March 2020

18 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk March 2020 Maintenance Matters Focus on: Maintenance Software A ugmented reality (AR) has a long relationship with the industrial sector. In fact, one of the first applications of the technology was in the navigation of NASA’s X-38 spacecraft. Today, the advancement of AR technology has made it easily accessible to consumers and engineers alike via smartphone apps. In the dairy industry as in many others, margins are everything. Business leaders always want their operations to be as efficient and effective as possible, with the highest possible uptime and the lowest possible operational expenses. This means low product wastage, high energy efficiency and lean processes. However, dairy manufacturers and processing plants face an additional pressure. Raw dairy produce has a very limited lifespan, so it’s vital that it is treated in a timely fashion to prevent potential risks to public health. Unsurprisingly, regulation is very stringent on factors such as hygiene and the correct temperature for milk to be stored at pre- treatment. Each of these are defined in the UK’s Dairy Products (Hygiene) Regulations 1995. This is one of the key distinctions between dairy processing and many other industrial segments. Improved process speed and operational efficacy isn’t simply sought after to increase throughput and profitability. It becomes an objective because it directly correlates with the safety of products. If raw milk spends too long at a temperature above 6 degrees Celsius without being properly treated, it becomes at risk of harmful bacteria growing. Whether a dairy manufacturer is setting out to reduce their product wastage or lower energy usage, one thing remains a constant. No matter how many shiny new machines, automated systems or wirelessly connected widgets a business invests in, maintenance will be the key to getting the most out of hardware investments. In spite of this, it’s often the part of the process that many engineers begrudge, due either to it being time-consuming, labour-intensive or highly complex to maintain certain systems. Digitalising maintenance Fortunately, advancements in industrial automation systems over the past decade have gone some way to addressing the challenges conventionally associated with maintenance. As more industrial assets — whether that is the pump in a milk pasteuriser or the SCADA system controlling a packaging line — are able to connect with manufacturing execution systems (MESs) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, dairy plant managers are presented with an increasingly reliable and Plant & Works Engineering looks at how dairy manufacturers can use AR to augment plant maintenance. A new reality for dairy processing

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