Jonathan Machin on the merits of remote monitoring and diagnostics
The phrase “time flies!” is a classic expression in today’s fast-evolving world, in which change has become a common driver, influencing us as individuals and our behaviour. The constant feeling of having a lot to complete within a short period leads to stress – and losing overview affects the result, because the attention to detail is lost. Procentec has always put the user experience into focus. When it comes to the race against time, the company aims to enable its customers to take back the driver’s seat and control the outcome.
Remote monitoring and diagnostics: a solution to mixed architectures
Because time is so valuable, every second lost can have an enormous impact on ongoing processes. A perfect example to show movement in the industry is mixed network architectures. The number of sites that run multiple protocols including PROFIBUS, PROFINET and/or Ethernet/IP is increasing, unleashing a new set of tasks. With a new set of tasks on the table, attention is shifting away from the main objective: minimising downtime. To guarantee uptime in the factory, it is necessary to understand the change and react accordingly by educating employees, bringing their knowledge up-to-date.
Procentec mastered the challenges faced by mixed network architectures and is able to provide not only certified training, but also multi-protocol tools that are easy-to-use and remotely accessible at any given moment. This provides opportunity to learn how to master these challenges and maintain uptime in a network – all at the same time.
Valuable time saved with remote monitoring
Remote monitoring helps in saving and prioritising valuable time, but it can also be very beneficial in case other sudden factors come into play. These factors can also be a change or a development in the global climate; events that cause chain-reactions affecting the economy in unforeseen ways. For instance, health-threatening situations can result in limited or even denied access to factories, making maintenance a rather unachievable job. This is where the ability of remotely monitoring a network’s health becomes handy, as physical presence on site is no longer necessary and live network information can still be easily retrieved.
Multiple benefits of remote monitoring
To summarise, remote monitoring has multiple benefits to put the user back into the driver seat, take control of the tasks and the time spent on them. Procentec aims to be by the user’s side, whether dealing with mixed network architectures or having to adapt to a global situation. Its permanent monitoring solutions, ComBricks (for PROFIBUS and Atlas, running on Osiris for PROFINET and Ethernet/IP) are easy-to-use and remotely accessible. This means important diagnostics information can be retrieved at any given time, without the necessity for someone to be on-site, ensuring safety, uptime for the network and being able to increase the knowledge on the current industry standards necessary.
The overall result for the end user is comfort in knowing the status of their network. This enables them to take charge of their daily tasks – and maybe even end the day earlier, with no worries on their mind.
Jonathan Machin is with Procentec
