Ailsa Reliability Solutions Ltd based in Rubislaw Aberdeen have been deploying online condition monitoring systems on offshore assets for over 4 years now which are showing tangible benefits to offshore clients and proving that it is not as challenging as most businesses think it is.
A recent project for an offshore client showed how streamlined and pain free the process can be if all stakeholders are on board.
This project was for the deployment of a vibration and temperature monitoring system for critical pumps and fans offshore. A POV (Proof of Value) project took place initially to prove the technology, communications and ease of installation. This showed real tangible benefits by catching a problem before it became an issue and also highlighted where improvements could take place with their current condition monitoring and lubrication strategy, so the clients engineering and management seen the value very quickly.
After the POV the client looked to roll out the solution across their critical assets. This process was streamlined as all parties worked together to ensure the process was planned and implemented without disruption to the operation.
The system was made up of ATEX Zone 0 wireless tri-axial vibration and temperature sensors, connected to a number of cellular gateway’s strategically located across the site (All located within the safe area’s on the platform) that communicates to the cloud allowing the client and ARSL Engineering teams to monitor this data and predict issues without the need to travel offshore.
The client uses cellular 4G Tampnet on the platform, so the gateways were modified to take Tampnet sim cards and allow communication to take place and the client could manage the subscriptions internally.
For the further rollout of the system, the offshore core crew installed the sensors and gateways themselves with onshore support from the ARSL team.
When ARSL were first involved with online monitoring systems offshore, most companies had not implemented digital technologies as they felt the challenges outweighed the benefits, ARSL have been continually proving this is not the case.
Some of the challenges from clients in advance of projects going live have been;
- What are the best sensors for induvial applications? Every company says they have the best on the market and we don’t know what suits our applications best.
- We don’t have the people with the skills to analyse the data.
- We don’t have the time to analyse any further data with current workloads.
- Can we ensure the data is secure?
- Putting new software on our IT infrastructure is a challenge.
- Getting data from offshore is a challenge without going onto our network, can this be done?
ARSL have managed to mitigate the above for 3 North Sea operators so far and saved their clients more than £400Million in potential downtime over the last 18 months.
Above is an example of a how this client identified that lubrication hadn’t been carried out on one of the machines being monitored. The offshore team were informed, the equipment was lubricated and readings returned to normal operating conditions. Caught early, no downtime and no concerns, it can be as easy as this!
Customer Testimonial “The deployment of the wireless vibration & Temperature monitoring system was optimised through ASRL’s advanced technical support and the pre-configuration of sensor units. This approach allowed the offshore team to install and commission the sensors without requiring ASRL’s physical presence onsite. The system is now fully operational, providing real time condition monitoring data that supports proactive maintenance actions. Initial analytics highlighted gaps in existing lubrication schedules, revealing that greasing intervals were not aligned with actual asset needs. These insights have driven significant improvements in our condition-based maintenance (CBM) strategy, reducing unplanned outages and increasing equipment uptime.”
Kane Taylor / Jamie Burns from Ailsa commented “These projects are great examples of how the energy sector can implement iioT technologies to their advantage to help reduce unplanned downtime and improve OEE by using the latest technologies on the market”