Predictive Maintenance

Beyond the day-to-day information, remote360 has helped Ranger International Inc. with predictive maintenance. Before having it, Ranger had to actively gather information and data about various aspects of the fabricating process, which was something often overlooked because of overwhelming volumes of work. Instead of taking time away from cutting, Ranger now can assess trends and see where and when future challenges will arise.

Being able to see information about amperage cycles for valves on the nitrogen and oxygen, acceleration and amperage for the motors, and how the dust collector is working, for example, is a huge benefit to the Ranger team.

“It has been helpful to see these metrics,” said Schlarb. “I can see the consumption of the laser and costs of the nitrogen or oxygen I used to cut a particular nest. I can see the cost of the electricity that was consumed to cut that nest. I can check to make sure that we are costing our jobs correctly and what those costs are daily, monthly, and yearly. I can go through the machine, part by part, and see how that aspect is working at the moment and over time. It gives me information at my fingertips to then plan any maintenance work that may be needed in the future.”

The dashboard provides all sorts of information about the machine and makes it easier to predict when certain consumables will require maintenance or replacement.

“Knowing my daily performance rate and what active programs we are running has been useful in helping me better predict when I need to order more nozzles or order more nitrogen,” said Schlarb. “Am I getting low on steel? Should I put in an order now or, based on my schedule, should I wait? These are things I know now that I didn’t know before. Knowing how much run time we are doing in a day can allow me to better estimate not only how the machine is functioning on the shop floor, but also how to adjust how we want it to run.”