Non-invasive sensor platform detects equipment failures weeks in advance — deploys in days with zero production downtime
ESSEN, GERMANY — Promwad Engineering Company announced the launch of its Edge AI predictive maintenance platform designed specifically for food and beverage manufacturing equipment. The platform combines clamp-on industrial sensors with on-device anomaly detection to give plant operators continuous visibility into the health of motors, compressors, conveyors, mixers, and cold chain systems — without rewiring equipment or interrupting production.
Food processing facilities across the EU lose an estimated €50 billion annually to unplanned downtime, with each hour of stoppage costing an average of €260,000 in lost production, spoiled product, and emergency repairs. Despite this, the majority of the industry’s 304,000-plus facilities still rely on calendar-based preventive maintenance and manual inspection rounds — an approach that leaves equipment unmonitored for hours or even days between checks.
“Eighty-seven percent of equipment failures show detectable warning signs weeks before breakdown,” said the Promwad team. “The problem isn’t that failures are unpredictable. It’s that most plants have no way to see degradation between scheduled inspections. We close that gap.”
Three Modules, One Platform
The AgriTech platform consists of three integrated modules:
- AgriSense — Non-invasive vibration, temperature, and current sensors that clamp directly onto motors, bearings, compressors, pumps, and conveyor drives. Each asset requires three to six sensors and roughly one to two hours to install. On-device anomaly detection identifies bearing wear, motor degradation, compressor efficiency loss, and mechanical imbalance weeks before functional failure.
- ColdGuard — Continuous temperature, humidity, and environmental monitoring for walk-in coolers, blast freezers, processing rooms, and storage facilities. Automated readings every 60 seconds replace manual checks conducted just two to three times per day, generating audit-ready HACCP and FSMA 204 compliance documentation around the clock.
- FleetView — A unified production health dashboard that ranks every monitored asset by real condition rather than age. Maintenance managers see prioritized action lists, automated work orders when anomalies cross thresholds, and integration with SAP PM and IBM Maximo — fitting into existing workflows without requiring a new CMMS.
Parallel Architecture, No OT Risk
AgriTech operates as a parallel monitoring layer alongside existing production controls. The platform requires no PLC integration, no SCADA modification, and no access to the OT network. Sensor data is processed at the edge, with only health indices and alerts transmitted to the cloud. EU-hosted infrastructure and on-premise deployment options are available. The system supports Modbus, MQTT, and OPC UA protocols.
90-Day Proof of Value
AgriTech offers a structured pilot program: a 30-minute scoping call, followed by on-site deployment of sensors and edge gateways across 10 to 20 critical assets, and a 90-day monitoring period that concludes with a documented equipment health assessment, compliance gap analysis, and plant-wide rollout ROI model.
The platform is available for food and beverage manufacturers, cold chain operators, and processing facilities across the European Union.
About Promwad
Promwad is a European electronics and embedded systems engineering company with over 21 years of experience, more than 100 engineers, and over 3 million devices shipped. The company develops industrial IoT, edge computing, and embedded solutions for clients worldwide. AgriTech is Promwad’s dedicated predictive maintenance platform for the food processing industry.
For more information, visit https://agritech.promwad.com or contact info@promwad.com.