Predictive Maintenance

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WHAT IS PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE & CONDITION MONITORING?

The production in a company can come to a complete standstill due to machine failures.

Of course, it is necessary to shut down machines regularly for maintenance or calibration to ensure accuracy, safety and efficiency.

However, when downtime occurs unplanned, it causes disruption of workflows, ineffectiveness, high costs, and wasted time. 

Modern industrial AI software like IconPro APOLLO can resolve those issues to maximize productivity.

Condition monitoring & predictive maintenance solutions optimize machine availability by notifying in real-time about alarms and by predicting unwanted downtime of machines before they occur. 

DEFINITION OF PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE

Predictive maintenance software applies machine learning (ML) and industrial AI to data coming from the condition monitoring of machines or robots.

Industrial AI software like IconPro APOLLO anticipates when a component might fail so that preventive maintenance can be scheduled before the downtime occurs unplanned.

The goal is to schedule maintenance at an optimal and cost-efficient time.

In this way, you maximize machine availability, but without putting it at risk, thus reaching a significantly increased uptime and overall equipment effectiveness of machines or robots. 

DEFINITION CONDITION MONITORING

Condition monitoring refers to monitoring specified machine and environmental conditions (e.g. vibration, temperature, noise, etc.) that are relevant to the availability, performance or downtime of machines.

Changes or anomalies shall be identified that could signal an upcoming failure of a component.

Condition monitoring is an important aspect of predictive maintenance.

The implementation of it provides data for predictive analytics or industrial AI to be applied and preventive measures to be taken to prevent further failures and thus unplanned downtime.

EXAMPLE CONDITION MONITORING FOR MEASUREMENT MACHINES

Goals: Maximize operator efficiency, minimize false measurements 

• Problem: It is difficult for operators to keep track of the measurement progress or results and errors of several machines at potentially different locations. 
• Solution: Monitoring of measurement progress, operating, environmental and error states at one glance for many machines from anywhere with IconPro APOLLO. Access all measurement results. 
• Added value: Less operator effort per machine, higher machine utilization and less operator time spent on error conditions or walk-arounds. Increased overall plant effectiveness. 

HOW DOES PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE WORK?

The key benefit of predictive maintenance is the ability to anticipate and plan necessary maintenance based on the digitized asset’s current and historical state.

However, it is anything but simple to determine the precise status of complex machines or robots. 

Predictive Maintenance can utilize condition monitoring and alert technicians to upcoming machine downtime if three key elements are fulfilled: 

• Condition monitoring via applied sensors or interfaces to the control system gives a sufficient digital shadow of the machine’s state over time 
• Predictive models that can process the collected data to automatically find anomalies, changepoints or anticipate failures (industrial AI) 
• IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) technology facilitates connectivity between machines, software solutions, and server infrastructure 

REALIZE CONDITION MONITORING TO ENABLE PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE

Many necessary sensors and components for condition monitoring can be installed or retrofitted.

Electrical currents, vibrations, temperature, pressure, oil, noise levels, levels of corrosion, and more can all be measured via applying modern and small external sensors,

by utilizing existing modern standard interfaces to the control system or adapting to older analogue interfaces to the control system.

Most often the information is there already and just waiting to be extracted by experts like those from IconPro.

ADVANTAGES OF PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE & CONDITION MONITORING

Choosing Predictive Maintenance for your production bears a lot of advantages. Some of them include: 

• Only necessary maintenance, calibrations, or part replacements will be paid for with allocated funds (no guesswork), since predictive maintenance evaluates and recommends these actions in time before significant malfunctions or downtime occurs while maximizing the machine uptime.
  
• Predictive maintenance keeps your machine park operating like a clockwork with fewer or no manufacturing disruptions caused by unexpected downtimes and reactive maintenance or repair jobs .
• Planning reliability regarding production orders is significantly improved.
• Increased equipment life as a result of optimal maintenance and repairs – predictive maintenance helps to stop actual equipment damage, thus you benefit longer from its performance.
  
• Increased profitability: Although predictive maintenance may initially be an investment, it ultimately saves a lot of money by preserving your most valuable assets and getting the most out of them.