Improved Facility Energy Management with IIoT Case Story

End-user presentations at the ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida in 2017 provided convincing case stories on how emerging technologies, including Industrial IoT (IIoT) and analytics, benefited users.  In his presentation “Making EAM and IIoT Work as One,” Stephen Tatton, Director of Business Systems & New Technology, JBT Aerotech focused on using IoT to improve facility energy management in airports. 

Facility Energy Management with EAM & IIoT

The key benefits Mr. Tatton identified for integrating Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and IIoT for facility energy management include:

Energy savings:

The energy used in the facility was reduced by 25 percent by monitoring HVAC and lighting control systems.  Also, better management of the conveyance systems reduced its energy usage by 20 percent.  The data on energy consumption were used to identify older, more energy-intensive motors.  Replacing them with modern energy-efficient motors had a payback of under a year and saved over a million dollars annually.

Uptime

Equipment is operating and meets designed performance. Mr. Tatton provided examples for specific pieces of equipment of uptime improving from a 70 to 80 percent range to 99+ percent.

Time savings

Avoid manual data entry and improve mean time to repair (MTTR).

Cost avoidance

Reduce mistakes by maintenance technicians and unwarranted preventive maintenance.  Often, the OEM’s general recommendations are well above the real need for maintenance.

Work management

The system determines when an asset needs attention using data and analytics, which significantly reduces the quantity of corrective maintenance work orders.  Some pieces of equipment had 10 or more corrective maintenance work orders per month.  For these problematic machines, condition monitoring with IIoT reduced the number of corrective work orders by 70 percent.

Response time

For reactive maintenance, the response time for a technician to arrive to make a repair went from a range of 20 to 30 minutes to under two minutes.  Digitization allowed the workflow to be automated.

Gate productivity 

Better management of aircraft’s auxiliary power unit (APU) at the gate (determining when it is not needed and shutting it down promptly) yielded $1.6 million in annual savings.  This approach to equipment management was extended to other pieces of equipment around the gate. 

Lessons Learned for Facility Energy Management

Based on his experience with airport facilities, Mr. Tatton provided some specific recommendations with wide applicability in facility energy management:

• At the start, identify the five key reports needed to run the business.  Align the beginning of your IIoT program with data needed to improve those reports.

• Test the data to verify and ensure you are measuring what you think you are measuring.

• Involve a systems integrator with experience with your industry and technologies to achieve project delivery on time, within budget, and on spec – in this case airport facilities, baggage systems, and gate systems.

• Use an architecture and products that allow you to build on success.  When the initial project is completed successfully, expect requests for more data, analytics, and related improvements.

• You are likely to encounter those within your organization who lack the motivation or talent to make the transition to a more data-centric approach for setting and managing priorities.  Some may need to be replaced.

You can see a video of Mr. Tatton’s presentation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zexedvF5PUU

To learn what your peer organizations are doing in this area and participate in the discussion about digital transformation, asset performance management, facilities energy management and other IIoT-enabled solutions for industry, infrastructure, and smart cities, ARC invites you to join us at our upcoming ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 11-15, 2018.