Remote maintenance of production facilities

Fast Service on the web portal

For machine and plant manufacturers that need to meet high export quotas, the role of remote maintenance is strategically important. During the actual implementation phase many technical and organizational questions arise regarding connection management, data security and access protection.
In the following sections we will provide some great solutions for overcoming the challenges of maintenance using the central portal solutions of MB Connect Line.

Anyone with experience in the installation of a remote maintenance system knows the typical scenarios that can occur. In many companies, the IT Department for security reasons does not permit any external connections. Occasionally, some users may have a mobile unit with UMTS, which by design cannot be reached from the outside. In other cases, the machine can connect to the Internet - but the recognition of the dynamic IP address, under which the machine can be obtained, is difficult to manage.

Centralized management

The mbConnect24 remote maintenance portal was developed as an all-in-one remote maintenance solution. It serves as an intelligent operator between the service center of the engine manufacturer and the customers’ facilities. The manufacturer can set individual rights in the form of a closed user group for each service technician. For remote support, users log on via a secure VPN connection to the portal. After a successful authentication with certificate, username and password, the service technician can reach the shared machines and equipment via mouse click.

By the Central Administration of all connection parameters no more servicing time is lost by searching for information to establish the connection of different notes and lists. Access to the portal is easy and convenient to manage. It is a quick and easy process to make short-term adjustments when changes in the plan of service occur. If an outage of a particular drive to a system occurs, the mechanical engineers have the ability within minutes to setup a temporary connection for a service technician from the drive manufacturing and begin analyzing/ restoring the system.

Convenient reporting system

In addition to the central connection and access management, the portal also includes a detailed reporting system. All activities on the portal are recorded in a detailed connection report in order to confirm who, when and what actions were conducted over the portal. So that the services can be properly billed, the connection reports may be assigned job numbers. This convenient reporting system also offers new sorting and filtering capabilities for various criteria, including the export of data to a PDF or CSV file.

Connecting on request

On the system side, the mbNET industrial router is installed. It becomes available after registering with the portal. The router can be set to automatically log into the portal after it is turned on or manually after a button is pressed. Connecting to the portal can be manually via the Dial-Out button or triggered by the equipment control system of a signal to a digital input on the router.  The system operator decides when and how long remote access should be available to all connected systems. The router is equipped with a modem, so it can connect to the portal by calling or sending a SMS.

Cross-component remote control

With the mbNET industrial routers system-wide remote maintenance of the simple drive through S7 controllers is possible to control panels and visualization PC’s. Various drivers and interfaces are available depending on the model. The integrated 4-port switch enables direct connection of up to four Ethernet devices. In addition, the router has up to two serial ports that can be configured via software as a RS-232 or RS-485. Over 90 different drivers are available for serial devices such as controllers and drives. For direct access to the S7-300 and S7-400 controllers from Siemens, the MPI / PROFIBUS variations have an integrated fully fledged PC adapter that supports up to 12 MBit/s transfer rates. It is also possible to use of an IP camera via the LAN port so that remote locations can be viewed as a live image.
Access to the Internet is possible via an existing corporate network, a direct broadband connection or a modem. For the connection of mobile machinery and equipment away from the fixed power supply, there is the router mbNET GSM and mbNET UMTS, which supports both GPRS and EDGE. This flexibility is a genuine advantage because each manufacturer and customer has a different infrastructure.

System monitoring with the Smartphone

With mbWEB2go, you now have the ability to monitor your production equipment without being limited to a stationary PC. As access to the web increases in mobility and simplicity, with usage of a Smartphone or Tablet PC users will be able to connect to mbWEB2go and also access important information while traveling or on the way to a site. It is available on the integrated Web server as a web visualization of the mbNET routers or other Ethernet devices of the system. You can access the mbConnect24 remote maintenance portal by user ID and password using the secure HTTPS protocol. In order to access the web visualization you can use any browser without any additional software. Neither a VPN client nor a special certificate is required to connect.

Hosting on your own server

In addition to the mbConnect24 Portal solution, we also offer a physical server as a pre-installed system. This is interesting for manufacturers and service providers that want to implement a service portal within their corporate network. All VPN connections terminate within the area of operations of the company. The preconfigured mymbConnect24 servers take over the entire connection management as the backbone of the Service Center. These servers come in two variations:  the “midi” variant supports up to 250 users and 50 simultaneous connections. The “maxi” variant is a 19" rack space which supports up to 1000 users and 150 simultaneous active connections.

The mbConnect24 portal is a universal solution for simple and secure connections of networks over the Internet. It is fully scalable for remote maintenance for a small pressing machine in the neighboring town or for the connection of a variety of manufacturing and packaging facilities, which require monitoring worldwide. The service technician only needs an internet connection, either via the company’s network or via a DSL connection at home. Additionally, the ability to use a UMTS modem is available. Telephone numbers and IP addresses are not needed because the connection is established via the central portal. In addition to traditional remote maintenance tasks such as assistance in troubleshooting the portal can also be used for other services.  The following are a few examples:  to check the inventory of raw materials, the timely disposition of the delivery and or the collection of operational data as basis for a usage-based remuneration of a factory or plant.