainly notify, but we can change things on the dashboard. We can change, you know, things from green to red and, and flashing and things of that nature on our dashboard. But we can also, or the user can also the user is empowered to be able to easily if we can communicate with whatever it is a temperature controller, things of that nature, to say, turn the temperature down. It can run an equation. And here's the reason I say that because when I've had I've had a lot of conversations, especially in the last few months about condition monitoring with folks. And usually what I'll ask them, tell me about it walk me through what happens. Well, you know, we find out that there's a problem. Somebody notifies it's a problem. In this case, that'd be just like the automated system gets sending you a text there's a problem. So, what do you do? What process do you go to through mentally? And usually, in most systems, they'll say, Well, if it's supposed if it's here, and it's supposed to be here, we'll just drop it by the difference or, you know, drop it by some amount and see what happens, and then maybe drop it a little bit more, you know, sometime later, if it's still out of level, things of that nature, be it pressure, temperature, whatever. They're just working equations in their mind. Now, a lot of times there are rules of thumb equations. And so, if you can build those into an equation that a machine can do, and if it's fairly repeatable, why not? Why not let the machine do that and text you to say, there's a problem, and I fixed it with these values? And then, you know, give them a chance to override.
Beth Elliott 25:34
That's amazing.
Brandon Ellis 25:35
Why not?
Beth Elliott 25:36
Yeah, why not?
Brandon Ellis 25:38
So, we're excited about working with, with the Balluff. There's, there's a lot of companies that make condition monitoring systems, but I've not seen one smaller than in form factor than the Balluff, little sensor, and ours connects up and just under, what, five seconds, if you can type fast enough. So, it goes out, finds it, reads all the information instantly, and is ready to go, which is pretty much the case with IIoTA's anyway. So, the setups very, very minimal. And then our dashboard, drag and drop dashboard is just the same as always, you can just assign it to those sensors. And
Beth Elliott 26:14
Then you can display that data wherever you want.
Brandon Ellis 26:16
Yeah.
Beth Elliott 26:18
So, they could, you could have a visual. And
Brandon Ellis 26:20
I think the visual is important, especially charting and things of that nature, that's what most people are after. And that's, that's not just condition monitoring, even if we're pulling production data off of the machine. Nobody wants to look at just a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet. That's kind of like the Matrix screen. They want to see, you know, gauges and speedometer needles, and bar charts and line charts and those kind of things. Because that's what we're used to seeing. So, and I'm not talking about a report, you know a report is usually something that you run after a process or at a certain time to look back on the last hour or six hours or something. You know, the other thing the IIoTA can do, is it's got the internal database. So those sensors, I said earlier, if you're trying to look for a significant change, you really need to be able to take, create a trend.
Beth Elliott 27:10
From the historical data?
Brandon Ellis 27:11
From the historical data.
Beth Elliott 27:12
okay
Brandon Ellis 27:13
So, the sensors can do that. And they do that. But there's only so much memory in something as small as a postage stamp. And so, they're looking at it, you know, over a short number of samples. But we can actually tie that into or move it into an external database, even to where it can be monitored on a larger scale, to say I want to see what the profile has been over the last hour, days, weeks, year, and create a trend line from that and compare them to see a more broader range to really know that there is a significant temperature change. Because in any manufacturing facility, especially if they don't have climate control in the in the facility, and especially down here in the south. This morning, it's cooler in there than it will be in probably two weeks. And it'll be significantly warmer, probably in two weeks. You know, our winter always hangs on down here and it's spring for like a week, and then it's summer, for the rest of the summer. And so high humidity, extremely high temperatures and things of that nature, and it only gets worse the further south you go. So, you really need to just because we had dogwood winter, and then tomorrow was back to 80 degrees or 85 degrees or 90 degrees, doesn't mean that you have a significant change on your bearing. So that said, I feel like that you really need to be able to have the capacity to look, you know, in a wider range. Now, will we be able to, in our IIoTA, you know the edge-based database server, be able to store a year's worth of data or two years’ worth of data? Probably not. But we can at least get a, you know, weeks, months.
Beth Elliott 27:13
Yeah. But that can be pushed to an external
Brandon Ellis 29:01
Push that upstairs to an external server. And that can be cloud based even. Now if you're going to do cloud based, with us or if you just want to make it, you know, have your IT professional put it on a public facing IP address or assign me a static IP that is publicly viewable. With our, with our device, you get all the cyber security of the hardened you know the hardened gateway properties of it, so not cloud-based but it can feel cloudy.
Beth Elliott 29:27
Talk about the (oops, I hit the microphone) the gate the hardened wall, the gateway so if the vector comes in, and even if it's getting slammed.
Brandon Ellis 29:38
Yeah, so let's put that in Brand, Brandology analogy world. Imagine a room with one door, no windows, and a thief is trying to break in and bust the door down. And that's it that that's all he's got is the single room where he came in. So only thing he can do is go back out the door that he just knocked out. There's not another door or another passage to get to. And so that's kind of the scenario or the analogy that I use when I'm talking about it. So that's how ours is designed. And so even with denial of service, they may shut down the port, but it's not going to do anything, it's just not going to let you see your data until they quit, and the unit resets and starts showing it again. So the only thing it has access to then is that port. So, it's a bit more secure. Now, again, you've heard me say, nothing is totally secure.
Beth Elliott 30:32
Yeah.
Brandon Ellis 30:33
I had it told to me one time, this way, the most security you have in this United States is maximum security prison. And so, you don't want, you don't want most security. You can't, you can't function in that. And so, but if anybody tells you, theirs is totally secure and impenetrable. Walk away. But, but ours is pretty doggone good. And so. But if that's what you want to see, if you want to be able to see it from home, or see it outside of the office, or have customers look at it or whatever, then I wouldn't give them the capability to override. But if it's monitor only, you can do that with the dashboards. But the part that I do think is you can create a secondary means of, of override, but and there should be an override, but as for the system, consider the system making the changes for you.
Beth Elliott 31:28
Yeah. Is that called Smart condition monitors? No, that's the accelerometer.
Brandon Ellis 31:35
Are you reading your notes?
Beth Elliott 31:36
Yes, I am.
Brandon Ellis 31:39
Well, you read that very well. Accelerometers measure vibration. But smart conditioning monitor, you could probably trademark that.
Beth Elliott 31:46
Well. Oh, okay. All right. Just coined a term.
Brandon Ellis 31:50
Yeah. Because so SCM. You need to get on Wikipedia and start writing about that. Yeah. So SCM.
Beth Elliott 32:01
Smart conditioning monitors.
Brandon Ellis 32:03
That's right. So, you heard it here first, folks, I don't know if that's a real term, but it's not a bad term. But that's what it would be is a condition monitoring system monitors. A smart condition monitoring system can
Beth Elliott 32:16
Change it
Brandon Ellis 32:16
Can make a change. Fix it and not just be the monitor.
Beth Elliott 32:20
Okay. All right. Right on.
Brandon Ellis 32:22
So, condition monitoring certainly, certainly is a buzzword right now. And a lot of people are looking for that and why? Because you can also, with our system anyway, you can also interface with a CMMS system.
Beth Elliott 32:39
Okay, what does the CMMS mean?
Brandon Ellis 32:42
CMMS, Computerized Maintenance Management and Software? Does that sound right?
Beth Elliott 32:50
System
Brandon Ellis 32:51
System. Oh, you have to answer. That's another acronym, Computerized Maintenance Management System.
Beth Elliott 32:57
Yes.
Brandon Ellis 32:58
But it's software.
Beth Elliott 32:59
So, you can put that with it?
Brandon Ellis 33:01
Well, you can communicate with it. So, if you're going to send a text or an email, don't just send a text an email, you could also send something if it gets to a certain level to the CMMS system. And I mean, the whole point of most of these systems is Predictive Maintenance. Well, CMMS is what the maintenance, most maintenance departments use to schedule, you know, hopefully, a predictive, kind of a predictive scheduled outage to replace something. And that's what we're shooting for, is to replace the bearing before it actually fails. Because when it fails, usually you're not ready. And that results in downtime, unscheduled downtime. And so to be able to schedule for it, which means production can ramp up and build inventory levels and prepare for be down a day or two days, or however long it's gonna take. That's where the CMMS systems come into play, and so they manage all the resources and the time requirements.
Beth Elliott 33:54
So, the people they've scheduled time off that kind of thing, or
Brandon Ellis 33:58
Sure, yeah, the work, maintenance would, I don't know that CMMS system gets into resource, the resource management of the production systems. But it would certainly create a schedule for production to see and for maintenance and production to coordinate on to say, we're going to take this machine, or this line is going to go down, we're gonna, we're gonna need it for a day this week or something like that. So, production can prepare for that.
Beth Elliott 34:24
Okay. Okay.
Brandon Ellis 34:25
And that's, that's Predictive Maintenance. We're predicting that this thing needs maintenance before it actually needs maintenance, which means it's broken. So, we're trying to change things before they break. And that's really the point. And these sensors will kind of give you that EKG peek into the system without being invasive to know that that's going on. You know, when we were talking with Keary Donovan at Pathways 7, that's his system that he's put together that uses our IIoTA as the basis, is that he's using that to interface with the CMMS software suppliers that he works with. So that he actually takes it a step further, you know, I was talking about fix it. Well, what he does is when with his system, when it gets to a certain level, it notifies the CMMS software to say, this bearing or motor or whatever we've assigned it, he is assigned as needs to be maintenanced. And so that creates a ticket, a work order, basically in the CMMS system, and that's pretty cool. But then it also interfaces, if he's, if he's doing their maintenance monitoring for the plant, as far as parts monitoring, is it signals his system to go ahead, check stock, get the parts coming, and email the people saying these parts are on the way they're needed for this downtime session and everything. And so, it all happens automatically.
Beth Elliott 35:49
That's fabulous. That's like the refrigerator telling you, tell the store.
Brandon Ellis 35:53
You need milk.
Beth Elliott 35:54
Yeah.
Brandon Ellis 35:55
That's right.
Beth Elliott 35:56
And then ordering it from wherever and you go pick it up.
Brandon Ellis 35:59
Even better, somebody shows up at the door with it. That's exactly what he's got put together. It's really cool.
Beth Elliott 36:05
For the machines. That's fantastic.
Brandon Ellis 36:06
Yeah. I mean, by the general rules of IoT, that's it.
Beth Elliott 36:13
Yeah.
Brandon Ellis 36:14
So, we talk about industrial IoT mean, being just get plant floor data and work with all the ERP systems and things of that nature. But he takes it a step further, and not just involving maintenance with the CMMS. But he also gets purchasing involved where it automatically will, will say these parts are needed, get them on the way. And so, at the time, that that you're ready to start your predictive maintenance, you know, the down the predictive or scheduled downtime. You have your resources managed, you have your, your production managed, and now you also have your parts there.
Beth Elliott 36:46
Yeah. Would you consider that Industry 5.0?
Brandon Ellis 36:50
Maybe
Beth Elliott 36:51
Cause I mean, 4.0 just seems like some I don't know, monitoring, but then you go to 5.0, and it's ordering the stuff for you and predicting
Brandon Ellis 37:02
Why not, Beth. You're taking us to Smart Condition Monitoring Industry. 5.0.
Beth Elliott 37:08
I need a sound for that.
Brandon Ellis 37:10
Yeah. You know what you need? Beth Elliott, Industry 5.0 podcast. Maybe we start a new podcast that you host.
Beth Elliott 37:19
No, no, I'd have to have a guest. Like
Brandon Ellis 37:24
You're the visionary. No, I mean, who knows what Industry 5.0 is going to be. It's the next industrial, that'll be the next Industrial Revolution. And some folks are already trying to claim 5.0. But, you know, Industry 1.0, the first Industrial Revolution, was when we learned how to use water and steam. And then it kind of goes from there. 3.0 was the advent of really the PLC or using electronics for controlling production, computers, I guess, computer chips to control production. And then 4.0 is when we start having things work together. And really 4.0 is by definition, a smart condition monitoring system where we look at something, we see it's out of limits, and if it stays out limits for a time or based upon some type of criteria, we communicate to that other machine, that's M2M machine to machine, it automatically one machine communicates to the other machine and says you need to adjust and this much and they say okay, we're adjusting. And so that and then they learn from that, that machine will learn and say okay, when I see this, these conditions, I need to you know, even though it feels right, I need to adjust. And so we begin to do AI. So that is Industry 4.0.
Beth Elliott 38:40
Okay, nice.
Brandon Ellis 38:42
Yeah.
Beth Elliott 38:43
So, do you want to - the Balluff sensor? Do you want to go over I mean, I think we should have a web page on the website, but I'll put it on the show notes. So, you guys after this show, just scroll down to the notes and I'll have something on the notes.
Brandon Ellis 38:57
So really quickly, what we've done is we have worked closely with in alliance with Balluff. We have their sensors, their condition. BCM is the series name of their sensors. And of course, it's IO link sensors that are coming to one of, we don't really care, but either the Ethernet IP or the PROFINET. I don't think we can, we can't do the EtherCAT but the Ethernet IP or the PROFINET, and we're not. That, that's the coupler that it has to connect to.
Beth Elliott 39:10
Okay
Brandon Ellis 39:25
But we don't need Ethernet IP or PROFINET, we're not using that. It's just that that gets it on the network connection because we communicate. We don't communicate serially, and IO Link is a serial protocol with the IIoTA so we, we communicate across the TCP IP network. So those two couplers for them will get it on the network. We really don't care which one and then you don't have to hook to a PLC. We don't have to set up nodes or anything at that point. You configure your sensors to decide because those sensors will do all kinds of modes. They'll monitor. They can monitor individual accelerometers per channel. You have four channels. You can assign them to vibration, individual vibrations, a composite vibration on one channel, so you can use the other ones for humidity and temperature, you know, all those kinds of things that you can do just in the setup of their sensor. That's not IIoTA stuff; that's their sensor. In the IIoTA, we just read the data in based upon whatever you've assigned, visualize it, and then we can
Beth Elliott 40:24
Adjust accordingly?
Brandon Ellis 40:24
Do whatever you want to set it up to do. And so, we're pretty excited about that. We've, again, we've spent some time we've got some folks that are really looking at that strongly. And we're getting ready to start doing some installations soon, soon of this. This is new, this is hot off the press.
Beth Elliott 40:28
That's fantastic.
Brandon Ellis 40:39
And so yeah, we I'm sure we need to have a website, or web page on our website.
Beth Elliott 40:45
Have you named it yet?
Brandon Ellis 40:46
The website?
Beth Elliott 40:47
The kit.
Brandon Ellis 40:49
No, no, I'm gonna let you do that.
Beth Elliott 40:51
Oh, yes, that is my job.
Brandon Ellis 40:52
SCM. That's what the IIoTA SCM, smart conditioning monitoring system. You know, and then then we're planning to, of course, Keary is not necessarily using the Balluff, there are plenty of BCM systems, condition monitoring systems out there that we can interface with. But this particular one ties in with our dashboard tool.
Beth Elliott 41:15
Oh,
Brandon Ellis 41:17
And that's the difference. The visualization. He's using the IIoTA to do all the CMMS integration and all of the network calls and all that kind of stuff, as well as interface with the BCM system that he's using. But as far as our drag and drop dashboard, being a direct connect, that's, that's one of the differences with the Balluff system. And so, yeah, I think I think it's a pretty cool thing. And so, a lot of people are talking about it, like you said, the beginning of this podcast. So, there you go.
Beth Elliott 41:48
All right, how we doing on time?
Brandon Ellis 41:50
About 45 minutes, maybe a little less. Hey, that's, that's a record.
Beth Elliott 41:55
That's pretty good.
Brandon Ellis 41:57
So, guys, we've been trying Beth, and I, we get, especially me, it's not her, it's me. I get talking and I go down rabbit trails and all this kind of stuff, and next thing, you know, it's pushing an hour. And so, we're trying to get our time's down. So, this is a great time to tell you our website address, it's www.ellitek.com. And also, to encourage you guys, to if you like what you hear and you like our podcast to certainly leave us some comments, especially if there's topics you would like to hear. Or if you've got an issue or a problem that you want to see how I would handle that, those kind of things. But also, we want to if you're on Apple podcast, to give us a five-star review that helps us get on up the list with everybody. And then if you're not on Apple, or even if you are, you can subscribe. You can give us a like, share, share the podcast. And you all have been doing a great job of that. And we appreciate that. And we're happy to keep sending, sending out these podcasts. They publish what every other Tuesday. Right?
Beth Elliott 43:00
That is correct. Yes.
Brandon Ellis 43:01
So, look for us every other Tuesday. And if you subscribe, then I assume what that means.
Beth Elliott 43:05
They'll get notified
Brandon Ellis 43:06
You'll get notified every new episode. So, I want to thank all of our listeners. And we're. Where are we? I haven't asked.
Beth Elliott 43:15
I forgot to look this morning.
Brandon Ellis 43:17
It's up, up, up.
Beth Elliott 43:18
It's doing well. I do appreciate everybody listening. And if you if you enjoy the show, share it.
Brandon Ellis 43:24
Yeah, yeah,
Beth Elliott 43:24
Talk about it.
Brandon Ellis 43:26
Well, I actually enjoy listening. So, I'm a I'm an active avid listener. I don't like listening to me necessarily because no one likes to hear themselves speak.
Beth Elliott 43:36
It's difficult.
Brandon Ellis 43:36
But Beth always fills in the blanks and makes it makes it nice again, so. So yeah, what else we got?
Beth Elliott 43:42
Well, that's all I have today, Brandon. I appreciate your time and this this Balluff things gonna be it's, I'm excited about it.
Brandon Ellis 43:50
Yeah, well, condition monitoring in general is going to be really good.
Beth Elliott 43:53
And this I was able to follow this episode a little bit better.
Brandon Ellis 43:56
Then the last one.
Beth Elliott 43:57
The last one, the machines. Oh, my goodness gracious.
Brandon Ellis 44:01
Yeah, that was an advanced topic that, that that I think some folks wanted to hear.
Beth Elliott 44:07
And it was good. It just I could, for me, it's difficult. My brain doesn't work that way.
Brandon Ellis 44:12
It was that was a challenge for me to bring it down. Honestly, I've been doing motion control for golly over 25 years. And so even with our younger engineers, when I'm when I'm talking to them occasionally, I'll do some teaching sessions for our folks when it comes to motion. And, you know, I'm like middle aged man, you know, back in my day, you know, that kind of thing. But I think there was good things about back in my day because we had to piece the parts together. And so, I have an understanding of
Beth Elliott 44:44
You have deeper knowledge of it.
Brandon Ellis 44:46
Why. Yeah, why we had to do that. And more importantly, I would always try to take shortcuts just like any young engineer will try to do. And I saw some crazy stuff happen as a result and then it was the why did why did that not work. And so, you know that if every time you try something, it always works, you're not really learning. It's the times that you mess up that you, all those mistakes that build wisdom. So happy to share that.
Beth Elliott 45:12
I should be wise; I should be very wise.
Brandon Ellis 45:18
So, guys, let's wrap up this episode.
Beth Elliott 45:20
It's www.ellitek.com.
Brandon Ellis 45:26
And then we're on LinkedIn. What's our,
Beth Elliott 45:28
It's elliTek hyphen, Inc, or dash, whatever you want to do.
Brandon Ellis 45:33
And then we're on it. So, just search for elliTek pretty much on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and, and also LinkedIn and certainly connect with us, follow us, and we'll keep these things coming. So, Beth
Beth Elliott 45:49
Yes, Brandon.
Brandon Ellis 45:50
Let's get on with spring. What do you say?
Beth Elliott 45:52
I think that's an excellent idea. And I appreciate you guys listening. Thank you so much.
Brandon Ellis 45:56
Thanks, guys. Have a great week. Two weeks. We'll see you soon. Thanks.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
