The Background
Brazil's industrial sector faces significant operational challenges, with unplanned downtime and inefficiencies costing facilities millions annually. NOVUS, a specialist serving over 50 countries, identified critical monitoring gaps across three key industrial applications where traditional approaches were failing their clients, and created an IoT solution to fix it.
Silo Management: Grain storage facilities struggled with inaccurate level measurements, risking overflow and equipment damage while relying on dangerous manual inspections.
Mining Operations: Mining sites lacked integrated monitoring for equipment performance and environmental conditions, leading to unplanned downtime and safety risks.
Waste Combustion: Waste-to-energy plants operated without real-time temperature monitoring across combustion zones, resulting in inefficient burning and compliance issues.
NOVUS has striven to become a global reference in connected measurement and control devices — delivering smart, integrated solutions that give industries real-time visibility and actionable insights.
The Challenge
NOVUS recognized that their diverse industrial clients across pharmaceuticals, food processing, energy, mining, and ceramic manufacturing were operating with critical visibility gaps in their production processes.
Despite sophisticated measurement and control equipment, many facilities lacked comprehensive real-time insights into equipment performance, energy consumption patterns, and process parameters.
Operational Blind Spots Across Critical Processes
Industrial facilities were operating without comprehensive visibility into their production processes, unable to monitor real-time performance metrics or identify developing issues.
Unknown Root Causes of Equipment Failures
When machinery stopped or performed poorly, facilities couldn't determine why failures occurred, such as equipment consuming high amounts of energy seemingly without cause.
Custom Solution Deployment for Monitoring
Creating tailored monitoring and control solutions for different industrial sectors and specific client requirements was time-intensive and technically challenging. Lack of robust solutions was limiting NOVUS's ability to meet certain market needs.
Implementing the cloud globally wasn't just a technical shift; it was a strategic move that demanded deep alignment with international partners and market dynamics. Our clients needed more than just data; they required actionable insights in real-time.
Fábio Pfeiffer, CCO
The Solution
NOVUS needed a comprehensive IoT platform that could transform their measurement and control instruments into intelligent, connected systems capable of providing real-time operational insights across diverse industrial applications.
TagoIO provided the technological foundation to integrate NOVUS gateways and modules with multiple connectivity options, sensor data streams, and advanced analytics capabilities into unified monitoring solutions.
Rapid Custom Solution Development and Deployment
TagoIO's intuitive platform enabled NOVUS to combine their gateways and modules with customizable cloud infrastructure, allowing them to deliver fully custom IoT solutions quickly.
Comprehensive Visibility Through NOVUS Cloud
TagoIO's cloud infrastructure powered NOVUS Cloud with customizable dashboards that provided real-time monitoring capabilities, eliminating operational blind spots.
Universal Connectivity and Equipment Integration
TagoIO supported multiple connectivity types and sensor integration options, allowing NOVUS to create unified monitoring systems that could seamlessly connect with existing equipment while providing comprehensive analytics.
With TagoIO, we integrated our devices into a flexible, robust platform, accelerating the development of custom solutions and delivering real-time visibility to our clients, turning raw data into actionable intelligence.
Fabio Coelho, Software Project Manager
Use Case in Action
Waste Combustion
Before implementing the NOVUS solution, waste combustion processes across the country faced inconsistent temperature control, leading to inefficient burning and potential environmental violations.
Manual data collection made real-time monitoring impractical, delaying corrective actions. By deploying over 200 automated monitoring points connected to NOVUS Cloud, the system now ensures optimal combustion conditions with continuous, centralized visibility and faster response times.
Mining
The company operates a complex logistics system involving conveyor belts that transport various materials from collection points to train loading stations. Previously, there was no centralized visibility into the operation. Daily reporting was a manual and error-prone task, often based on fragmented data. As a result, operational decisions were reactive, and maintenance issues were only addressed after significant impact.
NOVUS introduced a monitoring solution across the conveyor system, enabling automated, accurate daily reports and real-time alerts.
Silo Management
The company faced frequent disruptions in production due to a lack of raw material inputs, stemming from the absence of online silo level monitoring.
Without real-time data, refilling was based on guesswork, leading to delays and operational inefficiencies. There was no proactive alert system to warn of low levels before shortages occurred.
NOVUS introduced a cloud-based solution using the MQTT protocol for real-time monitoring.
Responsible teams now receive SMS alerts when silo levels drop, ensuring timely refills and continuous production.
The Results
NOVUS successfully transformed from a traditional measurement equipment manufacturer into a comprehensive IoT solutions provider through its partnership with TagoIO. The NOVUS Cloud platform enabled them to deliver unprecedented value to industrial clients while significantly expanding their market reach and service capabilities.
1. Faster Custom Solution Deployment
NOVUS reduced the time required to deploy tailored monitoring solutions from months to weeks, enabling rapid response to diverse client requirements.
2. Reduction in Unplanned Equipment Downtime
Industrial clients using NOVUS Cloud experienced significant decreases in unexpected equipment failures through proactive monitoring and early warning systems.
3. Operational Visibility Across All Connected Assets
Clients gained complete transparency into their production processes through customizable dashboards, eliminating previous operational blind spots and enabling data-driven decision-making.
4. Energy Consumption Reduction
Through comprehensive monitoring and analytics, clients identified and resolved energy inefficiencies, with some facilities achieving even greater savings by optimizing equipment performance.
5. Faster Root Cause Analysis and Issue Resolution
Equipment failures that previously took days or weeks to diagnose and resolve were now identified and addressed within hours through NOVUS Cloud’s comprehensive data analytics and historical trend.
6. Expanded Market Reach and Service Portfolio Growth
NOVUS successfully diversified its business model beyond traditional hardware sales to include comprehensive IoT monitoring services, opening new revenue streams.
