MOVUS BLOG

My wife and I have been married for 25 years - a significant achievement we take pride in. Yes, there have been good and not-so-good times, but we made an oath to look after each other, in sickness and in health, and we’ve kept it. But we’re not the only ones.

Taking an oath has been institutionalised across many fields; my local doctor, for one, may have taken the Hippocratic Oath in the spirit of ‘first do no harm’. But what about maintenance and reliability staff, engineers, and asset managers? Do they swear by some secret oath? Perhaps there should be ‘zero harm’, an oath to put the health of their equipment first.

So often, we confuse efficient with effective.

Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) is just that - repairing assets based on condition data (ideally ahead of failure). Most leading practitioners agree that in order to implement a true CBM approach, organisations need to be monitoring their equipment continuously, in real-time. Otherwise they are still running closer to traditional, routine maintenance approach.

For over five decades, industrial sensors and actuators have been instrumental in the evolution and automation of processes within heavy industries. Systems like SCADA, PLCs and RTUs have been in use since the 1960s. Distributed controls systems were introduced in the 1970s to provide distributed control of production plants.

One of the most important lessons that we have learnt in our four years of actively selling the FitMachine is the value that a pilot deployment of FitMachine delivers to clients. Deploying FitMachines and beginning the journey to understand asset health is for many clients a paradigm shift in thinking.

The Australian gas industry has never been in a better place, with the nation now occupying the top of the podium of gas exporters, followed by Qatar and US (1). This is an amazing achievement we can and should be proud of, but obviously resting on our laurels won’t keep us in the leadership seat.

FitMachine Self-Install

MOVUS is proud to announce the next development in our renowned FitMachine sensor. Customers can now connect to the FitMachine via Bluetooth to configure and manage it. This is enabled using the FitMachine app, now officially available on the iTunes App Store. (Google Play Store to follow soon!)

Scenario

According to the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), our national Manufacturing industry has been expanding consistently with 25 months of uninterrupted growth (1), the longest run since 2005. On the other hand, it is no secret the sector is under pressure to transform. Traditional production methods and business models are being disrupted as digital technologies advance the capabilities of the industry.

Technology continues to be a key component of MOVUS’ market leadership and our investment remains strong. The latest release of our FitMachine technology stack has several exciting new developments, with more on the way. In brief,

Every day there are new predictions about how the internet of things (IOT) will connect 20 Billion, 30 Billion or 50 Billion devices to the internet. I thought I’d weigh into the commentary, to give a view on the business benefits, which seem to be missing under a wash of monstrous numbers.