1.Achieving Smart Equipment Management in the IoT Era: An Online Anomaly Monitoring System Using Factory Big Data
The strategic use of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been increasing rapidly in the U.S. and Europe in recent years. Japanese industry, government, and academia are now starting to follow this trend. Equipment management is one area of use for big data in the manufacturing industry. The Japanese manufacturing industry is far from its infancy, but there is still room for improvement. Current objectives include stabilizing production and ensuring safety in processing plants and continually operating factories. Although effective preventive measures are imperative for securing the performance of equipment, eliminating malfunction by means of a standard TBM protocol has proved to be difficult. The BiG EYES anomaly monitoring/detection system described herein can learn and recognize the neutral state of a factory system by analyzing big data with a fuzzy neural network. It is designed to prevent problems at manufacturing plants by predicting and giving forewarning of any irregularities in the system.
In recent years, the online monitoring and diagnosis of field equipment through device management systems utilizing FOUNDATION Fieldbus and HART has become popular. With this development has come the expectation of improved plant safety, safe control, and maintenance efficiency. To meet these expectations, we have developed a differential pressure/pressure transmitter with diagnostic functions designed to increase the efficiency of plant maintenance. This paper reports on two indexes that we have developed, standard deviation and pressure frequency, as well as the results of experiments using actual flow. Our diagnostic functions enable early detection of problems in processes such as impulse line clogging.
3.A Field Device Management System for the Big Data Era
The era of big data has brought with it increased expectations for the operation of field devices, such as the ability to detect irregularities from a large amount of data and the ability to conduct condition-based maintenance. By strengthening support for HART-IP and other standard communication protocols of the FieldComm Group, Azbil has developed a device management system with support for a greater number of commercially available networked devices. We have also improved the system’s user-friendliness and usability with features for all field devices in the network, such as simultaneous real-time display of time-series data from multiple devices and functions for utilizing historical data. These improved capabilities for utilizing data from field devices have now been implemented in Azbil’s safe and reliable device management system.
4.A New Building Management System Offering an Excellent User Experience
Building Management System (BMS) users range from beginners to experts in building management operation and system device operation. Based on Azbil’s long experience in development and sales, savic-net G5 was designed and built to be a BMS for all levels of user. The main difference between it and existing systems is the consideration given to user experience (UX). Rather than simply adding more features or improving user-friendliness, we have aimed at developing a BMS that improves the experience of managing building operation.
5.Cloud Services for More Efficient Building Management: Overview and Energy Management Functions
Azbil has developed and launched Cloud Services for Buildings as a supporting system for building management. In addition to basic building management functions of energy management, facility security, and tenant services, in the future we plan to include assistance for heat-source operation planning, demand response, remote control, and other features in the system. This document presents an overall picture of our cloud services as well as the related energy management capabilities, which we developed as a first step.
6.Cloud Services for More Efficient Building Management: Tenant Services for Better Living
Azbil's Tenant Service Server, an application for tenants which has been a part of our previous services, will be provided as a part of Cloud Services for Buildings tenant services from now on. Cloud computing improves the features of our services by making them more adaptable and extensible. It also improves maintenance and strengthens information security. This document describes the tenant services function, as well as a new air conditioning system that responds to tenant feedback on temperature, which is being developed as a new function.
7.Cell Air Conditioning System for Small/Medium-Sized Office Buildings
We have developed a cell air-conditioning system to meet the needs of small and medium-sized buildings. Instead of the conventional air-conditioning zoning method, our design applies smaller cells for more precise air distribution. The system is composed of diffusers whose direction can be changed, air branch units enabling air volume control, user interface units for occupants, and controllers. The system allows control of the air volume and direction to smaller spaces than VAV systems or variable refrigerant flow AC. We analyzed the relationship between thermal comfort and airflow volume/direction, based on theory, experimentation, and simulations, and applied the results to design the system’s control logic. Based on the occupants’ “votes,” the control logic maintains a comfortable environment by adjusting the airflow volume and direction and the temperature in each control loop, providing finely tuned airflow control with a high level of usability that eliminates any user hesitation.
8.A Process Inspection System Using Thermography
Packaging of plastic beverage bottles and cans is done on a package production line which constructs cardboard boxes using hot melt adhesive. Existing quality testing equipment uses a visible-light image that detects only the shape of the hot melt immediately after application, leaving uncertainty as to whether the box is actually bonded. Instead of using a visible-light image, our testing system processes infrared thermographs of the hot melted cardboard bond in order to judge its quality.
9.Error Minimization in Ultrasonic Gas Meters for City Gas and LP Gas
Changes in the gas market can be expected as a result of the revisions to the Basic Energy Plan announced by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in April 2014. In this context, we have developed an ultrasonic gas meter that is equipped with pulse output as a standard feature and is compatible with home management energy systems. Depending on the area where ultrasonic waves propagate, deviation in speed distribution is a known problem that can result in measurement error or decreased performance level of the ultrasonic gas meter. With regard to this problem, we report on the achievement of improved performance through division of the meter’s measurement channels into multiple layers.
