January 29, 2020 – CoreTigo, a provider of industrial wireless mission critical connectivity solutions, and SKF, a supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronic components and lubrication systems, have announced their collaboration at the SKF St. Cyr plant in France. The project includes an implementation of a wireless energy conservation solution that enables SKF a deployment with minimal impact on the manufacturing line.
At the SKF Bearing Manufacturing Plant in France, the energy used for compressed air accounts for a large amount of the total electrical power consumption. A factory-wide solution is required to monitor all the machines using compressed air to ensure optimal flow, prevent leakages and reduce waste. Cabling of the sensors from the machines to the network is challenging in terms of cost and deployment effort.
The proposed solution enables a wireless connection from the flow sensor on each machine via CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless solution. An IO-Link Wireless Bridge is connected to each off-the-shelf industrial flow sensor. An IO-Link Wireless Master communicates with the Wireless Bridges over the air and relays the data from the machines to CoreTigo’s visibility software (TigoInsights) without the need to reconfigure the PLCs. In addition to the flow data, the system also communicates the machine’s operational and availability status. The combination of real-time flow and operational data enables improved analytics that can detect leakages and non-optimal flow.
The TigoInsights dashboards and analytics tool enables SKF to view the data anywhere in the factory, analyze valuable data, and receive real-time alerts.
Earlier this year, CoreTigo and SKF initiated their relationship at the Industry of the Future Challenge which SKF is one of its sponsors. The Challenge aims to make technological solutions emerge, and to improve the performance and quality of the services provided in industrial environments.
