Bentley > Case Studies > Operational Analytics: Lowering Maintenance and Energy Costs for Danfoss Customers

Operational Analytics: Lowering Maintenance and Energy Costs for Danfoss Customers

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)
Functional Applications - Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAM)

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Retail

Applicable Functions

Maintenance
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Asset Health Management (AHM)
Asset Lifecycle Management

Services

Hardware Design & Engineering Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Danfoss is a global company that specializes in producing refrigeration monitoring equipment, compressors, and controllers for grocery stores. Their products are used in nearly 5,000 supermarkets worldwide, with 200,000 refrigeration-related data points across all stores, including compressor pressures, liquid levels, temperatures, energy use, and currents. The company required a solution that would help its customers view their operations at a presentation level, create reports on alarms and performance, and reduce energy costs for around 5,000 sites worldwide.

The Challenge

Danfoss, a company specializing in refrigeration monitoring equipment, compressors, and controllers for grocery stores, faced a challenge in helping its customers manage their operations efficiently. Refrigeration consumes a significant portion of a large grocery store’s electricity, with the remainder consumed by HVAC equipment, lighting, and other utilities. The risk of asset failure could result in food loss, unplanned asset downtime, and maintenance call outs – unexpected costs that can quickly escalate. Retailers now operate in a market where the demand for frozen foods is increasing, causing them to invest in large-scale refrigeration equipment. This has led to tight margins in an increasingly competitive market where assets are expected to perform constantly. Historically, supermarkets have accepted that the cost for high customer volume, regulatory compliance, and increasing energy costs were part of the business model.

The Solution

Danfoss addressed these business challenges with an operational analytic solution provided by Bentley‘s Amulet. The solution includes an alarm management system that monitors food quality and energy efficiency, and a visualization component that brings all of the information together in one platform. The alarm management system raises alarms based on a potential failure or a threat to an asset when a threshold has been reached. Danfoss uses Bentley’s Amulet software to count repeated similar alarms and identify which were real and which were false, and notify the right people. This proactive approach to maintenance eliminates false alarms from the system, significantly cutting costs by reducing needless callouts of maintenance engineers. Other functionality within Amulet includes automated load shedding and set point management to reduce energy consumption and ensure error control regulation of asset temperatures, switch status, and alarm values.

Operational Impact

Through the use of operational analytics, Danfoss has achieved complete visibility of its whole operation, including energy usage against external parameters like outside/inside temperatures and other factors. By monitoring these patterns for their customers, Danfoss can regulate the environment in which its assets work. For example, refrigerators won’t need to work as hard if the temperature or humidity in the store is controlled at an optimum level. The Amulet alarm management system allows Danfoss customers to monitor and track their assets and intervene when necessary if one triggers an alarm. With Amulet’s variety of specialized alarms such as threshold, percentage, or hold down, raised alarms have been filtered to only notify users of critical alarms, thus reducing false alarms and maintenance call outs.

Quantitative Benefit

Used in nearly 5,000 supermarkets worldwide
200,000 refrigeration-related data points across all stores
40 million real-time changes daily from readings every five minutes, 24 hours a day