Extending the Useful Life of Machine Assets in Dairy Production

The Challenge

A leading dairy producer needed to reduce unplanned downtime and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) on critical production equipment at one of their facilities. Aging machinery and the increasing demands on maintenance staff highlighted the need for a cost-effective solution to enhance reliability while minimizing the burden on their team. AssetWatch's AI-driven condition monitoring system offered an ideal solution.

Creating Value, Resolving Issues

The dairy producer enrolled in a $199 no-risk 30-day trial with the AssetWatch end-to-end vibration/ temperature condition monitoring solution.

AssetWatch’s white-glove solution simplifies predictive maintenance by including all sensors and networking hardware, system installation and ongoing maintenance, cloud-based software, unlimited user licenses, and robust AI fault detection capabilities. A dedicated Condition Monitoring Engineer (CME) provides prescriptive maintenance recommendations as needed, helping avoid the alert fatigue common with comparable systems.

After implementing AssetWatch's comprehensive condition monitoring solution, AI detected abnormal vibration patterns associated with structural looseness on a critical separator located on a yogurt line. After review, the AssetWatch CME pinpointed the looseness issues to degraded rubber pads. Acting on this data, the maintenance team replaced the rubber pads and re-secured the separator’s mounts, reducing vibration velocity and stabilizing the equipment.

These proactive measures saved the dairy producer an estimated $120,000 by preventing further equipment wear and avoiding costly unplanned downtime. The solution also preserved production schedules and improved the reliability of their critical assets. AssetWatch’s turnkey solution empowered the facility to resolve issues before they escalated, delivering significant cost savings and operational efficiency. This case demonstrates the value of predictive maintenance in optimizing reliability and supporting the growing demands of modern manufacturing.

The thing I like the most about AssetWatch is the monitoring from the people-side, so if there is a problem, they reach out, whether it's via a message or email or if it's an emergency, they'll call.

Maintenance Manager

Facilities Monitored

Rapid system deployment enables enterprise scalability

Downtime Risks Resolved

137

Early insights into machine health prevent unplanned downtime

Separator Cost Savings

$120k

The proactive maintenance approach led to significant cost savings by avoiding extensive repairs

Success Leads to Expansion

After realizing incredible value from AssetWatch, the facility expanded the monitoring program and now 750+ vibration sensors are preventing unplanned downtime on more than 200 critical machine assets across 13 facilities. In addition to vibration/temperature monitoring, the customer added AssetWatch’s oil analysis offering to gain additional machine health insights.

ROI

AssetWatch partnered with AWS to provide the scalability and reliability needed to support a serverless architecture. With a robust suite of services tailored for data ingestion, processing, and machine learning, AWS enables AssetWatch to seamlessly scale sensor data and deliver predictive insights to manufacturing companies. AWS infrastructure reduces operational overhead and allows AssetWatch to focus on innovation to drive value to our customers. Additionally, AWS’s strong security framework and global infrastructure ensure the resilience and compliance required to support mission-critical manufacturing operations at scale. This partnership positions AssetWatch to accelerate growth while maintaining the highest levels of performance and reliability.