Sensirion develops high grid density air quality monitoring solutions for smart factories. The solution targets use cases for quality improvements and monitoring, facility HVAC optimizations as well as keeping track of employees’ exposure to bad air quality. As interpretation and reporting can be only as good as the data received, Sensirion offers its expertise as solution integrator for high-quality IIOT air monitoring solutions. The sensor nodes typically monitor particle counts and can be extended to monitor additional environmental parameters like VOCs, humidity, temperature and CO2. Data can be provided via API or visualized via cloud-based dashboards including alerts and reporting Tools.

We address the following typical customer issues:

•  Yield or quality affecting emission spots are not easy to identify on factory floors. A solution is needed to actively eliminate and reduce emission sources of fumes, heat, VOCs and particles. Additionally, there is a need to monitor the usage and effectiveness of pollution safety systems, e.g. electrostatic systems or fume hoods.
• On the way to flexible manufacturing systems, changes on production floors become frequent. With increased change processes, there is an increasing risk of emerging emission spots with impact on quality and yield. Process and production managers want to get insights on how to substitute goods, processes and materials with low-emission ones.
• Integration of air quality parameters into plant visualization systems.
• Today, HVAC systems are controlled by simple control loops. Especially in factories with large air volumes, improved understanding of air temperature and humidity distribution allows energy-efficient optimization of the air ventilation system. Filter and ventilation costs can be further reduced by optimizing and crosschecking heating and cooling control loops.
• Facility managers are looking for solutions to respond quickly to leakages, spills, cigarette smoke and accidents on the factory floor. They seek better cleaning and protection processes to reduce contamination and accidents.
• Environment, health and safety (EHS) departments are looking for solutions to train and educate employees about managing air quality. Real-time air data can be used to calculate annual exposure times of employees, according to WHO recommendations.
• Quality managers ask for traceability of production environments.
• Air quality is becoming an important KPI used in sustainability reporting for global corporations and their supply chains.