Avoid sudden valve failures that lead to plant shutdowns and reduced product quality

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

Background

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Company U heard that an emergency shutdown of factory equipment in a nearby industrial complex caused a manufacturing stoppage, which affected other processes, resulting in a several-day suspension of supply and tens of millions of yen in damages for the entire factory.

Senior management took the situation very seriously and ordered the maintenance department to immediately investigate the company's facilities.

Issues

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We would like to review our maintenance operations to reduce the risk of opportunity loss due to valve malfunctions...

Upon receiving the instruction, the Maintenance Department decided to immediately review the maintenance operations of the entire plant facilities. The maintenance department immediately reviewed the maintenance operations of the entire plant facilities and found several points of concern regarding valves, which are control equipment indispensable for the stable operation of the production facilities.

Mr. Y of the Maintenance Department recalls the situation as follows.

When an abnormality occurs in the process of a production facility, there are numerous factors that can cause the problem, and it usually takes time to identify the cause. In many cases, it is finally determined that a valve is the cause, but abnormalities in valves cannot be determined from their appearance. It was exposed that, as it is now, we cannot prevent accidents from occurring."

Valves are one of the most important pieces of equipment in production facilities and are indispensable to production. Sudden failure of a valve could lead to plant stoppage or a drop in product quality.

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In order to deal with a sudden valve failure, an open inspection is required to identify and address the cause of the abnormality, which requires an emergency shutdown of the production line. In this case, there is the same or even greater risk of opportunity loss as in the case of the neighboring plant. We felt that a reliable countermeasure was necessary.

If the production line were to be shut down, it would cause a great deal of inconvenience to our suppliers. The Maintenance Department began gathering information to review valve maintenance methods.

However, a breakthrough solution was not forthcoming, and Mr. Y and his colleagues began to grow impatient.

Key Points of the Issue

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• Sudden valve failure could lead to plant stoppage and loss of product quality
• Abnormalities in the valve could not be determined from the external appearance, and it was difficult to ascertain the health of the valve.
• To confirm the cause of the valve malfunction and take action, an emergency shutdown of the production line was required to open and inspect the valve, which entailed the risk of lost opportunities.

Key Points of Solution

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• Dx Valve Cloud Service" checks the health of valves in the cloud and detects signs of abnormality to prevent sudden valve failure.
• Avoiding emergency shutdown of equipment due to valve malfunction can prevent tens of millions of yen in damages.
• By identifying signs of valve malfunctions in advance, a planned response is possible, resulting in stable plant operation and a significant reduction in risk.

Solution

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DX Service for the Manufacturing Industry Enables Valves to be Checked for Integrity. Stable plant operation and significant risk reduction.

In the process of gathering information, Mr. Y. was able to obtain information on Azbil's cloud-based valve analysis and diagnostics service.

Azbil's cloud-based valve analysis and diagnostics service, Dx Valve Cloud Service, was a DX service for the manufacturing industry that allows users to check and manage the health of valves through web content on the cloud, which is normally not known until the valve is opened. This was exactly the functionality that Company U was looking for.

Other companies sell diagnostic tools, but Azbil was the only company that not only sells tools, but also provides valve diagnostic results as a service and a full human support system to ensure effective diagnosis," said Mr. Y.

The Maintenance Department decided to conduct an evaluation of the Dx Valve Cloud Service in the hopes that it would solve the problems they were currently facing. The results showed that the effect of avoiding sudden equipment shutdowns due to valve failure would be in the tens of millions of yen. It is clear that stable plant operation and significant risk reduction can be expected with this service.

This result was highly appreciated by upper management. Eliminating the risk of shutting down production equipment leads to stable plant operations. After internal discussions, the decision was made to expand the target equipment from the original plan and implement the Dx Valve Cloud Service.

Azbil's support made it possible for us to implement the system smoothly. By visualizing the data, we are able to notice changes in the condition of the valves more quickly, and we feel that our on-site security capabilities have been enhanced.）

With Azbil's support, Company U, plans to continue promoting the expansion to other plants in the future.

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