The first weeks in our little start up went by in a flash with sweaty experiences and sleepless nights. After the initial meetings and exchanging ideas on how we can use the latest technologies for old and new belt conveyor systems to detect a critical system condition – rip event or belt breakage – we quickly came to the conclusion that data analytics and a “digital twin” would help us and our customer move forward. So without further ado, we used the knowledge gained from diploma theses, doctoral dissertations and the rapid development in the field of AI (artificial intelligence) and developed and programmed the SHG computational model for the detection of slit events and anomalies.
Initially developed in theory and later finally tested successfully in practice using data sets provided by conveyor operators.
After the first milestone, the next step was the technical design of the system and the question: What do we want to offer and enable our customers?
The analysis of competitive systems showed that they are expensive, complicated, require high maintenance, or can be operated only with additional elements in the conveyor belt, which wear out. In the process, a safety-relevant system such as e.g. a “fire detector” should be easy to operate, low-maintenance, low-wear, independent of the belt manufacturer and, above all, affordable. In addition, we thought that service and, above all, the customer must be the focus. This raises the further question of what can and do we want to offer so that it is an affordable solution with top service for our customers? Well, yes – a small provisioning fee for the hardware, whereby we want to guarantee our customers a lifetime hardware warranty, and a license fee for the software, whereby free software updates should still be possible in 15 years. Sounds expensive and unsolvable, but it wasn’t. Complicated – no we don’t want that. So a simple dashboard and 3 relays designed as plant status signals (“good”, “anomaly”, “slot event”). We also don’t want maintenance-intensive – so maintenance-free components are selected and no sensor loop is installed in a conveyor belt, which brings another advantage, because we monitor every millimeter of the entire conveyor system at every point – this is not yet available anywhere! Expensive – we are not either – stay tuned to our price list here. Just so much in advance, our system is 3 times cheaper than the cheapest competitor system over a period of 3 years.
Now the first installations are under preparation – the systems are under construction. At this point, we would like to thank our development partners and their trust in our system and in us. We are very pleased to receive such a positive response from the market.
In the next weeks we will take you with us into our daily routine and will mention our rip monitoring system for belt conveyors as well as additional features you can look forward to in the future. In this way, we want to take you into our everyday work and our developments, so that we can also develop the future in the monitoring of conveyor belt systems together with you and raise operational safety to a new level.
One thing we can say in advance is that the system is suitable for webbing, steel cord belts as well as special belts such as e.g. a SICON or a corrugated edge belt is suitable.
If you would like to learn more about our system, please contact us or simply pick up the phone and we will arrange an online or on-site appointment and present the system to you.