This ground-breaking IIOT sensor system continuously monitors pipelines, chutes and storage bins in real-time to pinpoint even early stages of wall thickness reduction. Its deployment ensures that plants no longer need to shut down for lengthy routine manual maintenance inspections. This preventative technology highlights minor, easily fixed problems and puts an end to plant failures caused by overlooked faults. It is cost effective to install and can reduce maintenance team labour.

Most operators employ teams of inspectors to keep their plants in peak operational condition. Manually inspecting the insides of pipes, chutes and storage bins is time-consuming, labour intensive and costly due to plant downtime and lost production. Crucially, it is not failsafe. A pipe can pass inspection one day and be damaged the next. It may take weeks before inspectors review that section of pipe again, by which point wear may have reached critical levels. Severely damaged pipelines can lead to injury, death and significant downtime.

Deploying this IIOT sensor system throughout your operations guarantees that your entire network is constantly monitored for signs of wear and abrasion. Sensor probes are fitted inside the pipes, bins and chutes and on any equipment that may suffer abrasion, such as wear plates. Sensor nodes then encrypt and transmit the sensor probe data, using a low-power wireless network, to a base station covering a radius of up to 8 km. The base station decrypts and collates the sensor node data. When an abnormality is detected, an alert appears on the central user interface dashboard in real time using secure Enterprise Level cloud infrastructure. This can then be scheduled for repair. Not only does this drastically reduce major infrastructure repairs and plant failures, but the constant monitoring also extends the life of assets by enabling early remediation. In addition, it reduces the number of maintenance staff required on site at any one time. The ultimate benefit to the operation is twofold: greater asset uptime and throughput, combined with a lower maintenance cost.