Industrial Automation Magazine India

Remote Maintenance: Fast, Easy and Safe

Published on : Saturday 08-05-2021

An innovative remote maintenance solution that connects an OEM to all of its assets from one central location.

Remote working is the new normal for all. We no longer are limited to our workplaces for carrying out our work. Remotely and independently managing machines and lines are driving future factories and advanced maintenance practices. There is an increasing need for accessing machines and lines remotely. However, in these cases, IT operations in the factory focus on data integrity and data security, whereas production and maintenance teams focus on machine and line availability. Many factories look at balancing both these needs. 
 
One of our Indian OEMs was troubled with high service costs and higher bills on service engineer travels. Most of the time, we're down to inappropriate information of breakdown or difficulty supporting over a phone call. It was also a hassle for the service engineers to travel to various areas to maintain the machines. Our remote maintenance solution fits perfectly for his fundamental needs of providing better service. Coupling condition-based maintenance and predictive maintenance in this solution were like icing on a cake for the OEM.
 
Moreover, the scalability offered by the B&R system made it possible for OEM to incorporate this solution in its existing machine with significant modifications in system design. He practiced a remote maintenance solution coupled with condition-based maintenance in his machines for effectively diagnosing and predicting faults. He can do it with a secure connection to the devices from anywhere across the globe. OEM is happy that this has helped him reduce service costs, travel costs and provide best-in-class service to his customers. The condition-based maintenance solution helps the OEM analyse data and understand any complex failures in its machines. Even the slightest of issues goes undetected. Secure remote maintenance and condition monitoring have reduced his service costs drastically and have enabled him to provide higher availability in his machine. Moreover, the factory is benefiting from improved machine uptime, better productivity, and minimised unplanned downtime. The solution's security helps the factory maintain the data integrity and security while also satisfying their production and maintenance teams to benefit from higher availability and thus higher profitability.  
 
The market for industrial manufacturing technology is a global one. Modern communication and transportation make it possible to sell machines and plants to customers in all corners of the world. The task of maintaining those assets, however, can be a daunting challenge. To avoid flying service technicians and engineers halfway worldwide, OEMs are increasingly relying on remote maintenance. This small solution makes it easy to respond to unforeseen problems in addition to accelerating commissioning quickly. As a result, the capacity utilisation of a system is maximised.
 
Quick service anywhere in the world
With B&R solution, ‘Secure Remote Maintenance’, OEMs can offer their end customers service and maintenance of the machines from anywhere in the world. When a customer’s equipment or machine is under breakdown, every minute counts. If a service technician is not available locally, it can be many hours before an expert is on-site. With B&R remote maintenance solution, a technician can connect, run diagnostics, adjust parameters and resolve the error – all in a matter of moments. A service technician or engineer can access machines from anywhere in the world to retrieve logbook entries, application data and much more. Downtime is kept to a minimum, and costly travel can be avoided completely. In this way, a technician can promptly service multiple machines and plants.
 
State-of-the-art security

Between SiteManager on the machine and GateManager, data is secured by an encrypted VPN connection further protected by the use of certificates. An additional level of protection is provided by a firewall integrated in SiteManager. Access rights to the machine by service technicians is governed by GateManager and its integrated machine pool management system. Remote access can also be enabled explicitly using a key switch, which can be connected via inputs and outputs integrated in SiteManager.
 
Easy to use
Secure Remote Maintenance from B&R is extremely easy to operate. The technician doesn't need to be an IT specialist to configure it, either. Access rights to the machine are easily managed in GateManager using drag-and-drop. Using B&R's SiteManager also saves both time and money, since it only needs to be configured once for use on different machines.
 
Data acquisition and remote maintenance 
LogTunnel makes it possible to record machine data to a central database server (log server) in the cloud or on-site. This permanent connection between machine and log server is essential to implementing advanced business solutions such as predictive maintenance and monitoring of machine data and condition parameters. The permanent connection is set up using drag-and drop without requiring special IT know-how. Routing, firewalls or VPN tunnel configurations are unnecessary. The on-demand connection established in the event of maintenance does not interrupt an ongoing permanent data connection via LogTunnel.
 
Additional advantages with Automation Studio
As with any B&R hardware, SiteManager can be configured in our Automation Studio software. No additional configuration is necessary when delivered, and the machine can be commissioned even faster. 
 
In line with conventional security policies
Secure Remote Maintenance complies with existing IT and security policies. No additional open ports are necessary. This makes implementation in your company network about as easy as it gets. 
 
Innovative business models
B&R remote maintenance solution connects an OEM to all of its assets from one central location. This brings them closer to the customer and allows them to offer additional services with significant added value. New business models are possible, such as using condition monitoring with sophisticated analytics and load profiles to optimise service scheduling. 
 
B&R is the world's only single-source supplier for controls and robotics. Robots from its parent company ABB are fully integrated in the B&R automation system. Customers benefit from unprecedented precision in synchronisation between robotics and machine control. They need only one controller and one engineering system for development, diagnostics and maintenance.