Challenge:
A large medical clinic has thousands of traps throughout their many buildings. These are so integral to their operations that they have maintenance crews that check critical locations every 2 - 3 hours.
Some are located in hard to access spots which prove challenging for inspectors, even to the extent that sometimes workers can get burnt trying to get temperature readings to assess functionality.
Steam trap inspections took upwards of 5 hours per day.
Solution:
Monitors were installed on all steam traps and connected via LoRaWAN network to collect temperature and sound readings remotely. Failure alerts are now sent to maintenance department who can schedule repair at a time that is convenient to clinicians as well as operations. They have started doing failure trend analysis to be able to proactively calculate energy savings and resource allocation. Safety committee is thrilled with the new approach and has implemented mandatory training for specialized individuals who maintain HVAC system as well as steam.
“The amount of time we used to spend doing inspections was prohibitive. The steam system is an essential service.”
Benefits:
Crews that used to do inspections every 2-3 hours are now working on a number of projects that had to be sidelined due to lack of time
System is running smoothly and failures can be attended to immediately
They have seen a reduction in their energy costs
They no longer have to deal with process interruptions due to invasive inspections
Safety infractions are now a very rare occurrence
Exception reports and failure alerts mean they don’t need to watch dashboard all the time