When a centrifugal casting machine develops a control-system fault, getting the right technical support quickly can make a significant difference to production downtime.
With Gibson Centri Tech machinery installed around the world, sending an engineer to site is not always the fastest or most cost-effective solution. International travel can involve flights, accommodation, visas and days of lost time before an engineer even reaches the machine.
To help overcome this, Gibson Centri Tech can incorporate secure remote-access capability into new machinery and control systems.
Faster Access to Technical Support
Remote access allows our engineers in the UK to connect to supported machine control systems and investigate issues without immediately travelling to site.
Depending on the machine and system configuration, this can allow us to review:
- PLC operation and logic
- HMI alarms and operating conditions
- Variable speed drives
- Servo systems
- Remote I/O
- Machine interlocks and control sequences
This gives our engineers a much clearer picture of what is happening on the machine and can often allow faults to be diagnosed quickly.
Reducing Downtime and Cost
Remote support can significantly reduce the time and cost involved in fault finding.
Instead of automatically arranging a site visit, our engineers can first investigate the problem remotely and determine whether the issue can be resolved through software changes, parameter adjustments or operator guidance.
For overseas customers, this can avoid substantial costs associated with:
- International flights
- Accommodation
- Engineer travelling time
- Site expenses
- Production delays while waiting for attendance
In some cases, a problem that may previously have required an overseas visit can be resolved from the UK.
Better Prepared Site Visits
Not every fault can be fixed remotely, particularly where a mechanical, electrical or hardware issue is involved.
However, remote diagnostics can still provide considerable value.
By reviewing the machine before travelling, we can often identify the likely cause of the problem and ensure the engineer arrives with the correct replacement parts, software and technical information.
This can reduce the length of the site visit and help return the machine to production more quickly.
Supporting Machines Around the World
Gibson Centri Tech supplies centrifugal casting machinery to customers across the world, making remote support an increasingly important part of our after-sales service.
On recent international projects, our engineers have been able to modify and support machine control systems remotely from the UK, removing the need to send an additional programming engineer overseas.
This provides customers with faster access to specialist technical knowledge while helping reduce the overall lifetime support cost of their equipment.
Remote Support Built into Your Machine
Remote-access hardware can be incorporated into new Gibson Centri Tech machinery and may also be suitable for retrofitting to existing machines.
For customers operating production-critical centrifugal casting equipment, it provides an effective way to improve technical support, reduce unnecessary site visits and minimise downtime.
Legacy Systems
We can even send a unit out to connect to existing equipment, this can be done across ethernet, Wi-Fi or cellular networks
Contact Gibson Centri Tech to discuss remote support options for new or existing centrifugal casting machinery.
