Improving Machine Health with Machine Condition Monitoring (ft. PROWAVE) | InnoTalks

Many industries are shifting from time-based maintenance to condition-based maintenance strategies. Unnecessary maintenance can compromise productivity and waste resources, while condition monitoring helps to predict machine health via sensor data and other metrics. This ensures a satisfactory median between a proactive approach and maximizing productivity, in contrast to outdated methods such as breakdown maintenance.  

Prowave offers digital condition monitoring solutions for continuous equipment status updates, all remotely. This is achieved with installation of an ICP vibration accelerometer on equipment to measure machine vibration levels. Advantech hardware also plays a part in the solution as a leading supplier of data acquisition devices, including plug-in PCI/PCIE cards, portable USB models, DAQ-embedded computers, and more. The Advantech WISE-2000 series is also ideal for condition-based monitoring as a wireless, all-in-one sensor solution for equipment maintenance applications. 

A key condition-based monitoring component is LoRaWAN, a low power, wide area networking protocol that allows wireless connection end nodes Internet access. Prowave’s condition-monitoring software, coupled with an Advantech LoRaWAN vibration sensor, help build the GM LoRa Wireless Monitoring Solution. The state-of-the-art solution analyzes vibrations to provide machine health updates to end-users to avoid costly downtime and expensive equipment repairs.