The role of data visibility in preventing industrial equipment failures and operational errors (part 1)

Every business wants – and needs – to be efficient and productive. Inefficient processes and other hurdles to streamlined operation affect:

• Costs and time spent

• Output levels and quality

• Employee workload and motivation levels

• Supplier, distributor and customer relationships

Equipment failure is a common cause of downtime and lost productivity. According to the International Society of Automation, downtime causes up to a 20% drop in productivity – and most facilities don’t realize how much this costs them, underestimating the total cost of downtime by as much as 300%.

To quickly respond to – and ideally prevent – equipment failures, it’s important to understand the many potential causes.

In the first article of our 2-part series on industrial data visibility, we’ll cover:

• Common causes of operational errors and equipment failure

• The common reasons behind these causes

Failures can be caused by:

Even if you follow best practices for operation, maintenance and storage, general wear and tear eventually affects all machinery and components. This gradual damage is unavoidable, making wear and tear one of the most common causes of industrial equipment failure.

Something as simple as a worker overtightening a screw could accidentally cause equipment to break down. Unintentional changes to an operation routine – skipping or repeating a step, forgetting the right timing, or pressing the wrong button in a moment of panic – could also trigger equipment failures.

Issues with unreliable power sources have the potential to severely impact industrial operations. If a circuit is overloaded or a power surge happens, connected sensitive equipment may be damaged beyond repair. Facilities that don’t have safeguards and/or backups in place may also take longer to recover from outages.

Hardware and software updates often contain patches for known issues, security exploits, and other bugs. Updates can also add features that make equipment more efficient and/or versatile. Forgetting to regularly check for and install updates, or leaving longer periods between checks, increases the risk of system errors.

When you investigate a case of industrial equipment failure more closely, you’re likely to find out that one or more of these issues played a part:

Factors such as the ambient temperature and the amount of air pollution can increase the wear on machines installed in that space. Some risks remain whether the equipment is running or in storage – for example, in harsh industrial environments where the humidity level is always high.

‘Improper operation’ of equipment sounds deliberate – but operator error may not always be on purpose. In many cases, errors are the result of workers not having the training, qualifications and/or information they need.

Reactive maintenance – waiting for an issue to occur and then fixing it – is still surprisingly common in many industries. It keeps the complexity and up-front costs of maintenance low, but is only ever a short-term measure against the risks of long-term damage and downtime.

You may not think that doing even more to keep a machine in ideal condition is a bad thing. However, when that equipment is already well maintained and in good working order, “over-maintenance” can have the opposite effect. At best, additional maintenance takes time and resources away from other work tasks – at worst, it could shorten the working lifespan of the equipment.

Some equipment requires constant monitoring for optimization and efficient running. Whenever remote monitoring of HMIs and other data outputs isn’t part of the operation and control system, workers who aren’t on site may not have the latest, most accurate information. As a result, they could make uninformed decisions and/or take unnecessary actions.

Depending on the size and scale of your industrial system, checking for these potential issues may mean you have a lot of ground to cover.

However, there’s a way to get straight to the core problem – and fix it.

In part 2, we’ll look at (what we believe is) the ultimate factor in industrial equipment failures.