The Netbiter remote management solution from HMS Industrial Networks is enabling Eaton to monitor uninterruptible power supplies in real-time
Businesses such as data centres, banks, hospitals and supermarkets need constant access to power. By implementing an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), these businesses make sure that they always have an immediate back-up if the main power should fail. But how do you make sure that the back-up always is operational without physically visiting it every day? Eaton has found a way by using the Netbiter remote management solution from HMS Industrial Networks. It enables Eaton to access real-time data about each UPS, to offer a faster service and to reduce travelling.
“Constant control of our UPS systems is crucial to us and we felt that it was time to find one unified solution for remote management throughout the organisation,” says Fabio Mazzà, EMEA services product manager at Eaton’s Power Quality division. “Our service teams in Belgium and Luxembourg had been using Netbiter for some time and when we started comparing the different remote management solutions we had in use at Eaton, Netbiter seemed the most reliable and viable solution.”
Eaton decided to package the Netbiter solution and offer this to their customers as a service called “Eaton SmartQmmunicator.” It works in the following way: A Netbiter gateway is attached to the UPS using Eaton’s own proprietary UPS communication protocol. It sends data via Ethernet or GSM/GPRS to the Netbiter Argos data center. Through the Netbiter Argos web interface, the Eaton service teams and their end customers have web-based access to all UPS parameters. This information gives the service technicians a very good idea what to look for when visiting customer sites. Bart Van der Goten is service manager at Eaton and in charge of about 350 UPS units in Belgium and Luxembourg. “The greatest benefit is that you are in control,” he says. “Customers that have a certain Service Level Agreement, let’s say we need to be on site within four hours if something happens, often want an engineer on site immediately. But since we can log on to Netbiter Argos and start troubleshooting remotely right away, we can solve problems quicker and only go to the site when really needed.”
“You can really improve the way you manage your service teams,” Mazzà continues. “You get a much better knowledge of your installations and know what to look for beforehand, which is a big help. You can also reduce your team’s travelling and cut down on CO2 emissions.
HMS Industrial Networks
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