L&T-MHI Power Turbine Generators Private Limited has upgraded its test bench with GE Power Conversion’s cyber-secured MV7000 drive remote monitoring. This is the first drives KPI and Motor KPIs keeping the MV drive as a sensor.
The drive acts as the sensor for GE Power Conversion’s Asset Performance Management (APM) digital solution, eliminating the need for a separate hardware sensor. The energy-efficient and cost-saving solution was recommended by GE as an upgrade for an obsolete third-party controller.
The upgrade at L&T-MHI’s manufacturing facility at Hazira, a suburb of Surat city in the Gujarat state of India, also included an advanced software upgrade to enable the digital drive prognostic feature (key performance indicators and rotating machine prognostic). The scalable RXi-142 features flexible architecture, a future-proof HPCi platform and high reliability computing. It also addresses the customer’s cyber security concerns.
“It was very important to us that this solution meets our demands for cyber security while adding additional remote monitoring and control capabilities through the software, and this could be done with minimal hardware upgrade in one package,” said Mr Rajneesh Bajaj, GM & Head-Operations, of L&T-MHI. “In addition to the benefits of monitoring asset health, we are seeing improvement of reliability on the long test process. We have enhanced our predictive maintenance using machine learning for better early warning capability, minimised our unplanned maintenance costs and reduced production losses from downtime.”
With more than 100 years of experience engineering motors, generators and control equipment, GE Power Conversion’s APM solution can provide early warning of potential failures. This tool evaluates equipment health by analysing data from key systems. It can monitor assets for performance degradation, providing an early warning and helping operators reduce unplanned downtime.
“Our range of solutions protect L&T-MHI’s investment in valuable equipment by helping to improve availability of high-speed balancing tunnel facility,” Balaji Parthasarathy, Executive of GE Power Conversion’s business in India explained. “We can provide a view on the health of our customers’ critical assets with early warnings of developing issues so they can take timely, corrective actions.”
GE drives are fitted with a software module enabling simple, secure collation of data for trending key performance indicators and performing analytics. In addition, high frequency measurements can be used to perform electrical signature analysis to evaluate performance.
Also included in the L&T-MHI solution is GE’s Visor Connect Box, which provides a gateway for remote support and cloud connectivity. Featuring a powerful data historian, Visor is GE Power Conversion’s cyber-secure remote access solution.
GE Power Conversion’s digital suite is built on GE’s industry-wide expertise in IT, operating technology (OT) and the industrial internet of things (IIoT). It is intuitive and visual to use, and customisable to meet customers’ requirement.
