Optimizing Locomotive Design with IoT: A Case Study of Electro-Motive Diesel

The goal was to produce a safety system to monitor and support underground mining operations; existing systems were either too simple (i.e. phone line) or overly complex and expensive, inhibiting deployment, and providing little-to-no support in event of an accident. Given the dangerous nature of the mining work environment and the strict regulations placed on the industry, the solution would have to comply with Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) regulations. Yet the product needed to allow for simple deployment to truly be a groundbreaking solution - increasing miner safety and changing daily operations for the better.

Dundee Precious Metal’s flagship mine, in Chelopech, Bulgaria, produces a gold, copper, and silver concentrate set a goal to increase production by 30%. Dundee wanted to increase production quality and output without increasing headcount and resources, improve miner safety, and minimize cost.

Fastenal's objective was to better understand their machine downtime, utilization, quality issues, and to embrace cutting-edge manufacturing technology/process improvement capabilities to bring their team to the next level. However, there was a lack of real-time data, visualization, and actionable insights made this transition impossible.

• Difficult environment. Communications equipment on trains must function properly in harsh conditions, such as environment temperatures ranging from -25°C to +85°C, according to the EU standard EN50155.• Railway regulations. All products in a train must adhere to strict standards, relating to working vibration, power consumption, and lifetime.• Lengthy process. Time to market in the railway industry can take years from concept to mass production, so product design requires a solid long term vision.

Joy equipment faces many challenges. The first is machine integration and control. The business end of the machine has a rapidly-spinning cylinder with 6-inch diamond-studded cutting teeth. It chews through rock at rates measured in tens of tons per minute. The system grinds through the rock in front, creating a rectangular mine tunnel. Hydraulic lifters support the ceiling as the machine moves forward. Automated drills and screws drive 3-ft long screws into the ceiling to stabilize it. The rock and coal fall into a set of gathering "fingers" below the cutting cylinder. These fingers scoop up the rock and coal and deposit it onto a conveyor belt. The conveyor passes under the machine and out the back. A train of conveyor belt cars, up to a mile long, follows the cutter into the mine. The rock shoots along this train at over 400 feet per minute until it empties into rail cars at the end. Current systems place an operator cage next to the cutter. Choking dust (potentially explosive), the risk of collapse and the proximity of metal and rock mayhem make the operator cage a hazardous location.

A modern locomotive, for example, has as many as 200 sensors generating more than a billion data points per second. Vibration sensors surround critical components, video cameras scan the track and cab, while other sensors monitor RPM, power, temperature, the fuel mix, exhaust characteristics, and more.Most of today’s locomotives lack sufficient on-board processing power to make full use of all this data. To make matters worse, the data from different subsystems, such as the brakes, fuel system, and engine, remain separate, stored in isolated “boxes” that prevent unified analysis. The data is available, but the technology needed to process it in the most effective manner is not. As new sensors are added to the machine, the problem escalates.