INDUSTRY WATCH
“ EcoStruxure Asset Advisor allows me to visualize my electrical equipment from the comfort of my home . I can open it from my computer , I can open it from my cell phone . It ’ s a very practical tool .” Páez concludes : “ Nestlé and Schneider Electric have been partners for many years . Schneider knows my needs , and I believe their products have a great place in our industry .”
We asked Páez further questions to find out more .
Can you explain the advantages brought to you by the increased visibility provided by the solution ?
One of the advantages of remote visibility is it affords our engineers greater scope to solve technical faults ensuring our plant performs optimally .
Prior to remote visibility , the team ’ s maintenance works were purely reactive , and in these scenarios , we become privy to power problems when small issues developed into even bigger faults . This meant having to outsource specialized service providers as needed .
For example , in April 2020 , we experienced a 14-hour shutdown that cost an approximate US $ 588,000 .
The section in the plant where the outage occurred was not connected , and this meant that engineers weren ’ t alerted to the risk . Before engineers could address the core of the issue , which may have been a quick fix , the problem had escalated to a full outage .
This was a huge influence in our decision to partner with Schneider Electric to set up Asset Advisor throughout our Nescafé plant . Today , through a connected service like EcoStruxure , we now operate using predictive maintenance and are given the opportunity to anticipate potential failure that our teams can resolve proactively and avoid downtime .
What benefits are brought to you by the analytics supplied by the solution ?
EcoStruxure provides automated data analytics of ongoing operations that flags technical faults of all sizes to our engineers . The typical role of an engineer combines both looking for and solving the problem and through EcoStruxure our engineers work is essentially halved . The problem is bought to them and then they can delegate the necessary time to fixing the fault .
Can you explain more about the benefits brought to you by the alerts supplied by Schneider ’ s Connected Services Hub ?
Service continuity is central to our production goal of one million jars of coffee a day in the Toulca plant and in the first three years of EcoStruxure ’ s implementation , we saw dozens of alerts about potential or imminent equipment issues coming through . These alerts empowered engineers to react quickly and avoid three unplanned stoppages , stoppages that would typically cost US $ 52,000 per hour .
To reduce maintenance costs , engineers need to identify the stressed areas in the electrical infrastructure thereby minimizing the amount of time technicians spend performing preventive maintenance across all assets . In addition to avoiding unscheduled stoppages , EcoStruxure Asset Advisor allows us to go from annual to biannual maintenance , which is reflected in the productivity of the plant .
Overall , the solution has improved service continuity and asset health .
What are the benefits of being able to visualize your electrical equipment from your phone ?
Conveniently , I am now able to visualize the electrical equipment from the comfort of home through mobile and laptop . It is a very practical tool that gives us an almost omniscient perspective of the electrical infrastructure in our Toluca Mexico plant .
We have a huge operation which goes on and we can ’ t afford for downtime or shortages to interrupt our Business Continuity . Therefore , having access to a visualization of the intricacies of our plant give us the capability to anticipate potential failure , which allows teams to resolve issues proactively and ultimately avoid downtime . p
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