2009-09-16 - ABB’s award-winning remote service for industrial robots is improving productivity at plants and workshops all over the world by identifying robot problems by wireless remote before they escalate into production disturbances.
By ABB Communications
ABB Remote Service agreements are designed to monitor customers’ robots, predict when problems are likely to occur and ensure that help is dispatched before the problem escalates and disturbs production.
In just two years since its launch in mid-2007, ABB’s Remote Service has had a huge impact on robot productivity all over the world and taken predictive maintenance in robotics applications to a new and more sophisticated level.
More than 1,300 robots in 35 countries are currently supported by the service, and the number is growing rapidly across a broad sweep of industries and applications – from major automotive manufacturers and suppliers to small and medium-sized companies in metals, plastics, wood, solar, food and consumer goods.
Industry recognition has come came quickly. In June 2008, ABB Remote Service won the Gold Value Chain Award for Smart Services at the M2M (Machine-to-Machine) United Conference in Chicago for “combining multiple technologies to deliver high-quality services to customers.”
ABB remote monitoring solution safeguards production
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ABB Remote Service hardware (left to right): a communication unit, antenna and GSM card.The communication unit is similar in function to an airplane’s black box. The "service box" is connected to a robot’s control system and can read and transmit critical diagnostic information for immediate support in the event of a failure. The ccommunication link also makes it possible to monitor and analyze the robot’s condition for needed maintenance.
Customers report that in addition to cutting robot production stops and the overall cost of ownership, ABB’s remote online service has increased overall productivity and improved process quality and product consistency.
In 60-percent of cases, ABB can solve the problem by remote without further intervention or the need for site visits
One example of many is the forging and foundry company, Comforsa, which reports a 40-percent reduction in robot downtime and a rise in robot availability to 98.5-percent for the 19 ABB robots supported by the remote service at its foundry.
A second example is Tetley GB Ltd, the world’s second largest manufacturer and distributor of tea. Colin Trevor, plant maintenance manager at Tetley’s U.K. tea production facility, describes the impact of ABB Remote Service as follows:
Dramatic changes
“The remote service package has dramatically changed the plant. We no longer have breakdown issues throughout the shift, helping us to achieve much longer periods of robot uptime.”
The hardware at the center of ABB Remote Service is a communication unit that is connected to the robot’s control system. The unit monitors and analyzes the robot’s condition to proactively detect the need for maintenance.
If the robot breaks down the unit stores the status of the robot, its historical data and diagnostic parameters and transmits the information via the GSM network to a central ABB server for analysis on a dedicated website for that particular robot.
Alerts are automatically sent to the nearest of ABB’s 1,500 robot service engineers (in more than 40 countries). The engineer can quickly identify the problem, offer rapid customer support and if necessary arrange for speedy delivery of spare parts or visit the site to repair the robot.
Experience shows that in 60 percent of cases, ABB can solve the problem remotely, without further intervention or the need for site visits.
Click here to learn more about
Comforsa's and
Tetley's assessment of ABB Remote Service.