EBARA Maintenance Cloud
EBARA Maintenance Cloud with wireless sensor QiDe, a data platform for equipment inspections that detects equipment failures in buildings using IoT
Maintenance to keep pumps in stable operation
There are countless large-scale buildings in Japan, including factories, energy facilities, water facilities, and commercial facilities. Inside these buildings, pumps, fans, cooling towers, and chillers are connected by piping and work systemically. The number of general-purpose mass-produced pumps alone, which are our flagship products, exceeds 10 million units nationwide. All of these not only need to be properly installed and operated, but also require several annual inspections and maintenance performed by skilled maintenance personnel. It is this significant cost and human effort that keeps us safe each and every day.
24-hour remote monitoring of "vibration" and "temperature"
Facilities cannot simply be shut down in the event of an unexpected failure. There are now mechanisms in place to reduce maintenance costs using technology. One of these solutions is the EBARA Maintenance Cloud. The EBARA Maintenance Cloud is a data platform that remotely monitors and analyzes vibration and temperature 24 hours a day with QiDe, a wireless sensor the size of a small bottle cap, installed in equipment in the facility.
Analysis results of data collected from QiDe can be checked on the dashboard, and any sign of abnormality is immediately notified to user company personnel and our after-sales support personnel. By accumulating data, the system aims to determine the timing of maintenance more accurately and, in the future, predict failures. Rather than repeating periodic inspections just to be sure, if a system can be put in place to quickly detect possible failures and perform maintenance on demand, it will lead to labor savings, cost savings, and energy savings.
However, development of this system was no easy task. As a monozukuri (manufacturing) company, our engineers were not well-versed in IoT, such as the cloud, and we lacked the human resources with the necessary knowledge. After repeated talks with our partners, we were able to start commercialization in November 2022 in order to digitally replace the professional expertise required to thoroughly inspect and maintain equipment.
Quick detection of abnormalities by linking multiple equipment
This new challenge is to centralize monitoring of multiple equipment units and devices more extensively and create new user value by linking data from multiple EBARA devices and equipment. For example, in the field of chillers, even before the development of QiDe, our independent monitoring system, RISSA had provided remote monitoring and operation via a control panel. By linking RISSA to the EBARA Maintenance Cloud, it is now possible to view the status of equipment, which was not previously available to users. This enables us to detect abnormalities and problems immediately, prevent unexpected failures, and effectively schedule maintenance, thereby contributing to labor savings for users.
Aiming for the Realization of "Smart Buildings"
This is an IoT-driven initiative that we have been able to construct based on years of experience in the field of equipment development and maintenance. The EBARA Maintenance Cloud, which may also be called a method of digital transformation (DX) for facility inspections, currently oversees QiDe installed in 690 pumps across Japan as of the end of 2023. The number of equipment units to which QiDe can be installed is predicted to reach 10 million for pumps alone. We are aiming to realize "smart buildings" where facility inspections, formerly performed manually, will be entirely IoT-enabled by installing QiDe in more and more EBARA equipment, and not only our own equipment but also that of other manufacturers.
We have just embarked on this challenge to make QiDe, a small sensor, a behind-the-scenes player in the new era of protecting our day-to-day lives.
