SHIELD FAQ_
What is SHIELD? What will it do for me?
What makes SmartSignal SHIELD the solution for diagnosing problems on my equipment?
What do you mean by "Priority"?
We rely on sophisticated vibration analysis. How is this supposed to be better?
What is the relationship between SHIELD and EPI*Center?
How much of my operations are covered by SHIELD?
How well does it work? Are there faults that SHIELD will miss?
How do you know SHIELD works?
What kind of value will I receive for my SHIELD investment?
How does SHIELD integrate into my organization?
Is it going to require a lot of work on my part?
Can I provide input to the diagnostics?
What is SHIELD? What will it do for me?
SmartSignal SHIELD is our newest product and the industry’s first Predictive Diagnostic software. It takes you a step beyond Predictive Analytics to Predictive Diagnostics and gives you a complete understanding of your equipment health: what is going to fail; what is the apparent cause of the failure; and what is the priority of the impending failure.
SHIELD is the result of 30 person-years of development and new intellectual property exclusive to SmartSignal. With SHIELD, SmartSignal customers can focus their efforts on action, not analysis—reducing maintenance time and costs and increasing reliability, availability, efficiency, and compliance.
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What makes SmartSignal SHIELD the solution for diagnosing problems on my equipment?
SHIELD packages engineering expertise and deep equipment knowledge based on our rich history of fault data. No competitor has the years of historical data, across equipment types and a large customer base, to make Predictive Diagnostics possible.
SmartSignal studied data from hundreds of millions of machine hours and tens of thousands of avoided failures across equipment types to identify fault patterns that are important to the Power and Oil & Gas industries. SHIELD uses fault patterns, in the context of operating behavior, to diagnose impending failures, giving you the necessary information to respond quickly.
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What do you mean by "Priority?"
A SHIELD priority helps you decide when to work on the impending failure. The priority of a SHIELD alert increases depending on the number of deviating sensors and the degree of deviation.
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We rely on sophisticated vibration analysis. How is this supposed to be better?
Vibration analysis typically involves a review of historical data—a look through the rearview mirror to determine root cause of what has happened.
SHIELD, instead, uses vibration data, along with all other relevant sensor data, to look through the front windshield to give you the earliest warning of your equipment health: what is going to fail; what is the apparent cause of the failure; and what is the priority of the impending failure.
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What is the relationship between SHIELD and EPI*Center?
EPI*Center is an open platform that delivers best-in-class Predictive Analytics to detect issues that aren’t normal in equipment operation. SHIELD is unique technology that diagnoses the apparent causes and prioritizes impending failures using new modeling technology, sophisticated engineering analysis, and unique IP.
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How much of my operations is covered by SHIELD?
SHIELD delivers Predictive Diagnostics for Coal and Combined Cycle plants and Oil & Gas Production platforms. All critical impending failures, both mechanical and performance, are covered on all key operating assets:
Coal: air heaters, boiler feed pumps and other generic pumps, condensers, cooling water circuits, deaerators, fans, feedwater heaters, generators, pulverizers, and steam turbines.
Combined Cycle: boiler feed pumps and other generic pumps, condensers, cooling water circuits, combustion turbines, generators, HRSGs, and steam turbines.
Oil & Gas Production: combustion turbines, compressors, and pumps.
Additional industry suites will be introduced in future versions of SHIELD.
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How well does it work? Are there faults that SHIELD will miss?
If it’s in your data, we’ll find it. Although there are an unlimited number of root causes for failures, the number of failure effects that can be observed by sensors is limited. This means SHIELD diagnostic algorithms can pinpoint those effects, alert the user when the observed equipment behavior requires follow-up by the plant, and point him in the most likely direction.
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How do you know SHIELD works?
SHIELD has been rigorously tested and successfully running for over a year on multiple customer sites. We have case studies to prove it.
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What kind of value will I receive for my SHIELD investment?
On average, SmartSignal EPI*Center customers pay back their investments in fewer than six months. SHIELD delivers positive ROI just as quickly.
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How does SHIELD integrate into my organization?
SHIELD’s notifications, which identify impending failures, will let you organize your maintenance projects with confidence and focus on them with simple priority assignments that flexibly map into your business process.
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Is it going to require a lot of work on my part?
SmartSignal’s engineering professionals will consult with you on your solution’s design and can deploy a standard Coal or Combined Cycle unit in a few weeks.
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Can I provide input to the diagnostics?
Yes. We plan to add new faults to our algorithms based on input from our customers and the marketplace.
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