Deep in the Vale Creighton Mine in Ontario, Canada, scientists from around the world are untangling the mysteries of astroparticle physics. The laboratory conducts experiments 2km underground to cancel out noise interference, but there’s another sort of noise SNOLAB needs to manage: the millions of data points generated by the facility’s infrastructure. With AVEVA PI System, the team can unite its data lakes, structure its data, and deliver the critical insights scientists needs to continue their groundbreaking research.
“With AVEVA solutions, we’re able to give autonomy and visibility to everyone in the organization to enable this world-leading science.”
—Steven Back
P.Eng., PMP, Operations Manager at SNOLAB
Experiment uptime at a world-leading research facility like SNOLAB could not be more important. In the event of a power outage, the next Nobel prize could in jeopardy. SNOLAB scientists’ highly sensitive neutrino experiments could trigger the alarm to let the world know when the next supernova happens. AVEVA PI System data supports those experiments by ensuring the lab’s critical infrastructure is up and running at all times.
Challenges
- Lack of visibility into operations data limited root cause investigations of process upsets
- Multiple data lakes prevented efforts to identify maintenance needs, avoid equipment failure, and reconstruct events
Solution
- Deployed AVEVA™ PI Server to collate and structure data and AVEVA™ PI Vision™ to give operators and engineers better visibility into critical operations
Results
- Reduced infrastructure costs by 66% and freed up physical space in the facility
- A single source of truth helps scientists, operations staff, and engineers maintain reliability and respond to critical events
- Self-service tools help data users perform root cause investigations and ensure the lab meets performance metrics for uptime
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