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  • 1.  Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-13-2024 10:34 AM

    Hello! Our company is a food manufacturing company that is exploring the implementation of a predictive maintenance monitoring system. We are considering working with a company called Augury (sensors to measure temperature, vibration, magnetic flux combined with AI models). Currently we mainly have inspection based PMs and some time based replacement PMs, no PMs with condition based monitoring so it would be a big jump.

    Has anyone worked with Augury and can share their experience? We use SAP as our CMMS and would want to integrate the systems. They also offer insurance back coverage if there are asset failures that were undetected.



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    Julia Lobo BEng
    Operational Excellence Manager- Maintenance
    FGF Brands
    Toronto ON
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  • 2.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-14-2024 07:28 AM

    Julia,

    We currently use Augury at my company and so far, has been a great addition.  It's a little expensive and someone will have to be available to respond to the e-mails and alerts that are generated by the Augury analyst.  If you don't have an analyst onsite, then Augury will provide an even greater benefit because you will have an analyst assigned to your mill to monitor the equipment.  They also do a great job when they come onsite to install the sensor.



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    Luther Tilley
    Maintenance Superintendent
    Canfor Southern Yellow Pine
    Deridder LA
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-14-2024 09:37 AM

    Hi Luther,

    Thank you for sharing! A few follow up questions-

    • Does your company have an internal analyst onsite or are you working with an Augury analyst? If the latter, how how has working with them been?
    • How successful was system/platform at preventing breakdowns for motors/bearings/pumps etc? Did the new process flag risks early enough for scheduled corrective action and prevent nearly all possible failures?
    • Is Augury system integrated with your CMMS? We use SAP for work order and maint spares management.
    • Any notable challenges your team faced when adopting the Augury sensors/systems/processes or still faces?



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    Julia Lobo BEng
    Operational Excellence Manager- Maintenance
    FGF Brands
    Toronto ON
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-14-2024 09:50 AM

    Julia,

    I'm a level IV analyst but our other sites do not have analyst onsite.  All the site work with an assigned analyst even my site.  My experience so far is the Augury analyst are knowledgeable, helpful, and professional.

    The system is very successful at preventing breakdown, but that is also dependent on how well the plant or company responds to the Augury alerts.

    It is at some of the Mill and you also receive e-mails and text message.  I personally don't recommend the CMMS intergration.

    My team did not have any notable challenges, but I would recommend you have someone responsible for the Augury system and responding to the alerts.



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    Luther Tilley
    Maintenance Superintendent
    Canfor Southern Yellow Pine
    Deridder LA
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-15-2024 07:42 AM

    The company that I work for has a very good sensoring platform.  If you want to go to our website and check it out please feel free.  We are based in the Southeast (Greenville, SC area).  We have a Reliability center where we manage the alerts, establish cadence calls with the customer to ensure issues are being addressed, or we can dispatch Technicians to help with the adjustment or repair required per the alert.  I hope this helps you in your journey.... Machine Health Monitoring Systems | ATS (advancedtech.com).  If I can help please let me know.

    Regards,

    Richard L. Pillman 

    ATS

    General Manager

    rpillman@advancedtech.com 



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    Richard Pillman
    Advanced Technology Solutions, Inc.- Iowa
    Brimfield IL
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-15-2024 04:28 PM

    I've got Augury and another mature predictive system and analyst on site as well operating that system.  Our Augury system is on a small number of critical assets but our onsite system has the entire plant asset base.

    • We work with an Augury analyst on the machines that they monitor.  
    • They have flagged some of the issues before they happened and there have been quite a few that they have not.  Lots of reasons for that.  One being that Augury can't do low speed machines very good (less than 700rpm).  They also may struggle some with identifying run speeds on variable speed devices.  I think some of the capability may be on the platform for detail analysis but maybe several reasons that detail analysis is not fully executed on data taken.
    • We don't have integration with SAP here.  There are lots of reasons I wouldn't want to do that.  One, there needs to be more interaction before automatically generating a WO to do something.
    • There are lots of challenges but some are there no matter whose system you use.  IT challenges are one of those.  They have went thru many improvements to get their sensors water proof.  They were not good in the beginning but getting better.  
    • Augury is a good condition monitoring system like many of them out there.  They like many others are having to grow into maturity in the predictive maintenance area.  They are not on the level of an Emerson AMS system which sets the bar in predictive maintenance systems in my experience.
    • The opportunity for any of these new condition monitoring companies is not the platform and dashboard stuff (that is the easy part) but developing the expertise to execute detail predictive analysis.  Vibration analysis takes time.  Understanding the symptom that vibration analysis is picking up and diagnosing the root cause is two different things.  Had a recent issue on drive system.  One system showed type C mechanical looseness on ODE bearing of gearbox on HS shaft which was a classic signature based on the vibration signature.  Other system called out increased gear friction in gearbox.  Actions from these was likely change out the gearbox.  Human analysis when done recommended inspection of gearbox and coupling components.  Inspection found coupling failure in progress and slipping on HS input shaft to gearbox.  Due to thrust load of HS shaft it amplified the unloaded bearing looseness which was the ODE bearing where the highest vibration issue was.  AI diagnostic said change the gearbox but the root cause had nothing to do with the gearbox.  If we had followed the AI generated diagnosis would have cost us 60K and still not fixed the problem.
    • Another thing with online systems that many will not acknowledge is vibration analysis is a human function.  Data collection is a machine function.  While collecting data by sensors is good there is a ton of value having an analyst on site to do field routes and more detailed analysis which may involve phase analysis, resonance testing, visual inspection and listening to equipment.  We have found many things with the person expert on site in the field that remote analyst can't do, know or understand.  Many upper executives don't understand the value but I'm telling you it is huge.  Example, we caught a half million dollar failure due to manual data collection when the data showed nothing of concern.  Nothing wrong with having both - on site analyst and wireless continuous monitoring.


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    Randy Riddell, CMRP, PSAP, CLS
    Reliability Manager
    Essity
    Cherokee AL
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-15-2024 07:54 AM

    We use Augury as well.

    Tim Holmes, DuPont


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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-14-2024 11:53 AM

    Hi Julia,

    I agree with what Luther has responded previously about using Augury. I have used them and worked closely with their team since late 2017, and can say that their vibration solutions is good. The same goes for their technical support and installation team. In my previous company, I worked closely with them and installed over 40 applications on many systems ranging from simple motor pump skids for our HVAC system to large air and gas compressors (Critical assets). The system is easy to install and one of the points for us was the communication protocol since on over 50% of the application, the wifi was "spotty" at best. Therefore, the wifi/cellular options were a real plus in tough locations. After installation, we found right away two major issues with a couple of large motors and were able to avoid downtime. Turns out it was a bad engineering system design on the application that was affecting the motor and therefore prematurely reducing the life of the bearings.

    We had planned to complete a CMMS integration, but I am not 100% sure if this was done before leaving the company. I know when we looked at it, it did not appear we would have any major issues, so I am assuming it was completed. Since then I have heard other customers working on their CMMS integration (Like with eMaint) and not having any particular issues. I would talk to them as they seem very flexible and integrate with any system.  Lastly, we liked their dashboard features which was also a big reason we decided to go with them. 

    There are a few wireless vibration systems that are really good but I would easily put them in the top 3 depending on applications and budget needs. I hope this helps and good luck with your research/project.

    Frederic Baudart, CMRP

     



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    Frederic Baudart
    Sr. Product Marketing Manager
    Accruent, LLC
    Austin TX
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-14-2024 06:18 PM

    Hi Julia,

    I haven't worked with Augury, but I've deployed many conmon programs, and I've worked before with companies specialising in automated diagnostic. The main consideration on automated diagnostic is the time to train the AI models. The models need significant time to train on normal conditions and labelling of anomalies so they learn and can flag them next time they occur. Some models come pretrained of course with some previous facilities but at the end they need some training on your own facility to reduce the number of missed failures and false positives.

    I'd invest in some bad actor analysis, get a FRACAS in place, and then do RCM targeted to problematic and critical areas. Then I'd deploy conmon on those areas, with manual collection first, eventually automated if there's time. In my experience, reducing the footprint of conmon (predictive) programs increases success significantly - site wide implementations rarely go well.

    Hope that helps! Happy to discuss more.

    Ricardo Santos



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    Ricardo Santos
    -
    Aurecon
    Toowong QLD
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Augury Predictive Maintenance Monitoring

    Posted 02-15-2024 11:08 AM

    Hi Julia,

    First of all, thank you for the Stonefire product.  My wife used to hand-make naan when we lived in a home with a gas stove.  Stonefire is the next best thing!

    We have some deep expertise and experience with SAP integration.  I have some data architecture models that could support the answers you're looking for. I can appreciate the desire for tying back vibration analysis results to the equipment/FLOC in SAP.  There are very good reasons for that.

    If we took a step back, and ignored the solution for a moment, what are you trying to do that you're currently not able to do?  Is predictive maintenance part of a broader asset management strategy?

    I don't want to get ahead of myself but I might consider Stonefire products as a form of payment.



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    Marc Laplante
    Asset Management Principle
    Committee Member ISO TC251
    Itus Digital
    Charleston, South Carolina

    mlaplante@itusdigital.com
    www.itusdigital.com
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    Original Message


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