gramecperu

Industrial Remote Monitoring Solutions and Processes

joehwv — Thu, 20 May 2021 09:22:01 +0000

Industrial Remote Monitoring Solutions and Processes

The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing much-needed awareness to the cleaning industry and the public about the value and importance of preventing the spread of infectious microorganisms.

“In the past, we liked to say cleaning is for health, but we could never prove it,” says Griffin. “Now, we know that cleaning is actually a life or death issue because of COVID.”

He adds that to fully understand the importance of disinfecting vacuums and carpet cleaners, EVS workers as well as building occupants should keep in mind the two fundamental tasks that they face. First is removing dirt and foreign bodies from the carpet. Second, is disinfecting the carpet to kill fungi, bacteria and viral microorganisms.

Whether you are looking for a manufacturing partner for a new project or a secondary supplier to provide additional capacity, we are here for you.

What is Remote Monitoring?

Remote monitoring tracks a machine’s real-time data and performance without the user being physically present at the equipment’s site. Remote monitoring helps technical personnel in many ways because industrial and manufacturing units are not limited to single-located facilities; they often comprise more than one site.

Remote monitoring also enables the manufacturer to maintain the necessary record of different processes more efficiently. Examples include record safety and retention, which can be difficult in traditional paper-based systems.

Types of Industrial Remote Monitoring

Remote monitoring is implemented in various industrial applications and monitors several process parameters. These are fed to algorithms and analytics, yielding information contributing to the facility’s overall performance improvement.

Manufacturing Process

Remote monitoring enables technical persons to visualize a real-time manufacturing process by reading data from sensors throughout the facility. These sensors give information about process variables and can be combined to have detailed manufacturing insight. It also includes alarm management that activates an alarm if the process faces an abnormal condition.

In a filling machine, remote monitoring can track the remaining containers, the machine’s actual speed, and how much liquid is remaining. The alarm system can be set up for problems related to the motor or a filling pump.

Maintenance Monitoring

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Emissions Monitoring

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Pellentesque bibendum, libero eu mollis condimentum, mauris tortor accumsan justo, non fermentum orci ligula a diam. Aenean gravida leo vitae sem tempor, id scelerisque lectus vestibulum. Duis dictum finibus nisi, in tincidunt turpis fermentum vitae. Phasellus sagittis volutpat massa. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur elementum bibendum dolor, id rhoncus ex consequat ac. Suspendisse ornare ex ligula, vitae auctor est consectetur quis. Praesent nulla odio, aliquet nec nisl eget, consequat pharetra diam. Praesent nec magna at sapien molestie pulvinar vel quis sem. Praesent congue turpis sollicitudin nisi vehicula, in ornare augue pretium. Curabitur pellentesque congue lacinia. Phasellus congue ante tellus, mattis condimentum lectus iaculis nec. Phasellus viverra est turpis, ut aliquet massa accumsan at. Nam sit amet orci eget ipsum sagittis viverra. Aenean odio nulla, accumsan nec tincidunt at, mattis sit amet turpis. Nam sagittis, ligula vel vulputate consequat, metus dolor condimentum velit, ac facilisis eros ipsum a turpis.

"Cras molestie velit vitae purus imperdiet, quis rutrum sapien fringilla. Nulla rhoncus est condimentum ligula efficitur lacinia. Nullam fringilla magna risus. Aliquam mattis lacus sed ipsum convallis semper. Integer auctor aliquet nunc, vitae fringilla sapien lacinia imperdiet. Integer auctor aliquet nunc, vitae fringilla sapien lacinia condimentum."
David Turner,

Manager
"Sed ultricies sagittis diam, ultricies ultrices lectus. Sed ultricies vestibulum nunc vitae aliquam. Donec vitae mauris ut diam blandit mollis vestibulum pharetra nibh. Nulla vestibulum consectetur enim, eros lobortis vestibulum. Integer finibus dui eros, facilisis viverra vestibulum feugiat eros. Etiam sodales, libero eget. finibus dui eros, facilisis viverra vestibulum feugiat eros. Etiam sodales, libero eget."
Josh Buckland,

General Manager
"Vestibulum consectetur dolor eu sapien convallis condimen vel eget metus. Cras elementum tortor enim, eget vehicula ante ullamco vel. Aenean elit lacus, vulputate ut elit vel, convallis rhoncus felis. Vivamus tincidunt venenatis nulla vitae dignissim. Quisque sceleris odio dignissim. Quisque scelerisque odio."
Eric Hamilton,

CEO
"Nunc turpis velit, pulvinar tempus ante ac, suscipit maximus lorem. Aenean cursus, lacus et tempus aliquet, sapien felis pharetra dolor, vitae volutpat erat ante cursus nibh. Quisque pellentesque tortor faucibus augue blandit placerat. Phasellus nec lorem sit amet ipsum ultricies suscipit in vitae. amet ipsum ultricies suscipit in vitae"
Austin Rees,

Co-Founder

The post Industrial Remote Monitoring Solutions and Processes appeared first on gramecperu.

The Transformation of The New Modern World

joehwv — Thu, 20 May 2021 09:15:08 +0000

The Transformation of The New Modern World

The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing much-needed awareness to the cleaning industry and the public about the value and importance of preventing the spread of infectious microorganisms.

“In the past, we liked to say cleaning is for health, but we could never prove it,” says Griffin. “Now, we know that cleaning is actually a life or death issue because of COVID.”

Whether you are looking for a manufacturing partner for a new project or a secondary supplier to provide additional capacity, we are here for you.

What is Remote Monitoring?

Types of Industrial Remote Monitoring

Manufacturing Process

Maintenance Monitoring

Emissions Monitoring

"Cras molestie velit vitae purus imperdiet, quis rutrum sapien fringilla. Nulla rhoncus est condimentum ligula efficitur lacinia. Nullam fringilla magna risus. Aliquam mattis lacus sed ipsum convallis semper. Integer auctor aliquet nunc, vitae fringilla sapien lacinia imperdiet. Integer auctor aliquet nunc, vitae fringilla sapien lacinia condimentum."
David Turner,

Manager
"Sed ultricies sagittis diam, ultricies ultrices lectus. Sed ultricies vestibulum nunc vitae aliquam. Donec vitae mauris ut diam blandit mollis vestibulum pharetra nibh. Nulla vestibulum consectetur enim, eros lobortis vestibulum. Integer finibus dui eros, facilisis viverra vestibulum feugiat eros. Etiam sodales, libero eget. finibus dui eros, facilisis viverra vestibulum feugiat eros. Etiam sodales, libero eget."
Josh Buckland,

General Manager
"Vestibulum consectetur dolor eu sapien convallis condimen vel eget metus. Cras elementum tortor enim, eget vehicula ante ullamco vel. Aenean elit lacus, vulputate ut elit vel, convallis rhoncus felis. Vivamus tincidunt venenatis nulla vitae dignissim. Quisque sceleris odio dignissim. Quisque scelerisque odio."
Eric Hamilton,

CEO
"Nunc turpis velit, pulvinar tempus ante ac, suscipit maximus lorem. Aenean cursus, lacus et tempus aliquet, sapien felis pharetra dolor, vitae volutpat erat ante cursus nibh. Quisque pellentesque tortor faucibus augue blandit placerat. Phasellus nec lorem sit amet ipsum ultricies suscipit in vitae. amet ipsum ultricies suscipit in vitae"
Austin Rees,

Co-Founder

The post The Transformation of The New Modern World appeared first on gramecperu.

industrial revolution is happening on a new planet

joehwv — Thu, 20 May 2021 09:10:23 +0000

What can two periods of industrialisation nearly two centuries apart tell us about how economies change and the demands their change place on the planet?

Today, China leads the wave of emerging economies poised to recast the Western-dominated geopolitical balance. Its development over the past three decades has turned it from a rural backwater – the “Sick Man of the Orient” – into the world’s second largest economy. According to the Peterson Institute’s Arvind Subramanian, China will soon displace the US as the dominant economic power in the world, wielding a global influence even greater than that of the British Empire at its height.

But China’s economic ascendancy has been purchased at a high environmental cost. Degraded ecosystems, polluted waterways, and encroaching deserts – these are the malignant byproducts of the largest economic expansion in history. The British historian Niall Ferguson has said that China seems intent on “cramming a century’s worth of industrialisation and urbanisation into about 30 years”. This sounds dramatic, but Professor Ferguson’s assessment may be an understatement. According to a recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute, China’s industrialisation has proceeded at ten-times the speed and 100-times the scale of Britain’s.

Nonetheless, Britain still provides the archetypal example of the industrialisation experience, if only because it was the first. The world was fundamentally changed when James Watt, along with fellow inventors and entrepreneurs such as James Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright, pioneered the technologies that catalysed the great burst of productivity we now call the Industrial Revolution. By 1829, the Victorian social critic Thomas Carlyle had already proclaimed the dawn of the “Age of Machinery”.

The post industrial revolution is happening on a new planet appeared first on gramecperu.

Work loading For Machine Maintenance

joehwv — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 07:34:45 +0000

Work loading For Machine Maintenance

The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing much-needed awareness to the cleaning industry and the public about the value and importance of preventing the spread of infectious microorganisms.

“In the past, we liked to say cleaning is for health, but we could never prove it,” says Griffin. “Now, we know that cleaning is actually a life or death issue because of COVID.”

Whether you are looking for a manufacturing partner for a new project or a secondary supplier to provide additional capacity, we are here for you.

What is Remote Monitoring?

Types of Industrial Remote Monitoring

Manufacturing Process

Maintenance Monitoring

Emissions Monitoring

"Cras molestie velit vitae purus imperdiet, quis rutrum sapien fringilla. Nulla rhoncus est condimentum ligula efficitur lacinia. Nullam fringilla magna risus. Aliquam mattis lacus sed ipsum convallis semper. Integer auctor aliquet nunc, vitae fringilla sapien lacinia imperdiet. Integer auctor aliquet nunc, vitae fringilla sapien lacinia condimentum."
David Turner,

Manager
"Sed ultricies sagittis diam, ultricies ultrices lectus. Sed ultricies vestibulum nunc vitae aliquam. Donec vitae mauris ut diam blandit mollis vestibulum pharetra nibh. Nulla vestibulum consectetur enim, eros lobortis vestibulum. Integer finibus dui eros, facilisis viverra vestibulum feugiat eros. Etiam sodales, libero eget. finibus dui eros, facilisis viverra vestibulum feugiat eros. Etiam sodales, libero eget."
Josh Buckland,

General Manager
"Vestibulum consectetur dolor eu sapien convallis condimen vel eget metus. Cras elementum tortor enim, eget vehicula ante ullamco vel. Aenean elit lacus, vulputate ut elit vel, convallis rhoncus felis. Vivamus tincidunt venenatis nulla vitae dignissim. Quisque sceleris odio dignissim. Quisque scelerisque odio."
Eric Hamilton,

CEO
"Nunc turpis velit, pulvinar tempus ante ac, suscipit maximus lorem. Aenean cursus, lacus et tempus aliquet, sapien felis pharetra dolor, vitae volutpat erat ante cursus nibh. Quisque pellentesque tortor faucibus augue blandit placerat. Phasellus nec lorem sit amet ipsum ultricies suscipit in vitae. amet ipsum ultricies suscipit in vitae"
Austin Rees,

Co-Founder

The post Work loading For Machine Maintenance appeared first on gramecperu.

Machine Cleaning Programs Minimize Pathogens

joehwv — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 07:34:44 +0000

The largest reservoir of bacterial pathogens in a long-term care facility is not on the toilet seats, push bars or handrails — it’s on the floors and carpets. That is why experts across the cleaning industry strongly suggest custodial staff, supervisors and facility managers enact and embrace programs to clean and properly maintain vacuums, extractors and interim cleaners in order to prevent the growth and spread of dangerous bacteria.

To begin building a process and creating the culture to address the issue, custodial staff and officials at a long-term care facility should complete an audit documenting current cleaning practices. The audit can be used to set short-term and long-term priorities, such as creating a machine-cleaning program. An assessment of the cleanliness of the facility’s carpets and machines using an adenosine triphosphate (ATP) test can also provide valuable data.

The first step after an audit and assessment is educating and training the custodial staff on where pathogens live, how they are spread and what cleaning procedures kill them, says Mike Sawchuk, founder of Sawchuck Consulting, Ontario, Canada. A review of cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting processes may also be in store.

The post Machine Cleaning Programs Minimize Pathogens appeared first on gramecperu.

The Future of Mining

joehwv — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 07:34:40 +0000

Could the mining industry be at an inflection point with a historically conservative industry finally starting to embrace new technologies?

Inmarsat, the mobile satellite communications company, suggests in a new report that the mining industry has started, if cautiously, to invest in the development and deployment of IoT-based projects.

In ‘The Rise of IoT in Mining’, it argues that with the mining industry under growing pressure to boost its growth and profitability, it is now seriously looking at the IoT.

Mining companies want to do more, with less, but to date, many projects have been relatively simple, in part, because the technology has to overcome a number of challenges specific to the mining industry.

As Joe Carr, Global Mining Director, Inmarsat explains, “Connectivity is often unreliable, cyber-security approaches are patchy, there are too few employees with the necessary digital skills and data is not being collected and managed in a way that would best empower organisations.”

The mining industry has a history of moving slowly when it comes to the adoption of radical ideas and that has slowed the impact and benefits traditionally associated with the IoT and technology in general.

Is this attitude, however, starting to change? Inmarsat suggests that the industry-wide adoption of IoT technologies is accelerating, and in Europe the X-Mine project, led by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, is a good example of how the mining industry is using new technologies to create a more independent, self-sufficient, but also more ecological mining industry.

The project has already resulted in new technologies that have helped to lower energy consumption and lower emissions, as well as significantly lower water consumption.

In another project, called Goldeneye and funded by the European Union, a platform that combines earth observation technologies with on-site sensing and which will use remote sensing and positioning technologies with data analytics and machine-learning algorithms is being developed to allow satellites, drones and in-situ sensors to collect high-resolution data of an entire mine, which can then be processed and converted into actionable intelligence to allow more efficient exploration, extraction and closure.

“Our goal is to bring together different technologies in a platform that can offer innovative solutions and have a positive effect on the mining industry as a whole,” says the project coordinator Marko Paavola from VTT.

The project will also look to improve the analysis of a site’s mineralogy using drone integrated geophysical sensors as well as proximity sensors including active hyper-spectral sensing and time resolved Raman spectroscopy.

The applications developed in the project, as with many others, will be adopted by a mining industry that is under pressure to reimagine business models and to start to incorporate technology into future operations.

Adopting technology

The motivations for adopting the IoT are varied but key are driving efficiency, increasing staff productivity, improving health and safety and reducing the environmental impact of mining.

In its report Inmarsat found that when it comes to the IoT many of the projects being adopted are associated with data usage and are, essentially, simplistic with the focus primarily being on issues of health and safety.

This is expected to change, with a greater focus on vehicle telemetry, supply chain tracking, and automated vehicle haulage predicted.

Driverless technology, for example, is forecast to increase mining output by up to 20 per cent while cutting fuel and maintenance costs.

Wenco International Mining Systems and Oxbotica, the autonomous vehicles specialist, have joined forces and are developing an Open Autonomy solution for mining, with trials currently underway.

The system is intended to enable efficient autonomous mining deployment, allowing mines to operate using any open standard-based vehicle allowing them to integrate it into an existing fleet.

Both companies have emphasised the importance developing an open and interoperable ecosystem of partners as it will enable a broader range of operators to integrate solutions alongside existing mine infrastructure. As a result, mining companies will not end up being locked in with a specific vendor, and will be able to carry on using their preferred technologies, independent of their primary industrial systems.

“Wenco and Oxbotica believe in the principle of open systems and consider it the primary way to bring about our joint goals of widespread adoption of autonomous technology and safer, more productive industrial operations. Our joint platform will allow customers to choose any open standards-based vehicle and integrate it into their existing operations,” says Ozgur Tohumcu, CEO of Oxbotica.

“The mining industry has proven to be at the forefront of deploying early generation autonomy systems because the business case has been clear for operators,” said Tohumcu. “However, less than two per cent of vehicles are autonomous in mines around the world.”

Business specialists, BDO, believe that mining companies will need to become “Lean, Green, Digital” machines if they want to survive and prosper.

In research conducted by BDO, the mining industry was found likely to use robots and it was estimated that they will replace more than 50 per cent of miners, while reducing mining accidents by as much as 75 per cent.

Robotics may pose a risk to mining jobs but BDO expects that the majority of miners will be retained, and retrained to run the technology controlling the robots.

As for global mining companies leveraging Internet-connected sensors and automated drillers in mines, BDO expects that their deployment will result in a 30 per cent fall in per ton digging costs.

While the IoT can be used to help improve mining safety, more Internet-connectivity will open up the industry to cyber-security breaches and new cyber-attack vectors will require it to plan for and prepare to counter these through the operation of proper internal controls. With the rise of renewables, BDO makes the point that activist hackers will be expected to launch a growing number of cyber-attacks on mines using Permanent Denial of Service attacks to eliminate the environmental and social threats they see such operations posing and will, most likely, use workers’ connected devices to initiate those attacks.

The benefits for the industry from technology are great but so too are the risks and too many mining companies still see cyber-security as a cost, while too few have the necessary skills to implement effective cyber-security policies.

Reliable connectivity

Reliable connectivity is critical when it comes to the IoT and is a challenge when operating in environments that are remote, harsh and spread over great distances – but without it, IoT projects will fail.

Inmarsat, working with Cobham SATCOM, has launched a new Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) push-to-talk (PTT) solution that can connect remote workers and vehicles around the world.

The solution has been designed to provide real-time data transfer and PTT communications which are critical for mining engineers performing well-head maintenance, or mining exploration teams looking for new mineral deposits. This kind of work requires everyone involved to be able to see the position of assets, share data and communicate in real-time.

Inmarsat’s and Cobham’s solution looks to address this and is said to offer reliability of more than 99% uptime. Low form factor satellite terminals, such as the Cobham EXPLORER 323, can be mounted on vehicles and are able to provide real-time GPS, telemetry and PTT capabilities, through the EXPLORER Mobile Gateway. This means control centres can efficiently and safely monitor the movement and performance of their vehicles, while enabling communications with crew wherever they are located.

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A New Era In Industrial Production?

joehwv — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 07:34:38 +0000

The next era of industrial production, Industry 4.0, is now upon us, fuelled by advancements in technology such as the rise of big data, automation and cyber physical systems. One particularly significant opportunity for growth within this revolution is the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which covers a variety of applications used in everything from manufacturing, to container ports and power plants. The processes and operating models that make up the IIoT can be elevated to the next level with the high-performance, ultra-low latency connectivity offered by 5G wireless networks.

According to ‘The 5G Economy’, an independent study carried out by IHS Economics and Technology in early 2017, the full economic benefit of 5G should be realised around the globe by 2035 when a broad range of industries, enabled by mobile technology, could be responsible for the production of up to $12 trillion worth of goods and services. Whether enabling enhanced broadband with fibre-like speeds, mission-critical connectivity with sub-millisecond latencies, or connecting the myriad different devices that comprise massive IoT, 5G is designed as a platform capable of handling a diverse set of services across a wide array of spectrum bands from below 1 GHz up to mmWave and supporting several deployment models from macro to indoor to private networks. A unifying connectivity fabric for innovation, not only will 5G handle the needs of today’s industries, but it is forward compatible, with flexibility to deal with services that are yet devised.

Different use cases

Let us consider the ‘factory of the future’; a wireless environment in which everything is monitored and optimised. By enabling high-performance wireless communications, 5G offers considerable potential for use cases such as assembly line automation, automated guided vehicles (AGV) decision-making, and the collection of data from sensors to inform machine learning solutions, and AR and VR applications.

What’s more, although each of these use cases may have different requirements in terms of speed, latency or bandwidth, 5G is able to handle them as part of a single network.

Depending on their requirements, some use cases can be more challenging and demanding than others. Motion control systems, for example, responsible for controlling the well-defined movements of machines, have very strict requirements regarding latency, reliability, and determinism, while the constant transmission of data within the massive IoT requires high capacity, and the transmission of high-definition video streams to and from augmented reality (AR) devices is heavily dependent on high data rates. The needs of process automation, on the other hand, which employs a variety of different sensors and actuators to monitor and control processes within a plant, sit somewhere between the two. These use cases require Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC), a key element of 5G-enabled wireless connectivity capable of delivering six nines of reliability at less than 1ms latency, meeting all their needs within a single network.

The factory floor can be a tough environment for wireless communications, however. Blockages and reflections caused by fast-moving metal objects such as cranes and conveyor belts can lead to sudden drops in RF signal strength, and rapidly time-varying interference from the small cells deployed throughout the facility.

Overcoming these limitations and enabling the necessary ‘six nines’ reliability requires spatial diversity in order to avoid drop-outs and overcome signal blockages.

largest reservoir of bacterial pathogens in a long-term care facility is not on the toilet seats, push bars or handrails — it’s on the floors and carpets. That is why experts across the cleaning industry strongly suggest custodial staff, supervisors and facility managers enact and embrace programs to clean and properly maintain vacuums, extractors and interim cleaners in order to prevent the growth and spread of dangerous bacteria.

The post A New Era In Industrial Production? appeared first on gramecperu.

Local government and the digital revolution

joehwv — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 02:58:24 +0000

How are local authorities using technology to improve services and reduce costs in straightened times?

Local authorities across the UK have had to contend with a decade of tight budgets and austerity, at least at the local level, looks set to continue for a few more years.

But while councils have been struggling with falling budgets they are also having to cope with, and better understand, the implications of the digital revolution and how it is, and could, affect the delivery of public services.

This revolution is forcing councils to rethink not just how they operate, but what it is that they need and want to do.

A report from the Social Market Foundation (SMF) looked at how technology is helping to transform the urban environment and suggests that faster, more reliable mobile coverage, full fibre broadband and the Internet of Things are radically changing how citizens interact with public services and how those services operate.

According to the SMF the Fourth Industrial Revolution is making it easier and cheaper for decision makers to deliver responsive, high quality services and to tackle a diverse range of issues such as waste management, road congestion, air and light pollution and other local-level environmental issues.

These challenges are not insignificant and many, such as road congestion, are expected to get worse. Growing urban populations are also putting a strain on resources.

As a result, councils are turning to artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable technology to provide enhanced services.

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Getting industrial memory right

joehwv — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 02:37:41 +0000

What are the costs and risks associated with overlooking flash storage technology in industrial applications? New Electronics investigates.

A growing number of industrial OEMs are seeing value in optimising the right flash technology to ensure host architecture compatibility while meeting application workload requirements

During the design process, manufacturers of industrial products undergo long engagement processes with multiple part suppliers, the purpose of which is to ensure that each embedded part will not only work for the application, but also meet the workload and environmental requirements in the field.

However, supplier engagements can be lengthy and complex. As a result, OEMs may opt to purchase off-the-shelf parts, particularly when the part is perceived to be a ‘commodity’ item. This is often the case with flash memory, which is normally selected based on specifications such as type of flash, memory capacity and form factor.

Because flash memory is widely available in a variety of form factors for consumer electronics, many OEMs assume they can proceed without a customised solution. However, in doing so, OEMs may overlook considerations such as workload (the frequency of reading and writing large amounts of data to memory), power management issues (dirty power, power cycling, power failure) and environmental conditions (temperature, vibration).

These factors can lead to data corruption and other errors in the field, while reducing the reliability and lifespan of the flash storage. For industrial OEM products, which can have a lifecycle of 3-5 years or longer, compared to 6-18 months for consumer applications, this can cause failures in the field and reduce the overall life of their product.

“Many industrial OEMs purchase flash storage devices over the internet only to discover at the launch there were unexpected issues due to inaccurate assumptions about the environment and workload requirements,” explains Tony Diaz, Product Manager for Delkin Devices, a supplier of non-volatile flash storage solutions in a variety of SSD, card and module solutions.

This can result in severe consequences for users. In the transportation industry, for example, the unexpected failure of mission critical data may lead to the compromising of safety features that drivers rely upon to prevent accidents. In manufacturing automation, unexpected data device failures can cause machinery to malfunction, potentially leading to a costly and disruptive cessation of production.

Given the critical role in storing mission-critical data, Diaz says the majority of industrial flash storage solutions require some level of customisation to adequately meet workload requirements in real-world industrial scenarios.

Workload demands

All flash storage has a finite life, depending on how well it is managed and the workload requirements. In order to optimise and extend the life of a flash storage device, careful consideration must be given to how data is written to the device.

Writing to flash is the process of prepping the blocks of flash and then programming new data to the flash blocks. However, new data cannot be saved to flash until the old data is first erased. Due to the nature of flash storage, only a finite number of programming and erasing cycles can be performed before wear renders it unreliable to store data. In addition, some flash media is not used evenly, further reducing the life of the device.

Fortunately, there are options to extend the life of a flash device, including reducing unnecessary copying of files or downloading of data, consolidating writes, wear levelling techniques and even selecting whether the data is written sequentially or randomly.

“If an OEM misjudges or misunderstands the workload requirements, there are implications for the storage,” says Diaz, “it could be as simple as unexplained errors in the field, or it could be a situation where they are wearing out the flash memory much faster than they realize.”

An important flash storage customisation option involves mechanical ruggedness. Is the application subjected to unusual amounts of vibration? Does the typical operating environment exceed even standard industrial storage parameters?

Although industrial flash storage is designed to be rugged, different applications have different operating requirements. Customising the mechanical ruggedness of the storage can alleviate concerns about failures associated with operating conditions.

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