Information Technology

The benefits of using condition monitoring as part of a predictive maintenance program have been well-understood for many years. A wide range of measurement technologies have been developed to allow the approach to be applied to a very wide range of critical equipment.

However, many people find the complexity and cost of condition monitoring systems too high even when they understand the benefits. Conventional systems have often seemed complicated to install and set up, and have expected the user to have high levels of expertise in order to interpret measurements correctly.

Artesis systems are specifically designed to provide all the benefits of condition monitoring, at a fraction of the effort and cost. Because monitors are installed in or near control cabinets, cable runs are very short and there are no sensors to be installed on the equipment itself. The system is self-training, and provides automated diagnosis of a wide range of electrical and mechanical faults.

Condition monitoring involves the analysis of large amounts of measured data, typically requiring access to significant network bandwidth between data acquisition systems and the analysis package. In the Artesis system however, data analysis and interpretation is carried out in the monitors themselves, dramatically reducing the amount of information that must be communicated across plant networks.

Although many users choose to use the Artesis MCMSCADA software package to archive and display diagnostic information, each monitor presents its results using a standardised MODBUS-like protocol that makes it easy to integrate these units into existing software systems. A range of adaptors is available to allow parallel, serial, wired and wireless Ethernet, and GPRS connections to the monitor units.