Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
Problem: Inspections of widely dispersed HVAC equipment by a field service team was both labor intensive and unreliable. Equipment would have issues between inspections, and cause significant customer satisfaction issues in the warm climate.
In India, a HVAC supplier maintains equipment in over 1,000 locations – most having multiple chillers. Manual inspections of the chillers and the related HVAC equipment occurred at planned intervals. One issue involves travel time since India is a big country with traffic that is often well beyond the capacity of the roads. The company had over 600 technicians to support the customers. A second issue – especially with the warm climate – occurs since commercial users are depend on the chillers to keep their customers cool and happy. Downtime with extended periods waiting for service becomes problematic for all involved.
Solution: With the help of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the HVAC supplier chose an Internet of Things (IoT) approach that incorporated both predictive maintenance to identify problems before they cause downtime, and operational performance by adjusting operating parameters. Analytics on the data provided a means to compare performance of each chiller with benchmarks. If for example some coolant leaked, parameters like percent run-time are adjusted to mitigate the problem and improve energy usage.
The analytics also provided a means to access equipment health and identify problems. Maintenance is scheduled when it is needed rather than based on a time cycle. Issues that could cause a failure are identified so that maintenance can be performed before the failure occurs. Monitoring provides an understanding of the problem so the technician has the needed skills, parts and tools.
Each chiller is connected to the internet to collect data for a cloud-based analytics application. The HVAC equipment was installed over a significant timeframe. Fortunately, most of the equipment had a controller that provided access to sensor data. Others had to have intelligence added using an adapter for data collection.
Benefits: The visibility in real-time provided improved understanding of the current conditions and better decision making. The overall system reliability has increased. By triggering preventive maintenance based on current conditions, a 10 percent reduction in downtime has been achieved so far. The better understanding of potential failures allowed for improved spare parts inventory management. The energy savings comes to 4 percent. More effective utilization of chillers occurs through optimized load on chillers based on their availability and performance.
In India, a HVAC supplier maintains equipment in over 1,000 locations – most having multiple chillers. Manual inspections of the chillers and the related HVAC equipment occurred at planned intervals. One issue involves travel time since India is a big country with traffic that is often well beyond the capacity of the roads. The company had over 600 technicians to support the customers. A second issue – especially with the warm climate – occurs since commercial users are depend on the chillers to keep their customers cool and happy. Downtime with extended periods waiting for service becomes problematic for all involved.
Solution: With the help of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the HVAC supplier chose an Internet of Things (IoT) approach that incorporated both predictive maintenance to identify problems before they cause downtime, and operational performance by adjusting operating parameters. Analytics on the data provided a means to compare performance of each chiller with benchmarks. If for example some coolant leaked, parameters like percent run-time are adjusted to mitigate the problem and improve energy usage.
The analytics also provided a means to access equipment health and identify problems. Maintenance is scheduled when it is needed rather than based on a time cycle. Issues that could cause a failure are identified so that maintenance can be performed before the failure occurs. Monitoring provides an understanding of the problem so the technician has the needed skills, parts and tools.
Each chiller is connected to the internet to collect data for a cloud-based analytics application. The HVAC equipment was installed over a significant timeframe. Fortunately, most of the equipment had a controller that provided access to sensor data. Others had to have intelligence added using an adapter for data collection.
Benefits: The visibility in real-time provided improved understanding of the current conditions and better decision making. The overall system reliability has increased. By triggering preventive maintenance based on current conditions, a 10 percent reduction in downtime has been achieved so far. The better understanding of potential failures allowed for improved spare parts inventory management. The energy savings comes to 4 percent. More effective utilization of chillers occurs through optimized load on chillers based on their availability and performance.