A Tale of Two Grocery Stores
For grocery stores, refrigeration system outages are a nightmare scenario.
In the best case they require high emergency repair costs, and the longer an outage lasts, the more likely other consequences like lost sales, food spoilage, and angry customers become. For an unplanned compressor failure, for example, equipment and labor costs alone can easily add up to $8,000 - $10,000. What follows is the story of two identical grocery stores that experienced the same compressor failure on the same day. However, that is where the similarities end. Store A was conducting “Business as Usual,” using the same alarming strategy it had installed 15 years ago, while Store B had installed Axiom Cloud's IoT Platform and was subscribed to the Virtual Technician app.
Here is a minute-by-minute account of what happened at each of these stores.
Store B: Axiom Cloud
Store A: Business As Usual
Total time from failure to resolution: 20 days
Total cost for parts and labor: $14,276
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Undetected Compressor Failure
Lead compressor on Rack A fails and ceases to operate. Because of the nature of this failure, the refrigeration controller does not detect an issue.
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20 Days of Inefficient Operation
The existing refrigeration controller continues to command the failed compressor to operate, and the remaining compressors must handle additional load.
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Heat Wave Begins
As a heat wave rolls through, remaining compressors can no longer satisfy the rack’s cooling needs. Case temperatures begin to drift above their setpoints.
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Demerchandizing
While employees move frozen food to walk-in freezers, a technician arrives on-site, discovers the compressor failure, and calls for an emergency replacement.
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Emergency Compressor Replacement
After overnighting a replacement compressor and working through the night, technicians restore the refrigeration system to normal operation.
Total time from failure to resolution: 9 days
Total cost for parts and labor: $7,574
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Detected Compressor Failure
Lead compressor on Rack A fails and ceases to operate. By predicting compressor power and comparing it to measured power, Virtual Technician detects an anomaly (see image below).
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Detailed Notification Sent to Store Manager
An email notification is sent to the store manager to alert them to the failure, describe its potential impact and root cause, and suggest corrective actions.
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Tech Arrives On-Site
A technician arrives on-site to troubleshoot the failure, and confirms that a replacement compressor will be required before the next heat wave.
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Planned Compressor Replacement
During off-peak hours, the compressor is replaced without causing additional stress to food, store employees, or customers.
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Confirmation of Repair
Using intelligent data validation, Virtual Technician confirms that the anomaly has been resolved and all systems are back online.
Virtual Technician detects a compressor failure
By immediately alerting the store manager to the compressor failure, which went undetected by the existing refrigeration controller, Virtual Technician saved the customer $6,702 on parts and overtime labor, avoided a catastrophic refrigeration outage, and decreased the number of technicians required to make the necessary repairs. Over the course of a year, Virtual Technician is expected to save this customer over $30,000 in energy and maintenance costs. See our case studies for further detail about this compressor failure and for more examples of anomalies that are autonomously detected by Virtual Technician.
Turner is an Application Engineer at Axiom Cloud Inc.
Axiom Cloud Inc. uses Artificial Intelligence to transform the world’s thermal systems into intelligent, flexible, and resilient assets. If you’re interested in learning more about our team or the Virtual Battery and Virtual Technician services, contact us today.