Knowledge Centre
Digital solutions and data
are becoming a staple of LPG filling
For any industrial operation today, the ability to collect and analyse data about your equipment and process is an invaluable tool. This is no less true in the LPG filling industry, which is currently undergoing an accelerating digitalisation process. One of the people helping our customers to gather and make use of their data is our Operational Excellence Specialist Bruno. He has agreed to share some insights about what MAKEEN Energy has worked on in terms of digitalisation solutions for the LPG filling business.
It is clear that more and more of our customers are realising the importance of having a good setup to gather data on and visualise all the processes in their filling plants. We now have 37 MAKEEN Gateways installed in customer plants around the world, with many more to come. Several of our customers are so happy with it, they are already in the process of ordering more. So, in 2023, we focused on further development of the MAKEEN Gateway in order to connect our
customers’ assets even better.
Today, we offer a much more open solution where customers can easily access their data through an API. And our team has worked on the second version of our data logger that enables it to cover not just the
out-and-out filling equipment but also all the other functions in the filling plant, such as the sealing machines, the cap and sleeve applicators, the body leak detectors, and so on.
The main purpose of the Gateway is to be able to track and improve your performance, and the metric we use is called OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). OEE is based on availability, performance, and quality. The last two are simple enough to measure, but availability can be a bit tricky. For example, say your line stops for 15 minutes at one point – that would negatively affect your availability. But what if it was a planned stop? Maybe the shopfloor team went for lunch, had some training or any other planned activity. Then it is not a matter that will affect availability.
That’s why, in 2023, we developed a solution for the control unit on our equipment where we can distinguish between planned and unplanned production stops. Basically, the controller unit prompts the operator to input a reason for any stop over 5 minutes. Those reasons can be predefined according to the customer’s needs. That way, you get a much more accurate picture of your production’s availability, as well as your OEE.
Finally, we have worked on integrating Microsoft Power BI, which will allow us to provide to our customers fully customised dashboards, presenting reports and KPI’s on a management level, which is
something we felt was missing in our digital solutions package.
I am excited to keep updating and optimising our digital services in the future. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of our remarkable Research & Development (R&D) team, who tirelessly push the boundaries every
day to fulfill the general customer's needs, and the invaluable feedback from our customers, there is no doubt that tracking your performance in detail is the modern way to run an LPG filling business. In terms of
maximizing profits, reducing maintenance costs, and optimizing safety, knowledge really is power. Of course, collecting and analyzing the data has always to me complemented the continuous improvement
principles to reach the desired targets. Digital solutions like the MAKEEN Gateway and our Industry 4.0 package give you a great platform to build and optimise from.
What is OEE?
Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE, is a metric for an operation’s productivity, based on three factors: Availability, Performance, and Quality. In the context of an LPG filling plant, this means:
- Availability: How long was your production line running compared to the planned production time?
- Performance: How many cylinders did you handle compared to your production line’s capacity?
- Quality: Of the cylinders you filled, how many were correctly filled and passed the check weighing, leak testing, etc?
