Players in the energy sector need to take more steps to create value from tech-enabled initiatives and establish relevant processes. Computer hardware and software are changing how power plants operate and maintain. The advanced algorithms are better suited to identify and predict equipment problems than even the most skilled and longest-tenured plant operator. They can usually point to real-world data to prove their point. In an era where power generation needs to be more technologically dependent, Cutsforth™, with more than 30 years of experience in the business, brings expertise and innovative designs to its best-in-class excitation brush holder, shaft grounding replacements, and monitoring solutions to some of the world’s largest power companies.

Cutsforth™ products include EASYchange® Removable Brush Holders, Brush Condition Monitoring, Cutsforth™ Shaft Grounding Assembly and Monitoring, and Monitoring Systems such as Electromagnetic Interference “EMI” Monitoring, Rotor Flux Monitoring, and InsightCM™.

The idea behind the solutions from Cutsforth™ is to provide actionable information to the stakeholders—which will play a crucial role in decision making.

The organization’s tools help its clients understand deeper patterns and get insight into the conditions of large critical assets and motors. With Cutsforth™ system in nearly every industry application, the company provides smart ways for clients to maintain their equipment and foresee roadblocks in their day-to-day work.

Cutsforth™ provides solutions to tackle the most challenging reliability problems that help its clients gain deeper insights into the operating conditions of large critical assets (i.e. generators, transformers, and motors). For example, changing carbon brushes associated with a generator’s collector rings online is a task made easy with Cutsforth™ EASYchange removable brush holder system. However, the ease of changing the brush isn’t the only benefit of the Cutsforth™ holder. The design reduces carbon deposits, which can lead to poor brush to ring contact, and ultimately failures such as ring fires. Cutsforth™ did not stop with an improved holder design. Cutsforth™ developed a Brush Condition Monitoring system that provides real time monitoring of brush length, temperature, and vibration. These measurements can easily integrate with plant information platforms, such as OSI Soft Pi or other historians.

Offering solutions for all types of turbine generators, Cutsforth™ designed the Shaft Ground Hardware and monitoring systems. With a couple tiers of Shaft Monitoring Systems, the company provides the best fit for each plant and unit. Like the carbon brush holder, Cutsforth™ designed the ability to change grounding ropes while the generator is online, allowing the customer to minimize downtime. Cutsforth™ offers more advanced monitoring for shaft voltage and current signals that analyze the high-speed signals and extract trendable features from the associated waveforms. These features are often associated with underlying conditions that lead to failures.

Cutsforth™ provides other systems that provide near real-time insight into the health of critical assets. Some of these systems are Rotor Flux Monitoring (RFM), Electromagnetic Interference Monitoring (EMI), and Partial Discharge (PD) among others. These systems provide advanced signal analysis that identifies anomalies associated with failure modalities. For example, the EMI monitoring system utilizes machine learning to identify signals associated with arcing, partial discharge, coronal discharges, static discharges, and the associated power for the discharges for a severity assessment.
Cutsforth™ recently acquired InsightCM from NI. InsightCM is a data acquisition and visualization platform with analytical capabilities that easily integrates to third party historians and other platforms. By integrating InsightCM into its overall product offering, Cutsforth™ can help its customers move forward with a digital transformation strategy. InsightCM allows Subject Matter Experts and staff within monitoring and diagnostic centers better visualization and trend alerts under one application that improves timely management of anomalies within critical assets.

Cutsforth™ provides a variety of monitoring systems, ranging from vibration to a full suite of electrical monitoring solutions. Additionally, Cutsforth™ offers Reliability consulting and outsourced monitoring and diagnostic services.