Emerson Releases Asset Monitoring Edge Device

One of the more notable product release announcements at the 2019 Emerson User Exchange was the introduction of a new edge analytics device, the AMS Asset Monitor. According to Emerson, this device digitalizes essential asset data and analytics to provide actionable insights into essential assets that were previously monitored only with infrequent assessments.

A key differentiator of the AMS Asset Monitor is that, rather than sending data to a historian or the cloud for processing, it performs calculations onboard. It collects data continuously and uses embedded logic to identify and diagnose common reliability issues, according to Emerson's press release about the new product, which adds, “Individual issues such as imbalance, misalignment, bearing faults, lubrication issues, or fouling are consolidated into an overall asset health score.”

Emerson developed AMS Asset Monitor to address the fact that, at most plants, the condition of essential assets such as pumps, fans, and heat exchangers is assessed only every 30 to 60 days. According to the company, the longer the gap, the more likely a defect will go undetected and result in an unexpected failure with significant impact on production, product quality, and plant efficiency. The new AMS Asset Monitor combines embedded logic-based analytics and intuitive health scoring to make it easier for organizations to monitor and maintain essential assets. For instance, AMS Asset Monitor’s analytics and visualization can help plant personnel effectively plan maintenance during scheduled shutdowns and turnarounds and reduce or eliminate unplanned downtime.

Peter Zornio, Emerson’s CTO, said a key aspect of AMS Asset Monitor is its vibration analysis capability. A lot of asset monitoring can be done with a programmable logic controller (PLC), said Zornio. But he adds vibration analysis is a very specialized application that you won’t see in a typical distributed control system (DCS) or PLC. "Historically, you could have vibration sensing on a device for analysis. But if you’re looking to do predictive analysis, that would be done in a rack or on computers located in another room, requiring long [networking] runs to connect them. Our concept with AMS Asset Monitor is to eliminate long runs and build in higher level analysis at the device, with short quick connections to sensors,” Zornio says.

AMS Asset Monitor communicates via a wireless or wired Ethernet connection to a web browser or persona-based alerts on mobile devices when integrated with Emerson’s Plantweb Optics software, which provides enterprise-wide visibility into edge analytics and digital intelligence to keep personnel aware of essential asset health.

Stuart Harris, group president of Emerson’s new Digital Transformation business, pointed out that AMS Asset Monitor’s connection capabilities with Plantweb—and the KNet analytics module included in PlantWeb—mean that users can apply and create custom analytics applications as needed.