Predictive maintenance is the cornerstone of Industry 4.0 and the factory of tomorrow – igus’ smart plastics warn of potential failure in good time before unplanned and very costly downtimes occur.The concept for igus smart plastics uses two elements. isense, which provides status updates of the iglidur bearing, drylin linear guide, e-chain or chainflex cable. These status updates are collected by the icom communications module and used to monitor the health of the machine or factory.
An added benefit predictive maintenance brings over, following a scheduled maintenance regime, is that the service life of products can be maximised – thereby reducing material costs and saving time. In addition, if, for example, an energy chain begins to wear unexpectedly, an early warning alert enables engineers to investigate and rectify the problem promptly before failure occurs.
Many new smart plastics products have been added to the range since its introduction just over a year ago. These include, the isense EC.RC, a new system for monitoring e-chains, the optimised CF.Q module for the intelligent chainflex cables and the intelligent iglidur PRT slewing ring bearings.
