Keeping Heavy Machinery Running In the Most Extreme Conditions

The lost opportunity cost of a large hydraulic excavator in an iron ore mining operation can be as much as $55,000 for each hour of downtime.¹ Catching a potential failure before it happens can prevent a catastrophic event and potentially save millions of dollars in lost revenue. Through advances in AI algorithms and IoT sensors, mining operations can better monitor the health of their equipment fleet.

However, IoT sensors alone can’t tell the whole story when dealing with fluids. Physical samples of fluids such as engine oil and hydraulic fluids need to be collected periodically and sent to a lab for detailed analysis to assess the condition and determine if the fluids/filters need changing or a preventative repair needs to be made before an imminent catastrophic failure occurs.

LogiLube was working to developed their latest product, the SmartOil-M™ Series. The devices was a modular real-time oil condition monitoring and autonomous LIVE oil sampling system that integrated off-the-shelf IoT sensors to provide real- time condition monitoring of fluid properties. The SmartOil-M system would be designed to collect LIVE samples of fluids to better predict equipment performance and potential points of failure. The solution also included a companion mobile app which would allow for programming collection periods, reviewing logs, and referencing the health of the fluids being sampled through the use of Bluetooth communication to the sensors inside the SmartOil-M.

During development, the SmartOil-M system faced challenges with sensor connection and user error during the collection process. The system was deployed and being used with mining haul trucks in Chile and Australia. But support engineers were primarily located in the United States. As LogiLube teams in Colorado attempted to troubleshoot these issues with the on-site engineers, it became evident that support in the field would continue to be problematic and challenging while trying to execute the launch from the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic had led to restricted flights to Chili and Australia so technicians could not be safely sent to the mining sites to help. LogiLube needed a solution that would empower both the end-users in foreign countries and the support engineers in the U.S.