PERPETUAL, GEFOND'S SOFTWARE THAT PREDICTS FAILURES AND REDUCES DOWNTIME IN THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY. WE MET TIZIANA TRONCI, THE COMPANY'S NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

by Bianca Raimondi

From Mechanics February 18, 2024

In the modern manufacturing industry, the maintenance of production equipment is no longer limited to the scheduled replacement of worn components but becomes part of the production strategy flanked by mathematical models that support maintainers in adopting a new data-driven approach. Predictive maintenance is smart maintenance that can predict what will happen in the future, based on precise parameters from machinery. And the challenge for Gefond, a company that represents leading suppliers in the diecasting industry and distributes technologically advanced equipment for light alloy foundries, is precisely to keep up with change by trying to anticipate it, to support trends in the manufacturing industry with innovative technical solutions, focusing on digitization and sustainability; while at the same time trying to expand service offerings and pushing training to increase productivity, in the knowledge that a predictive business approach saves costs, improves productivity by reducing the frequency of costly unplanned downtime, improves profitability, offers better service levels, and improves safety and environmental performance. "With the appropriate IT systems, predictive maintenance allows, in fact, strategic choices to be made, including in terms of spare parts selection, more appropriate technologies, and more cost-effective production schedules, effectively extending the life of the assets and plants themselves," says Tiziana Tronci, new products manager at Gefond.

What is Gefond's mission? "Taking care of machinery, not just owning it, this is our mission. In recent years, the economic crisis and relentless competition have put companies in constant difficulty, forcing them to take an even closer look at the relationship between cost and performance of machines and equipment intended for production. Asset maintenance is a must-have value for a company that wants to stay in the market."

What proposals does Gefond offer in the field of predictive maintenance? "In 2018, we began the development of Perpetual predictive maintenance software, an intuitive and user-friendly artificial intelligence software that can talk to any machine anywhere in the world. It was created to give companies the ability to apply predictive maintenance in a concrete way within the plant. With Perpetuo it is possible to continuously analyze certain chemical-physical parameters, electrical quantities and temperatures, machine pressure and, based on this data, predict a failure. In this way, interventions are carried out only when they are needed, saving costs, improving productivity, and using both human, spare parts, and material resources more efficiently. It is a user friendly software that can be used in many areas in a very simple way, and can be used by the maintenance person, purchasing, and ownership itself to make strategic choices."

How did the idea for Perpetuo come about? "My experience in other industries gave me an open-mindedness to experiment and bring something new, adapted to the changing market, by fielding Perpetuo, which is applicable to many industries. I focused on the fact that most of the interventions we do are by fault call: it means emergency interventions, under stress, with stopped machines, stopped production facilities, a technical supply time of spare parts that are not always available in stock. And so I tried to see if there was a different way of working that would allow us to budget for possible failures and consequently reduce downtime. I studied other industries and realized that it was already being done in those industries. So why not bring a more efficient way of working to the foundry as well? Perpetual was born precisely from the combination of the software house's mathematical computing expertise with the technical expertise developed from our 30 years of experience on die casting machines in the foundry. It is aimed at both machinery owners and manufacturers and is applicable to all types of machinery in the manufacturing sector."

How does Perpetuo predictive maintenance software work? "Perpetual transforms data collected from sensors installed on equipment or from machine Plcs into useful information for predictive maintenance of mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic parts subject to wear and tear or failure. The software uses sophisticated mathematical algorithms, which analyze the data and calculate the risk that failure of a particular component may occur. The system sends an alert signaling the criticality before the failure occurs. Visualization dashboards complete the operating system. With Perpetual, the plant's auxiliary systems can be monitored, thus avoiding not only production island shutdowns but downtime for the entire department."-