“… rugged high-memory passive RF data chips (and sensors) enable next generation MRO by allowing product data and its entire, granular lifecycle history to easily and inexpensively become part of the product itself.”

Tego Executive Director Bill Stevenson writes for Resource Engineering & Maintenance magazine to describe what asset intelligence can do to bring about a next generation of asset performance management and MRO operations.

From the article:

The term digital thread is sometimes used to describe an integrated view of an asset’s data throughout its lifecycle. The digital thread is intended to deliver “the right information to the right place at the right time.” In a distributed asset intelligence scenario, a given asset’s “as-maintained” data resides on the asset itself, thus providing an information platform for improving asset performance management and MRO. “Smart assets” make detailed specification and configuration data available at the point of use to facilitate maintenance, precisely track compliance of life-limited parts, ensure the authenticity of parts and avoid counterfeits, confirm part performance, and even incorporate maintenance instructions into the part itself. The part tells the employee what needs to be done!

More importantly, data on each part can be updated with each service or inspection activity, and a permanent record of all entries gets maintained locally. Multiple data partitions requiring security credentials allow certain data to be selectively available to users based on their rights and role. A local smartphone reader can connect right back to the enterprise systems of the operator, OEM, or third-party maintenance provider, providing thorough visibility into how a part is used and its performance over time, and fueling better decision making for management.

In addition to storing lifecycle history data on the product itself, RF data chips can be configured to provide power to a sensor, and then record its data whenever the chip is interrogated with an RF signal. Typically, this activity would not be carried out to collect continuous real-time data, but rather to provide periodic trend data that could inform further maintenance decisions.

Read the full article here (Go to Page 16).

To learn about Tego’s platform solutions for product lifecycle management and MRO and how Tego enables smarter asset performance management, contact us here.