Capability Spotlight: IMPEL

Maintenance documentation varies widely in quality, often being incomplete, vague, or outdated. Procedures may lack detail, rely on obsolete methods, or feature unclear diagrams. Sometimes these procedures are taken from OEM manuals, which are too generic and require design knowledge to understand which steps are applicable.

For many years, maintenance crews have been relying on the experience of their workforce to perform the work correctly despite poor instructions. However, mass retirement from an aging workforce, higher employee turnover rates, and leaner staffs have taken away this safety net of experience and leave our facilities at risk. One of the greatest risks to the safe and profitable operation of our plants is preventable errors that result in online equipment failure.

A maintenance procedure that is optimized for the world we live in now has different requirements than the procedures developed in the past.  Firstly, it needs to adequately capture the institutional knowledge of skilled professionals who are familiar with the equipment. Secondly, it needs to clearly illustrate each step in the procedure in a way that is easy to follow. Thirdly, it needs to accurately reproduce the design of the installed equipment instead of being overly generic. Lastly, it needs to be delivered in a format that reflects how the new generation of workers consume information- digital and interactive.

The last requirement may seem like more of a ‘want’ than a ‘need,’ but it is just as critical as the other three. Most workers who have graduated in the past 10-15 years are what are commonly referred to as ‘digital natives’ and have been immersed in a learning environment that depends heavily on digital assets.  Providing information in a way that is intuitive for them to use and matches the way they are used to interacting with information will help them retain that information and complete work more efficiently. This not only supports reducing risk for maintenance errors, it streamlines the work completed to save on labor hours needed for each job.

Hydro has addressed this need by developing IMPEL, an interactive, digital maintenance platform that replicates pump design and installation to clearly illustrate each step of the maintenance procedure. IMPEL uses an interactive 3D model of the equipment that is animated to illustrate each step of the maintenance procedure. Part of the development process includes an extensive overview of the procedure by Hydro’s experienced field service technicians to ensure that it includes best practices and to add notes and warnings into critical steps where mistakes may be made.

Introducing IMPEL from Hydro, Inc. on Vimeo.

Our maintenance professionals have a great responsibility- keeping our plants running safely and reliably. Let’s make sure they are armed with the best tools available.

Learn more about Hydro’s IMPEL or contact us for more information.

Capability Spotlight: Hydro University

Hydro University was developed with a mission of ensuring that pump users around the world have access to the knowledge required to optimize industrial operations and reduce pump lifecycle costs. By imparting technical skills, pump knowledge, and troubleshooting methodologies, we help our customers to achieve this.

Hydro has spent 50 years accumulating knowledge of pump operation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and upgrades. Our aftermarket perspective uniquely empowers us to look at our pumps the way an end user would- with an eye for improving reliability and performance of existing assets instead of a focus on initial design. Our training is similarly focused on imparting skills critical to end users’ every day job functions instead of theoretical design that would rarely, if ever, be used by pump system owners.

Hydro University: Meet Our Training Instructors from Hydro, Inc. on Vimeo.

Hydro University understands that not every organization or learner will have the same goals and has developed a varied slate of delivery methods to support skill development.

For those looking to engage in course material on their own schedule, Hydro University offers a breadth of online technical webinars and e-learning classes. The topics are expansive, covering a depth of knowledge such as centrifugal pump fundamentals, system optimization, vibration, failure modes, and many more.

For organizations looking for an in-depth skill development strategy, Hydro University provides tailored programs that combined classroom, hands-on, and virtual course material customized to the end user’s learning goals. These programs can include a mentorship aspect, where Hydro’s subject matter experts join students in an application optimization project that provides practical application of the skills they learned in the classroom.

Interested in learning more about Hydro University? Download our current course catalog, visit the Hydro University LMS to browse online courses, or contact us for more information.

Capability Spotlight: Centaur Condition Monitoring

Hydro’s Centaur is an IoT condition monitoring solution developed by rotating equipment experts with a specific focus on detecting equipment failure modes and providing impending warning of incipient problems. Centaur includes the necessary hardware, software, and dedicated engineering support to successfully trend equipment condition and avoid unplanned downtime.

The Problem

Industrial users have relied on analog gauges and route-based data collection methods for decades. These methods often lead to inaccurate or incomplete readings and can expose workers to elevated safety risks, especially in hazardous environments. More importantly, traditional methods do not provide the benefits that continuous monitoring does, such as early detection and warning alerts, remote support for troubleshooting and diagnostics, and improved MTBR/MTBF.

Our Solution

A complete picture of equipment health can only be revealed by capturing a continuous stream of data and using both analytical power and subject matter expertise to turn this data into actionable information. Centaur achieves this by combining digital vibration, temperature, and pressure sensors, cloud-based software, and the experience gained through 50 years of developing aftermarket solutions for rotating equipment.

A critical piece of Centaur’s ability to reduce users’ cost of asset ownership and avoid unnecessary downtime is its dedicated engineering team, who provide proactive monitoring oversight, monthly health reports, and advanced analytical support. These rotating equipment experts perform root cause analyses of concerning trends and alarm events, which include recommended action steps to remediate suspected issues long before they become costly failures.

The Difference

In contrast to traditional IOT companies, Centaur was developed with the input of rotating equipment experts. As an unbiased presence in the aftermarket, Hydro has amassed experience over a broad spectrum of manufacturers, designs, and applications.

This expertise influenced hardware and software design, ensuring that Centaur is capable of effectively detecting and identifying known equipment failure modes. Some examples include the measurement of phase data and a frequency range capable of detecting bearing fault frequencies.

How it Works

The Benefits

  • Increased accuracy: Provides more precise pressure readings, maintaining safe and efficient operations.
  • Greater data collection frequency: Allows creation of detailed pressure profiles and trends, supporting identification of anomalies that indicate potential issues.
  • Increased worker safety: Eliminates need for workers to access dangerous or hard-to-reach areas and provides earlier warning of potential safety issues.
  • Predictive maintenance: Enables condition-based maintenance by tracking performance degradation over time.
  • Cost savings: Reduces cost of equipment ownership by preventing potential issues and reducing downtime.
  • Trending efficiency: Detecting and trending performance degradation facilitates more informed decisions on equipment operation and maintenance.

Ready to learn more about Centaur? Contact us or apply for a free trial.

Podcast: The Coolest in Pump Testing and Condition Monitoring

 

We agree with Empowering Pumps, pump testing and condition monitoring are the coolest!

Listen to the latest Empowering Industry podcast, where Charli Matthews chats with our Director of Condition Monitoring and Test Lab, Ares Panagoulias, about his history with the Hydro Test Lab, how he got pulled into the world of pumps, and the new innovations he is heading with our Centaur condition monitoring division.

Watch to the interview below, or listen to the podcast here.

Learn more about the Centaur condition monitoring solution and and Hydro’s Performance Test Lab.

Podcast: Solutions Spotlight with Ares Panagoulias

Ever wondered how to better understand equipment health but struggled with climbing the mountain of data available to come up with actionable information?

Listen to the latest podcast from Chemical Processing magazine, where our Director of Condition Monitoring and the Test Lab, Ares Panagoulias, talks about how to avoid data overload while still becoming more predictive in your asset management strategies.

Listen to the podcast below, or read the interview here.

Learn more about the Centaur condition monitoring solution and read some case studies of successful implementations of condition monitoring.