Condition Monitoring & IIOT

Managing compressed air in machinery posed significant challenges, contributing to energy waste, CO2 emissions, and high maintenance costs. Cabling sensors from the air treatment units to the network was both costly and complex.

Emerson’s solution involved integrating CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless technology with Emerson’s AVENTICS air flow and pressure regulation units. The “Energy Saver” solution uses CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless Bridge (TigoBridge) to retrofit the Aventics AF2 Air Flow Sensor and EV12 Pressure Regulator into wireless devices. The TigoBridge units transmit data wirelessly to CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless TigoGateway, enabling continuous airflow data from “Floor to Cloud™” for analysis and monitoring. The solution wirelessly controls the pressure regulation unit independently from the machine’s PLC, allowing intelligent operation without downtime or reprogramming.

Benefits include reducing CO2 emissions by minimizing air leakages and optimizing machine idle mode operation. The solution promotes sustainability and regulatory compliance while reducing unplanned downtime and maintenance needs. Its wireless setup eliminates extensive cabling, cuts energy expenses and overall costs.

Developed with a major food and beverage manufacturer, Emerson’s IO-Link Wireless-based Energy Saver solution is set to enhance operational efficiency and reduce environmental impact across various industries.

At Ulmer Schokoladen, enhancing chocolate manufacturing efficiency is critical. The production lines use mobile machines for sealing cartons, and moving these machines involves complex and time-consuming rewiring for communication with the main control unit.

The solution consisted of an IO-Link Wireless Bridge (TigoBridge), connected to each sensor, and an IO-Link Wireless Master (TigoMaster) communicating with the Wireless Bridges over the air, relaying data from the machines to the PLC via PROFINET. This setup enabled full wireless automation across several machines in different halls, eliminating the need for manual counting and complex wiring during relocations.

Additionally, Ulmer connected the PLCs on the production line wirelessly using CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless Hub (TigoHub). This hub collects digital outputs from secondary PLCs and transmits data back wirelessly to a TigoMaster unit, connected to the main PLC and the factory’s MES system.

Benefits include increased flexibility and agility by eliminating cables, easy deployment with minimal downtime, and enhanced reliability through industrial-grade wireless communication that ensures ongoing connectivity even without line of sight.

At the SKF Bearing Manufacturing Plant, the energy used for compressed air accounts for a large amount of the total electrical power consumption. A solution is required to monitor all the machines using compressed air to ensure optimal flow, prevent leakages and reduce waste. Cabling of the sensors from the machines to the network is challenging in terms of cost and deployment effort.

The solution enables a simple and easy to deploy wireless connection from the flow sensor on each machine via CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless solution. An IO-Link Wireless Bridge is connected to each off-the-shelf industrial flow sensor. An IO-Link Wireless Master communicates with the Wireless Bridges over the air and relays the data from the machines to CoreTigo’s visibility software without the need to reconfigure the PLCs. In addition to the flow data, the system also communicates the machine’s operational and availability status.

An array of benefits is achieved, such as annual reduction of energy consumption on compressed air, improved maintenance processes and reduction of unplanned downtime.

A USA-based Pharmaceutical Manufacturer operates across multiple sites, each housing hundreds of workstations, consisting of a mix of both new and legacy machines. Due to the blend of manual and automatic workstations, there is a lack of centralized tools for data collection. Also, workstation capacity and performance are non-optimal, and frequent relocation of workstations leads to complexity and downtime.

The solution consisted of the addition of CoreTigo’s TigoCounter wireless counting devices to sensors in designated areas along the production line, providing operators with data visibility and KPIs through the HMI. The data from the TigoCounters was wirelessly collected throughout the production line by CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless Masters and integrated into a cloud-based OEE application to utilize it for analytics and actionable insights, as well as to find opportunities for improvement at the problematic workstations.