Tata Chemicals Europe's Winnington site has installed 11 smart sensors from ABB to enable it to identify trends in the performance and condition of a series of motors across the facility.

Using the data, which is collected autonomously by the sensors, the plant can identify faults, reduce unplanned stoppages, minimise the duration of any outages, and plan maintenance tasks in advance of them becoming critical to the ongoing operation of the site.

Matthew Shepherd, Technical Manager for Tata Chemicals Europe in the UK, said: "The Smart Sensors enable remote condition monitoring of our motor-driven processes, enabling us to greatly reduce the number of manned hours on site. The data provides an ongoing trend view of vibration, temperature and bearing condition, and a host of other operational parameters, so we can react before problems arise."

Due to the nature of the carbon capture process, the sensors are required to be ATEX certified as a fault condition within the system could potentially create a hazardous environment.

The installation is part of a pilot scheme, with Tata keen to move towards more data-driven production methods. "The ability to monitor trends was a key motivation for us with this project," said Matthew. "From the start, we were able to establish a baseline of what an optimal process looks like, so we will always have a benchmark. This means we can look at process efficiencies and optimisations whenever parameters are changed and monitor the effect they have on other processes at the plant."