Here's How Preventative and Predictive Maintenance Are Transforming Manufacturing

Brought to you by WBR Insights

There are few things more devastating for a manufacturer than unplanned downtime. When a constant stream of production is your entire raison d'etre, then anything which brings that production to a grinding halt is to be avoided at all costs.

However, when dealing with constantly working machines — 24 hours a day and seven days a week in many cases — wear and tear is an inevitable consequence. Nothing lasts forever. The time will come when a machine or a component fails and you'll have to deal with downtime, not to mention the hassle of having the part fixed or replaced.

This is what makes regular maintenance so crucial. Every manufacturing brand should include maintenance as part of their strategy if they're to avoid unplanned downtime as much as is possible.

Preventative Maintenance

Reactive maintenance is one of the most outdated and ineffective strategies that exists in this sector. With this method, businesses wait until problems occur before sending engineers to deal with them. The biggest problem with this strategy is that it does absolutely nothing to avoid unplanned downtime. By the time field service staff are aware of the problem, it has most likely already halted or delayed production.

The most logical solution to this is to adopt a "prevention is better than cure" ethos. After all, when it comes to our own lives, we do this all the time. We exercise and eat well to remain healthy; we clean our teeth and floss; we have our cars regularly serviced, all to avoid more serious complications further down the line.

Preventative maintenance involves a strategy where there is a regular and consistent schedule of checks in which machines are examined by field service professionals who seek to discover if there are any issues on the horizon. Machines can be stress tested and, thanks to modern digital technology, computer diagnostics can be run to make sure every part is performing as expected.

Preventative maintenance also seeks to create a detailed record of past inspections and services. Through the creation of these databases, manufacturing brands can spot patterns of failure and use that information to drive future decision making. If a particular machine or component is found to be suffering from regular issues, then steps can be taken to address it. An alternative brand of machine or component can be sourced, or deeper analysis can help reveal what is causing the repeated problem.

However, even preventative maintenance has its problems. It still relies on human engineers spotting potential issues and it does nothing to prevent spontaneous problems emerging in between scheduled maintenance. This is what has led to the rise of a new kind of maintenance — one which leverages the power of Industry 4.0 technology.

Predictive Maintenance

The Internet of Things is enabling manufacturing brands to enter a new era of maintenance. Connected sensors installed directly into machines and components create a constant stream of information which enables maintenance teams to predict failures ahead of time and further tackle the issue of unplanned downtime.

With IoT sensors monitoring the condition of machines at all times, alerts can be set up to draw the attention of field service professionals whenever their operation falls outside of pre-determined parameters. Engineers can then attend the machine and address the problem long before it causes a failure.

Predictive maintenance also creates the database of service described in the previous section automatically. The IoT sensors feed into servers and all data is stored and processed without the need for direct human-driven record keeping or analysis. Thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning, these records can be constantly combed for insights and patterns can be spotted that human eyes may otherwise miss.

This creates a new generation of manufacturing maintenance where unplanned downtime is reduced to its absolute minimum chance of occurrence. Obviously, problems will still occur, and the responsibility still falls to human engineers to resolve any issues. But with the seamless integration of digital technology into the manufacturing industry, unplanned downtime may one day be a thing of the past.

Final Thoughts

With three main methods of carrying out maintenance — reactive, preventative, and predictive — manufacturing brands are certainly not short of options when it comes to keeping machinery in peak condition. Choosing the right one for the size and scope of your brand should be a top priority in 2020.

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Maintenance is set to be a hot topic at Connected Manufacturing Forum 2020, taking place August 31 - September 01 at the JW Marriott, Austin, TX.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.