C&W Services implemented a wireless and AI-based predictive maintenance (PdM) solution from Petasense at a leading pharmaceutical and biotech client’s facility to automate data collection, improve asset reliability, reduce equipment downtime and achieve better resource allocation by continuous monitoring of critical machinery.
“With Petasense, even an average facility operator can easily deploy PdM, use it effectively, conduct waveform and spectrum analysis and derive meaningful insights with limited training, unlike other solutions in the market.”
— David Auton, Senior Director of Reliability Engineering
C&W Services (or Cushman & Wakefield Services) is a leading integrated facilities services and management company that serves more than 600 clients with the maintenance of more than 600 million square feet across North America. C&W Services has seen its clients transform from reactive to preventive to predictive maintenance models over the years.
C&W Services was using a manual condition monitoring program at one of its leading life sciences’ client up until last year. At best, data was collected manually every 30 days, even on the most critical machines, using a handheld data logger. After the data collection all of the data analysis had to be outsourced to a third party for analysis. This approach has several limitations:
The potential for failure of large systems and serious limitations posed by their walk-around program, prompted C&W Services to evaluate wireless PdM solutions available on the market. Their team set forth the following criteria:
After evaluating several options, C&W Services deployed Petasense’s IIoT-based PdM technology to monitor, analyze and predict the health of important industrial equipment such as AHUs, pumps, compressors, exhaust fans and chillers. C&W Services installed tri-axial vibration sensors called Motes, connected them to the facility’s Wi-Fi network and began receiving data and actionable intelligence instantly.
“The tri-axial data from the Motes improves the diagnostic capabilities by increasing the volume and variety of data available at your fingertips,” said Auton. “Also, when you take readings at the exact same time across multiple dimensions and machines, they become much more valuable.” “Further, it was very easy to install.” Auton was impressed by the intuitiveness, simplicity and elegance of the Petasense technology. The ease of implementation and its ability to run on LAN (IP 802.3 protocol) accessible everywhere was a huge value driver for the C&W Services team.
By implementing Petasense’s technology, C&W Services is able to continuously collect vibration and temperature data, predict machine failures, optimize on resource allocation, avoid unnecessary repair costs and improve equipment uptime for it’s important life sciences client. Soon after deployment, reliability engineers at C&W Services caught a defect in an AHU. It displayed increased vibration amplitudes. Upon investigation, it was verified that the belts were running loose and the shafts were out of alignment. Petasense’s ML based prediction helped identify the issues in a timely manner and prevented a catastrophic failure. This individual case alone saved C&W Services’ client significant repair costs and unplanned downtime, sufficient to justify the installation.
In another instance, Petasense detected an extremely noisy pump. C&W Services was able to schedule a repair promptly and the pump returned to its normal vibration signature upon lubrication. With Petasense, the reliability leaders at C&W Services are able to receive real time alerts along with actionable intelligence on their intuitive web and mobile dashboards as soon as an anomaly is detected. “For us the high point is when we start demonstrating Petasense’s machine learning capabilities to our clients,” said Auton. “Our goal is to take the magic out of condition based monitoring and then use science to make it as common as an appliance.” C&W Services also enjoys access to the Petasense customer success team and knowledge base for the next level of interpretation, as needed. According to Auton, “Most scenarios are able to generate a one year ROI or payback on saved resource costs by switching from manual data collection to wireless PdM and automated analysis.” “Wireless PdM from Petasense is an excellent alternative to periodic walk-around programs at a great price point,” said Jim Dawson, Executive Director at C&W Services. “We have been able to fix our dated data collection process with continuous monitoring and predictive analytics.”