LBBC Technologies Creates a Custom Predictive Maintenance Program with InfluxDB, AWS, and MQTT

By Jessica Wachtel / Product
Sep 08, 2023

LBBC Technologies is almost 150 years old and dedicates time and resources to pushing the boundaries of pressure vessel and autoclave design through precision engineering, advanced technologies, and electronic intelligence. They prioritize investments in research and development to advance their vision for the future.

LBBC’s challenges

LBBC Technologies offers extended warranties and ongoing technical support for the machinery they manufacture and sell. To do this, and fully optimize the lifespan of the equipment, they need observability inside the machines while customers use them. Machine process data, also known as time series data, provides that view. Time series data records the details of ongoing machine processes and paints the picture of what’s transpiring.

But collecting machine data is easier said than done. Maintaining the network security of industrial control systems like PLCs, while simultaneously collecting the data needed from multiple different machine types with different PLC manufacturers, is not easy. Beyond that, there’s the sheer amount of data generated, which LBBC wanted to store for the lifetime for each machine. Real-time ingest, low-cost storage, and data visualization within a single fully managed cloud offering were reasons why LBBC Technologies chose InfluxDB as their time series solution.

The solution

LBBC adopted a solution in which an industrial gateway reads process data from the PLC, encrypts it with a local certificate, and sends the data securely out on the MQTT server to AWS IoT Core in the cloud. Because InfluxDB requires data to be in line protocol format for ingestion, AWS IoT Core transforms each message into line protocol using Lambda functions. To augment InfluxDB’s capabilities regarding historical data, the AWS Lambda functions also send data to Servitly, a live dashboarding platform.

LBBC makes good use of InfluxDB’s data processing capabilities, writing complex queries, and identifying specific issues with the machinery. They found that InfluxDB is inexpensive for storing and processing a high volume of time series data. InfluxDB is now an integral part of LBBC’s data program. InfluxDB records data for the full lifetime of any machines owned by customers who adopt their “Connected Support” package.

Results

LBBC Technologies continues to develop data-driven predictive maintenance capabilities. InfluxDB and Servitly are critical to their “Connected Support” package that allows them to anticipate customer needs and proactively communicate with users to ensure their equipment remains in optimal running order.

To learn more about LBBC Technologies, read the full case study here.