The retirement of experienced engineers is progressing. We want to break away from dependency on their experience.

Background　 Issues 　Key Points of the Issue　 Key Points of Solution　 Solution

Background

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Company F boasts a high market share in the field of chemical-based materials.
Company F　has responded to the demands of orders coming in from all over the world while revising its production plan several times.

However, as skilled engineers increasingly retire from active service, certain concerns have come to light regarding the transfer of maintenance skills to younger engineers.

Issues

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Experience is difficult to quantify and verbalize, and it belongs to the individual. Passing on skills to younger workers is a major challenge.

The maintenance department was concerned about the excessive reliance on the experience of skilled engineers for valve maintenance tasks and abnormality assessments. Although we still conduct valve inspections based on a maintenance cycle set a few years ago, this cycle was determined long ago based on the engineers' experience. Currently, the rationale for this cycle is unclear.

Mr. H from the maintenance department looked back on that time and said the following.

"During valve inspections, we visually checked and assessed the condition inside the valves, and took photos to accumulate information on wear and damage trends. However, with photo-based information, which is just a 'snapshot,' the criteria for assessment can vary from person to person. Additionally, with such information alone, it was challenging for younger staff to make maintenance decisions, such as changing the maintenance cycle."

If an abnormality occurs in a valve while the equipment is in operation, the issue only becomes apparent when it affects the process. At that point, we start investigating the cause and often determine that the valve is the culprit. While numerous troubleshooting experiences help accumulate knowledge and expertise, such opportunities are very rare.

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"Quantifying and verbalizing experience and know-how is difficult, making it highly personalized. While passing on skills to younger staff is a major challenge, in recent years, digital transformation (DX) has become an unavoidable issue in the manufacturing industries, including the oil and chemical sectors," said Mr. H.

"Within Company F, there has been a strong call to promote digital transformation (DX), and the maintenance department also wanted to leverage DX to optimize valve maintenance operations and create new value."

However, specific, easy-to-understand, easy-to-use DX tools for manufacturing and suggestions for them were hard to find. The day of retirement for these skilled engineers was rapidly approaching, as they searched and searched but could not find anything suitable.

Key Points of the Issue

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• Too much reliance on the experience of skilled engineers for valve maintenance work and abnormal judgment
• When inspecting openings, the criteria for judgment may differ from person to person based on only "point" information in the form of a photograph.
• In the manufacturing industry, such as the petroleum and chemical industries, passing on skills to younger workers and DXing were major issues.

Key Points of Solution

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• Everyone can now use a common criterion, diagnostic data, to determine how to maintain valves.
• Experience + data now allows important skills to be passed on to future generations.
• Azbil's generous support made it possible to expand to other plants and promote DX.

Solution

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Linear" information is added to "point" information! Experience + data to pass on important skills to future generations

While gathering information to solve the problem, Mr. H found information on Azbil's valve analysis and diagnosis service (Dx Valve Cloud Service) through a web search. Azbil's Dx Valve Cloud Service is a cloud-based valve analysis and diagnosis service, a tool to check and manage the health of valves through web content on the cloud. Mr. H remembered that a case study of this service had been circulated within the company as a reference material, so he immediately contacted the sales representative.

After confirming the details, we learned that Azbil's Dx Valve Cloud Service enables us to constantly check the diagnostic results of valves analyzed weekly on the cloud, and to develop maintenance plans based on the latest valve analysis diagnostic results. In addition to providing tools, they also provide support for the use of diagnostic data.

After much internal discussion and approval from upper management, Company F decided to implement Azbil's Dx Valve Cloud Service. We immediately asked Azbil for support, and the support system was very generous, and they were able to provide us with advice on countermeasures for valves that showed abnormalities based on the diagnostic data.

The "line" of continuous diagnostic data has been added to the "point" of information we had before. As a result, everyone can now judge valve maintenance methods based on a common standard, rather than relying solely on experience and know-how.

The accumulated experience and know-how can now be corroborated with diagnostic data, which is an effective service for passing on maintenance skills. I am relieved that we can now pass on important skills to future generations based on experience plus data.

Now that the company has achieved stable and reliable maintenance operations, it has asked Azbil to help it further expand its operations to other plants and further promote the use of DX./strong>

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