Whether beer, soft drinks or mineral water: CO2 makes drinks bubble out of the taps. The industrial gas filled in cylinders provides the necessary pressure on the line and also ensures effervescence. The “fuel” is therefore essential for smooth dispensing in restaurants and pubs and must therefore not run out. WIKA has now designed a system that optimises the CO2 supply using IIoT. It is based on monitoring the pressure in the gas cylinders and thus provides information about the current fill level.
Such a solution was requested by a manufacturer of pressure regulators. These instruments are used to add CO2 to the dispensing systems. This is done by reducing the gas pressure in the cylinders from their usual 60 bar to the operating pressure of the equipment of around 2 bar. In order to maintain and expand its market share, the company was looking for a servitisation option – what services could be combined with pressure regulators and offered to customers, i.e. gas suppliers?
Digitalisation has now also found its way into the beverage industry and large-scale catering market. It therefore made sense for the pressure regulator manufacturer to opt for a model that combines CO2 supply and IIoT. The aim is to sustainably optimise customers’ supply processes. These companies are primarily gas suppliers with bulk buyers such as fast food chains.
Solution with a holistic and scalable concept
Pressure regulators with two digital model PEW-1000 pressure sensors form the measurement technology basis for the WIKA solution for IIoT-controlled CO2 supply to dispensing systems.
For this additional service, WIKA realised a holistic and scalable concept with three elements:
- Measuring instruments: For the instrumentation of the pressure regulators, digital pressure sensors with wireless transmission are replacing the pressure gauges that were previously used. The battery-operated model PEW-1000 with measuring ranges of 0 … 400 bar and 0 … 10 bar is used here.
- Connectivity: Data transmission is based on the LPWAN radio standard LoRaWAN®. The pressure sensors from different locations send their information to central gateways, which in turn bundle it and transmit it to a cloud.
- Cloud platform: The data is collected, logged and analysed on the browser-based platform. The users, i.e. the gas suppliers, receive all relevant information on a dashboard.
The advantages of CO2 supply using IIoT
The IIoT solutions offered as a complete service bring significant benefits to gas suppliers:
- Optimisation of the supply chain: CO2 supply using IIoT enables a sustainable supply process that also avoids bottlenecks. The cylinders are only refilled according to actual demand. In this way, transport routes can be optimised. This, in turn, reduces fuel consumption and contributes to climate improvement.
- Information on the instrument status: The sensors regularly transmit data on the instrument status. Gas suppliers receive timely information about a potential fault and can intervene without losing time.
- Additional sales through data: Gas suppliers can also make certain data, for example on CO2 consumption, available to their catering customers in order to improve their processes. This allows additional revenue to be generated.
Conclusion
The IIoT solution for a manufacturer of pressure regulators described here illustrates how digitalisation not only optimises in-house processes, but also how it can open up additional business opportunities. Such systems can be implemented in a similar form in many market segments.
Note
Find out more about further advantages WIKA offers as an IIoT solution partner here. Technical details on the PEW-1000 pressure sensor are summarised for you in the data sheet. Do you have any further questions about an IIoT system for your application? Please do not hesitate to contact our IIoT team.
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You can also find out more about WIKA as an IIoT solution partner in the following video.