Our client is a supplier of high value rental equipment, typically compressors, high pressure pumps, nitrogen pumps etc. to the international Oil and Gas, Marine, Petrochemical and Construction markets. The equipment is rented with the end user responsible for the operation of the equipment.
As a supplier into the international marketplace, our client’s equipment will be frequently moved from one geographic location to another by the end user without prior notification.
Our client had received a call from a user of their equipment notifying that the unit on hire had failed during operations. It was agreed that our client would send a technician to site to investigate the fault and repair the equipment. It was at this point that it became evident that the item was in a different country to where our client believed it to be, delaying the technician’s arrival on site due to additional visa requirements and extra travel time.
Upon inspection of the equipment by the technician, it was discovered that the equipment had failed due to operator error and misuse.
It had now become apparent to our client that not only did they not know the location of their assets when out on hire, but that they were also unaware of how and when they were being used, leaving them exposed to potentially expensive loss, recovery and damage costs.
Aquidata XL were approached by the client to offer a solution that could be easily installed on to all high value assets and could give information on location whilst also delivering and logging operational parameters to allow monitoring of performance and usage.
Key performance parameters were to include pressure, temperature and flow rate. Also of key importance was the ability of the solution to operate in hazardous areas, as many of the assets would typically be deployed in these types of environments.
A GPS/Gateway device was selected that could be installed on the rental plant, linked to a global satellite network and upload the location to Aquidata XL servers at pre-determined time intervals. This is a battery powered Zone 0 certified device which provides location to an accuracy of approximately 6 meters anywhere in the world. In addition to providing geographic information, the device can receive data transmitted by Bluetooth sensors installed on the assets. The payload from these sensors can then be re-transmitted, along with location as part of a data package providing key operational performance information.
Aquidata XL servers gather the information from the gateways and store, analyse, and interpret the data.
An automated rule-based engine analyses the incoming data in real-time and alarms can be established and “pushed” to the target audience.
The client can access the system via a browser based user interface to interrogate data from the plant and equipment, manage alarms and alerts, and take action based on actual and predicted behaviour. Historical information is retained allowing reporting on equipment movement and performance of assets, building a utilisation and operational history for each asset.
Equipment with these systems in-place has been mobilised on several separate deployments to locations such as mainland Europe, North Africa, USA and the Middle East. The client was able to track their journey to site, aware of the exact location at any given time, including a hold up in customs.
Upon arrival in country the assets have been moved to various sites in country, with our client aware of the location and operational performance their assets.
The availability of information has allowed our client to improving billing accuracy by verifying stand-by and operational rental periods and provides the security of knowing where their assets are located and how they are being used and performing. Homeward journeys have also been tracked once the equipment has been de-mobilised from site.