Patent ID: 9734693
Date: 2017-08-15
CPC Classifications: G08B

Claim:
1. A unified method of equipment monitoring in order to predict parts failures, improve repair and replacement scheduling, enhance safety, provide insight and analysis into operational efficiency and prevent theft for a system of non-integrated pieces of equipment, comprising: monitoring a set of first state signals created by a first PLC associated with a first piece of equipment using a monitoring device comprising hardware communicatively coupled to the first PLC and operative to transmit information over a communications network; monitoring a set of second signals related to a second piece of equipment; selectively transmitting the set of first state signals and the set of second state signals from the monitoring device over the communications network for storage in non-transitory memory of one or more databases stored on a server system comprising hardware and software communicatively coupled to the network; a processor of the server analyzing the set of first state signals created by the first PLC to determine a first nature of the signals with respect to a status of the first piece of equipment; the processor analyzing the set of second state signals to determine a second nature of the signals with respect to a status of the second piece of equipment; the processor accessing the database and analyzing actual usage data for the first and second pieces of equipment and recommending an optimized service schedule; and the processor using the analyzed signals to selectively send alerts to one or more mobile service devices operated by technicians when emergency maintenance is required for one of the pieces of equipment.