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Comments on Open-Plant
Open-Plant
I checked the website. Very intriguing. Web site says not only free to download but also free to use up yo 3000 tags. I am not familiar with such products. I looked for definition of a tag, I think is is a single data capture? If so, you may be right Leif, 3000 may only be good for trial and `cost to use` which is fair.
3000 Tags is not too little, only very big machines or the monitoring of more than the TBM (belt conveyor, power generator etc.) will normally break the barrier of 3000 data tags. And yes, you are right, a "tag" in that definition equals one physical or virtual sensor, which generates a signal.
Though, Leif had answered before, that downloading and testing is for free, but the utilization not anymore. Also, I saw on their website that they charge, if you want to use it with an InfluxDB (a timeseries database). InfluxDB itself is also free to use (as of my last information a while ago ... maybe they have changed their pricing model also), but it strikes me, that they charge for something that is free to get on the market? But ... of course, they also need a monetization strategy.
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Hey Leif,
That is some neat piece of software and some good visualizations from the tunnelling sector, showing it in use.
I checked out their website and the only thing I struggle about, is that the offering of "how nice it is to be able to develop solutions to 'real world problems'" seems unrealistic as how I experience tunnelling jobsites. Tell a manager they can safe money on monitoring software? Great! Tell them they need to hire someone fulltime which tries to mimic stuff that they did not want to pay money for in the first place? Not so great.
Don't get me wrong, it is a great thing and surely a great tool at least for smaller jobsites with less need for a comprehensive industrial solution off the shelf. But up until now I have not been lucky enough to work on a project, where any client would have really been able to utilize a tool like that, just because they are always understaffed, always under time pressure and the only person on the jobsite who even knows what an OPC Server is, is the PLC electrician and already full with work, etc. ... so they keep buying off the shelf or not care about data evaluation and visualization in the first place.
That is more a problem of each individual construction company not investing in more data-driven stuff, so a managerial problem hopefully improved with a new generation of engineers at the steering wheel (I recently googled which construction company has a "CTO" on their management board - not a single one of the ones I searched - ... that speaks for their tech-savyness ... not). But unfortunately, not in place tomorrow or the day after that :-(
But I will keep an eye on it! :-)
Cheers
Hi RL
I have used in two TBM in India and its really great, you can even have teh TBM OP to digitally fill in the OP Report and it will then generate a proper report of what happened on the shift It's not free, free to download, but cost to use and some material are needed depending on each site requirement. Why I love this, once set up, it will generate your daily reports needed to monitor the TBM performance and in the event of some breakdown, it is a CRUCIAL TOOL for the troubleshooting of the TBM and its system. Yes some TBM has this, but it cost dearly to buy from them, this is a STANDALONE and working like a charm.
Leif S
Lockdown in MD India.
I understand and always like people enthusiastic about stuff like that, but I might also be biased as I work on exactly this, but for another commercial product ;-)
Hi RL,
This will indeed never work in a construction management environment where the value of data is never valued for taking corrective/adjusting actions. On the other hand, for those environments where it is valued, it will never be a problem to assign a PLC electrician or a computer operator etc to the task.