Predictive maintenance firm brings novel solutions to oil & gas market
An expert in predictive maintenance for Industry 4.0 has designed and brought to market a universal, turnkey and stand-alone solution for monitoring equipment and preventing breakdowns. Flexible, adaptable and scalable, it is already installed on many industrial sites in different sectors, covering a wide range of use cases. Now, the company behind the technology, Asystom, has entered into technological alliances with key players in the oil & gas sector to develop a sector-specific solution.
The innovative technology takes the detailed operating imprint of a machine to monitor and alert any drift or malfunction in real time. The objective is to improve the productivity – and therefore the profitability – of the production units by avoiding unscheduled shutdowns.
Asystom’s first ATEX zone 1 certified beacons are enabling the firm to offer oil & gas players access to the predictive maintenance 4.0 technology developed by the company. The AsystomSentinel EX beacon monitors not only vibration in three-axis and heat but also ultrasound too, enabling users to have the earliest possible alert of drift while operating safely in the hazardous environments. Its ATEX/IECEx certification and intrinsic safety allow it to be used in areas at risk of explosion (Zone 1) in the petrochemical and chemical industries, in particular.
The sensors communicate through a LoRa network and are data-encrypted end to end. They run on standard batteries (so no need for additional wiring) for up to 10 years without intervention. An additional advantage of LoRa is that due to its low frequency wireless transmission, the sensors can be positioned up to 1km away from the LoRA gateway. Data is processed at the edge on the sensors and then the information is transferred and stored in the cloud through an encrypted secure network and then accessible through a web-based application (an on-premise solution option is also available). The database can easily be integrated into a customer’s existing platform
First Oil & Gas Deployment
The first installation of this new solution was made at Total ABK in March 2021 on an offshore platform located off Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for the monitoring of a set of critical pumps operation. “Our predictive maintenance solution convinced Total with its ease of implementation, its record autonomy of 10 years and the quality of its prediction algorithms, based on data from multi-sensor beacons integrating vibration and ultrasound analysis,” says André Naccache, managing director at Asystom. “Total, which supported us throughout the product development phase, wanted to install this solution as soon as possible to benefit from this technology and increase its digitalisation programme. Other installations are currently underway, both in France and internationally,” he adds.
Technological Cooperation
In a further development, Archer and Asystom signed a cooperation agreement in February 2021, allowing the Norwegian company to offer predictive maintenance technology designed by Asystom to drilling platforms in the oil and gas market.
“Asystom’s technology is easily adaptable to our industry and meets the market demands for improved asset management by use of artificial intelligence. Machine learning will enable us to predict and avoid shutdowns, thus reducing non-productive time significantly. The system will aid the asset owner to further reduce cost by enhanced condition control and optimising maintenance planning. Consequently, the system will respond to our goals to reduce our industry’s carbon footprint,” explains Peter Nygaard Andersen, VP Engineering at Archer.
With its solid experience in drilling installations, Archer began commercialising predictive maintenance technology from March 2021, while providing Asystom with a wealth of skills and knowledge, which will allow both parties to collaborate and work for the development of their solutions on the international drilling market.
A New Alliance
With the desire to provide players in the oil & gas market with an integrated asset management solution, Asystom has also entered into a technological alliance with Apollo, a UK-based engineering and technology consultancy firm, for the continuous monitoring of installations throughout of their life cycle.
Apollo KnowHow is an industry-agnostic data management solution that helps users manage their asset integrity efficiently from anomalies to work planning, inspection, structural maintenance, overhaul and reporting. Asystom’s technology is added to the platform, to provide users with additional predictive maintenance data.
“The Asystom solution enables industry players to increase their production by up to 25%, by predicting failures of equipment and transmitting all data in real time and accurately to the Apollo KnowHow system. The information and alerts are then presented in an easy-to-use dashboard, making it easy for our customers to see their data,” explains Douglas Sinclair, director of digital applications at Apollo.