If your manufacturing facility isn’t having this conversation, you may want to. On this episode, host Mike Murphy is joined by Michelle Schwery, director of US Motion Service portfolios. Listen as Michelle explains how ABB Services play a role in circularity, such as lifecycle management of a product or ensuring operations are up and running.
Learn more about ABB Motion Services
Read more about Circularity here
Read, "Leading the way to the circular economy"
If your manufacturing facility isn’t having this conversation, you may want to. On this episode, host Mike Murphy is joined by Michelle Schwery, director of US Motion Service portfolios. Listen as Michelle explains how ABB Services play a role in circularity, such as lifecycle management of a product or ensuring operations are up and running.
Learn more about ABB Motion Services
Read more about Circularity here
Read, "Leading the way to the circular economy"
Hello, listeners, Mike Murphy here and welcome to another episode of The ABB solutions podcast, where we discuss a wide variety of topics faced in the industry. Today we're having a conversation that is affecting manufacturing. And if your facility is not having this conversation, you may be missing the boat. It's on circularity. To help us better understand I brought in Michelle Sherry, Director of us motion service portfolios. Michelle, welcome.
Michelle Schwery:Thanks for having me.
Mike Murphy:Yeah, it's great having you. In a previous podcast titled circularity and why your industry should care. We covered on a high level what circularity is and how it affects industries. So I asked Michelle to dive a bit deeper with this discussion and focus on how ABB services plays a role in circularity, such as ensuring operations are up and running. So Michelle, let's let's get started. So just explain real quick, how can services impact circularity?
Michelle Schwery:Thanks, Mike. So when you spoke with HJ Davis, he focused on two areas of the circular economy. They were minimizing waste by reducing energy consumption and recycling at the end of that lifecycle. There are other areas as well that ABB is focused on as a part of the circular economy. This involves a customized approach to the service planning for the powertrain equipment that ensures the equipment operates for a long time at the most efficient level for the customers operation.
Mike Murphy:Okay, great. I'm sure those areas definitely impacted facility. So let's go further. How can ABB help customers become more efficient?
Michelle Schwery:We're all looking at ways to reduce our energy consumption when we do have to use energy. How do we use it in a more responsible way? I think if you go back to the previous podcast from an equipment perspective, ABB is focus has always been on bringing products to you that allow you to power your operation efficiently. Abb has made a business of manufacturing products that reduced energy waste for customers. And though this is great if you're looking at a new installation, or the end of life scenario on your current existing equipment, but really what do we do if we have a current installation you want to focus on reducing that carbon footprint of your facility with its current operation. So the first thing that you need to understand is the current condition of your site and the power train equipment. This can be done in a number of ways you can hire someone to come out perform a full energy audit of your facility, or you can have an energy assessment done on the equipment. It's a bit less invasive and there's no need for a technician to come to the site disrupt your daily operations. Here at ABB all we need is to gather some equipment information from you. This is going to include the nameplate information for the manufacturer some energy usage information sizing is there both a motor and a drive installed, potentially some service information if the equipment is not serviced by ABB or it's not ABB equipment, we put together a comprehensive assessment for our customers providing recommendations on equipment sizing, potential opportunities to add efficiency, maintenance that might be needed, and all of the information to assist you with making a more customized plan for your site that can save money and reduce your organization's carbon footprint.
Mike Murphy:Okay, so now tie that back to circular economy if you could.
Michelle Schwery:Absolutely. On the topic of energy usage reduction, ABB works not only to bring the latest in technology, like said previously from an equipment perspective, that but also to provide options to our customers to extend the life of the equipment where others may only suggest new equipment to their customers. Abb will work with you to make that equipment lasts longer. Just when you think you have reached the end of its useful life. We have several programs available that can help customers do just that. For example, through our recondition program, you can take your drive have all of the components that are age based replaced within the system, bringing it back to a like new status and put that back in your cabinet as though you just installed a new drive. If you refer back to the discussion that you had with Andrew Soltau on our drive services workshop, as a part of that discussion, he described our premium repair service which will take a drive that sent into the workshop, diagnose and repair anything that's wrong with it, replace those age base components and bring it like I said earlier to that like new condition in your current installation that delays the need for replacement and includes a two year warranty. It's very similar with your motors. Within the ABB motion services ability platform we have an advanced analysis service for your large ace See motors and generators that provides you the condition and expected lifetime of the stator Winder installation, it can identify and quantify defects in the insulation, predict when that's going to become vulnerable and potentially fail. With that report, it can show you how to maximize the benefits of your maintenance program, extend the life of that motor, potentially delaying a rewind of the motor or even more costly having to replace it. And then similarly, for your smaller motors, we can provide a monitoring service where motors performance data is reviewed remotely through our Smart Sensor. And we use that data to proactively predict when there's going to be a potential issue, or you need to maybe give the equipment a little bit additional maintenance. This can eliminate potential unplanned outages as well as extend the life of your motors by knowing when is the right time to service the motor and get the most out of the unit's life.
Mike Murphy:Okay, great. I also appreciate you mentioning previous podcasts like the one with Andrew Soltau. So that's great. So Michelle, so you mentioned earlier about programs helping make equipment last longer, can you go over some of the options that are available with some of the aging equipment? And does it matter how new it is? Or if this is a part of an existing application? Yeah, absolutely.
Michelle Schwery:The motion service organization has spent a lot of time developing how a customer can best evaluate the current status of their site and the equipment. As we talked about with a site assessment on your drives and motors, we can work with you to create a focus plan that provides peace of mind from a support standpoint on a critical application. And then at the same time, reduce the energy consumed not only by the equipment, but by your facility team as well. So on not only failure response, but maintenance scheduling, which is something not a lot of people think about. Another key factor in the circular economy is through connectivity. And what I mean by that is a digital platform for your powertrain equipment. By regularly monitoring and analyzing those assets. You can proactively make decisions on your equipment based on real time health assessments, you can see where adjustments to the environment can reduce stress on the equipment. And as I said previously, you can identify anomalies that may be leading to a premature failure. All of this avoids that unplanned downtime and runs the system more efficiently for a longer period of time. So dispatching technicians to a remote location that uses your manpower resources, uses fuel consumes energy and other ways. So with remote condition monitoring, you can avoid having some of those unplanned visits to those sites.
Mike Murphy:Okay, unplanned downtime, that is a nasty word on tour to our all of our listeners. Okay, so can you expand a little bit more on ways to anticipate potential failure?
Michelle Schwery:Well, the answer to that is a preventative maintenance schedule that is provided by your original equipment manufacturer is often a generic recommended level of maintenance at a generic set of intervals, it doesn't take into account the real world usage of your site. For example, if you can utilize the digital connection to your equipment to monitor the actual usage hours on the power train, you can build a maintenance plan specific to your site. That may mean you increase the time intervals between regular maintenance visits, using less resources where you don't need them, and allocating them to where you do need them. This can eliminate, like I said, trips out to site unnecessarily reducing energy emissions spent getting to that site and performing the maintenance. You've all heard our leaders say the best energy is the energy that we do not use. And that rings true here as well. If you can limit trips to a remote site based on actual needs, rather than just following a generic one size fits all recommended maintenance schedule. This saves time, money and energy usage to perform that maintenance. This also allows you to scale up your operations without necessarily having to scale up your resources. Now, this scenario might not be true for every location or install base, but it is true for a number of sites. So just by knowing what the options are out there, we can introduce you to tools that can help you remotely monitor your site. And you can make those work for you and your organization to reach the ultimate goal which is reducing your carbon footprint. And this discussion right here that we're having is an important one, as sustainability and green operations is not a topic that is going to go away. Local governments are working to set regulations for companies that will require co2 emission reductions. And if you haven't started to think about it, now is the time by working with your partners like ABB customers can really begin to quantify that emissions reduction and start meeting local environmental regulations and focus on meeting their own personal sustainability goals. By having an energy appraisal performed at the site, they can quickly identify those easy wins on savings based on information collected on the equipment and energy usage. So, is your motor oversized? Is it undersized? Do you have an opportunity to add a drive to better manage your motor output, we can work with you to track the actual savings against our original predictions on the appraisal showing you that our commitment to help you run your facility in a more sustainable way is definitely here for you. So motion services can help with all of these areas with a number of available service offerings, lifecycle assessment, what work is needed, what upgrade options are out there, what systems are ok with minimal intervention in the future condition based monitoring with some predictive analytics, looking the reporting on your drive providing an expert review of the condition of the equipment and review potential future failure issues, the leaf analysis of your large motor is discussed on the installation, alarm notifications. So you do know when an issue arises. And you can respond quickly minimizing that downtime, as well as the energy appraisal service motion one care, which is your service agreement for your site, modernization services, bringing your system up to the latest technology and limiting what is replaced for a more sustainable solution than a new installation might be. And then of course, when all of that can't be avoided. And it is time to fully replace the system. We can recycle that the previous system for you and making sure that those parts don't end up in a landfill.
Mike Murphy:Wow, that's great, what a ton of information. I really like how ADB works with customers to support this circular economy. Michelle, any final comments,
Michelle Schwery:and that ABB motion business takes the energy efficiency movement very seriously. We're working with our partners to not only look at their own operations, but to pledge to become a part of that movement tool by increasing energy efficiency in their industries, and the motion team within ABB regardless of the group that we work in, we're intent on bringing a greener tomorrow, we believe in sustainability. And we want that conversation to challenge all of us to look at how we're operating and how can we do better, the best way to do that is to make sure that people are aware of all the options where they can make a difference. And we're focused on continuing that conversation. So through energy efficiency, movement.com, which all of you hopefully have seen is the commitment to partner with ABB to reduce our energy usage, as well as educating our colleagues on how they can make a difference and become a part of the greener in motion family. And like I said it before, and it really works to say it again, the best kind of energy is the energy that we don't use.
Mike Murphy:Excellent. I think that's a great place to stop. Michelle, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for speaking again on the circularity from the point of view of services. Remember, if you would like more information about ABB services or circularity, contact your local ABB sales representative or visit us@www.abb.com and look for the US motion service in the Search Toolbar section. I hope you keep tuning in to the ABB solutions podcast in your favorite browser or app. Thanks again and have a great day.