Maintec takes its place at the heart of M&E week 2023
Published: 26 April, 2023
Maintec returns on 7th and 8th of June 2023 at Birmingham’s NEC as part of Nineteen Group’s Manufacturing & Engineering Week (M&E Week) www.mandeweek.co.uk . PWE reports
Maintec holds a special place in the calendar for readers of Plant & Works Engineering as it’s the only UK exhibition that is entirely dedicated to predictive maintenance, reliability and asset management. Throughout its 40 years history, the event has continued to meet the evolving needs of the maintenance community focusing on uptime and the tools, innovation, technology and people that support it.
Training and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for maintenance professionals is sadly still not at the level it should be and therefore the free educational content available at Maintec is vitally important. The Maintec Keynote Theatre is at the heart of the Maintec experience and topics to be covered include everything from a session on the Commonwealth Games entitled - Keeping the games running to a session on the critical role of maintenance in achieving net zero. Core topics such as How to eliminate unplanned downtime; Advanced condition monitoring and a session on Decommissioning and whole life management (delivered by The Institute of Asset management) will also be presented. Details of the conference programme are still being finalised as PWE went to press but visit www.mandeweek.co.uk/maintec-home for more information or follow M&E Week on social media for the latest news
Sponsoring the Maintec Keynote Theatre is industrial and electronics product and service supplier RS. It will be showcasing both its RS Maintenance Solutions service as well as its RS Industria digital monitoring platform. Various experts from these new RS businesses will be speaking as part of the Solutions Theatre programme. One session of note will see RS deliver insight from a survey it conducted with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in recent months. Another has RS Industria presenting a case study from a current customer about the benefits of using the digitally enabled service. Lastly, Richard Jeffers, the founder of RS Industria, will be presenting a thought-provoking session on Predictive Maintenance as a way of life – not a technology.
As well as educational content visitors to Maintec can access the latest technology, services, consultancy and thinking. Among the innovative products being shown at this year’s event is acoustic imaging technology and several exhibitors, Teledyne FLIR, FLUKE, NL Acoustics and Acoustic Camera UK will be demonstrating the great strides that have been made in this area.
Acoustic imaging has a couple of main applications, the detection of leaks in compressed air systems and the ability to detect partial electrical discharge in sub stations or other major electrical infrastructure. One of the reasons why acoustic imaging has made great strides recently is due to the steep rise in the price of energy, as Jason Cargill, Technical Sales Specialist at Teledyne FLIR explains, “Energy saving is one area where our customers are focusing a lot of attention currently. They will see their costs rise from 10p per kwh up to as much as 80p per kwh and that’s a serious concern. We’ve all been caught out by the rise in energy costs.”
Energy is one of the reasons why the company will be focusing on acoustic imaging at Maintec and its new product the FLIR Si124 will be on the stand. An aspect of the camera, which in today’s data driven world is highly relevant, is that through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning - from comparing thousands of historical results - the camera can provide users with a monetary value on what a particular leak is costing them in additional energy costs. When calculating a Return On Investment (ROI) such data is invaluable.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) are featured strongly amongst the Maintec exhibitors. However, these technologies have traditionally struggled with human error - meaning inaccurate or duplicated data exists within the system - and the ability to accurately and dynamically track data across multiple sites. This is an area where AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning can offer great improvements and, because of the global supply chain issues affecting every industry , where the relatively new concept of spares ‘pooling’ can, assist greatly.
Sparrow Networks is using Maintec 2023 to launch itself into the UK market, its technology addresses the common weaknesses of the systems. Torsten Gruenzig, VP of Sales says, “It is estimated that 75% of the spares in a typical manufacturing facility remained untouched and at some point, are disposed of. This is the gap we are addressing. The data in a typical ERP system is not great, there is a lot of human input and therefore human error. Our first step is to unify the data and that’s across countries, across sectors and even, sometimes, within the same company.
The ability to ‘cleanse’ data in this way would, in the past, require an enormous number of man hours but this is where Sparrow Networks’ adoption of AI and machine learning adds value. Torsten’s view of this is, “AI and machine learning are always evolving. Two years ago, our automation level was at around 45%. Therefore, when I got a spreadsheet of 100,000 parts from a customer only 45,000 records would be cleaned automatically, the rest needed to be looked at by a person which is really time intensive. Today we are operating at over 99% automation, there has been so much machine learning over those two years.”
The enrichment of the data and the ‘visibility’ of what spares are available (and where) allows for what Torsten labels ‘the commercial part’ of Sparrow Networks’ offering which they call ‘pooling’. This is where manufacturers work together and effectively pool their spares information and resources. By effectively having access to other businesses’ spare parts – but buying through Sparrow Networks – all participants in the pool reduce their risk of not having access to the spares they need and maintaining production.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are areas that many businesses exhibiting at Maintec are exploring. For example, Grundfos, the well-known pump business, as Cathy Mathiesen, Lead Business Development Nordics & UK explains, “Grundfos is focusing on several initiatives at Maintec, firstly, AI-driven technology to ensure machine reliability and to bring prescriptive outcomes to our manufacturers so that maintenance leaders can deliver predictive maintenance and optimize their staff to focus on what’s important. Secondly, sustainability and topics like the energy optimization of pumps and water re-use –all areas where Grundfos can help lead our customers into a new era.”
The AI driven technology that Grundfos has does not just apply to pumps. They are looking at all critical rotating equipment. As Cathy continues, “We have analytical data in the cloud, with over 70,000 machines supplying information, so we can give our manufacturers fantastic outcomes that are driven in a prescriptive way. Most manufacturers are not using AI currently, they are waiting for reports and the data is not in real time, so they still have a lot of machine breakdowns as they are not using technology to increase the optimization of their staff and increase their production. We can help them to use AI driven technology to drive the best outcomes, not just with pumps but with all rotating equipment.”
While for many maintenance professionals a visit to Maintec is enough, for those seeking wider choice the fact that Maintec is now placed at the heart of M&E Week means there’s so much more to see and do should you be so inclined. The week beginning 5th June 2023 is Manufacturing & Engineering Week with the centerpiece exhibitions Design & Engineering Expo, Smart Factory Expo, Maintec and the Drives & Controls zone all taking place at Birmingham’s NEC on 7th and 8th June. Other exhibitions are also taking place at the NEC during the week, and these include Automechanika run by Messe Frankfurt; Med-Tech Innovation Expo and TCT 3Sixty from Rapid News Group and Subcon from the Mark Allen Group.
For further information and to register please visit: www.mandeweek.co.uk/maintec-home
https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/maintec-nec/
