GE Measurement & Control and Meridium Launch a Predictive Maintenance Platform

Summary

GE Measurement & Control's Bently Nevada product line and Meridium, Inc. recently briefed ARC Advisory Group on the status of the partnership announced by these two market leaders in July 2014. The partnership is focused on delivering better outcomes with solutions utilizing software as the "glue" to connect sensors, strategy, and execution. According to the partners, the newly launched platform, Production Asset Reliability (PAR), connects machine data to workflow processes to provide full visibility into process, production, and maintenance data to enable organizations to quantify operations, maintenance, availability, and operating performance. Connected device management (CDM) platforms, such as PAR that monitor and administer intelligent connected devices are vital components of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

Key findings include:

• The combined expertise of the partners has produced a comprehensive predictive maintenance platform to measure, monitor, and manage connected assets
• Production Asset Reliability (PAR) provides a holistic view of operations, maintenance, availability and overall operating performance
• An ecosystem of partners can transform standalone solutions into a more powerful, comprehensive platform and ease integration issues

Alliance of Market Leaders

On July 24, 2014, Meridium announced that GE's Measurement & Control business made a strategic minority equity investment in the company. The alliance of these market leaders in their respective domains unites GE's System 1 condition monitoring and diagnostic solution with Meridium's Asset Performance Management (APM) application suite to maximize operational effectiveness and preserve and extend capital asset life in asset-intensive industries. The partners expect that their combined expertise offers customers a more holistic view of plant operations by connecting sensors and disparate data sources to business and plant systems to quantify the value of condition monitoring while managing the reliability, strategy, and operational risks associated with plant assets.

The partnership has produced a CDM platform, Production Asset Reliability (PAR). The platform combines GE Measurement & Control's System 1 condition monitoring and diagnostic applications for work identification, with Meridium's suite of asset performance and strategy solutions performing work evaluation to optimize maintenance practices and help minimize production losses through better asset management.

Predictive Maintenance Solution

In far too many enterprises, operations, maintenance, engineering, and environmental, health and safety (EH&S) systems remain islands unto themselves due to lack of integration. The inability to connect these systems results in untimely, ill-informed decisions that can escalate risk. Consequently, attempts to maximize production are thwarted by unplanned maintenance, which only increases (rather than reduces) costs and time spent. Product quality as well as plant and personnel safety can also be adversely impacted.

Gaining competitive advantage in the rapidly changing manufacturing environment requires enterprises to connect these islands of information to provide a cohesive picture of overall operating performance. It requires connecting systems and processes to drive the right work at the right time. Plant maintenance is a prime target for improvement efforts as manufacturers transform from the more expensive, less predictable reactive approach to a proactive approach focused on identifying problems early when they are relatively easy to fix, and work can be planned and scheduled to minimize downtime.

In the past, asset-intensive industries lacked effective tools to connect machine diagnostics with business processes to provide a cohesive picture of performance. By integrating both within a comprehensive APM solution, the new, jointly developed PAR platform provides enriched APM context to identify, evaluate, and execute the right work at the right time. According to the partners, as a predictive maintenance solution, PAR enriches APM context to optimize maintenance spend, optimize production, improve equipment reliability, and reduce risk.

It Takes an Ecosystem

Plant asset management systems are not mandated by any regulatory authority or industrial body. End users frequently select individual best-of-breed solutions to meet their requirements only to be left with integration issues. A partner ecosystem can transform standalone best-of-breed solutions into a more powerful, comprehensive platform and minimize integration issues.

The PAR platform combines GE Measurement & Control's System 1 condition monitoring and diagnostic applications for work identification with Meridium's suite of APM solutions to perform work evaluation. Work execution is performed by the enterprise asset management (EAM) system. As an SAP-endorsed business solution, the Meridium suite has been successfully integrated and tested with SAP EAM software as well as other common EAM solutions. This ecosystem of suppliers and solutions provides end users with full visibility into process, production, and maintenance data throughout the enterprise to improve efficiencies and productivity.

Conclusion

One of the core concepts of the Industrial Internet of Things is integrating device and sensor data with analytics and other enterprise applications to drive incremental business benefits across the enterprise. Software-based solutions, such as PAR, enable users to assess asset issues from both the system and sensor levels, and utilizes analytics to drive better outcomes.

All signed-in ARC Advisory Group clients can view this report in pdf format at this Link

If you would like to buy this report or obtain information about how to become a client, please Request ARC Info

Keywords: Asset Performance Management, Condition-based Maintenance, Connected Device Management, Enterprise Asset Management, Industrial Internet of Things, Predictive Maintenance, Production Asset Reliability.