They walk the line: backing products with superior service gets technology boost at Rockwell Automation

摘要

Technology advances are helping a small team of engineers monitor plant-floor systems and increase machine uptime for a number of manufacturing clients serviced by Rockwell Automation. These customer sites are scattered around the country, but thanks to what is known as machine-to-machine (M2M) technology, about a dozen Rockwell engineers perform their support tasks seated at a command center in Cleveland. "The technology enables us to monitor what is going on with a line just as if we were standing there in the plant," says Scott Lapcewich, Rockwell's director of customer support services. "We also can analyze data to identify negative trends on certain variables that would indicate a problem is going to occur. " Rockwell calls the remote monitoring service "In.Site." The offering has three main elements: continuous monitoring and analysis of process-line activity; Web-based tools to visualize performance; and troubleshooting support from process engineers.