Maintenance 4.0: Improving production and profitability

Industry 4.0—The Fourth Industrial Revolution—smart technology and factories. Those concepts are probably all pretty familiar. But what about Maintenance 4.0?

The story of Industry 4.0 is all about the evolution of manufacturing. Over the past 250 years, manufacturing has traveled the road from mechanization through steam and water power (Industry 1.0) to the use of electricity for mass production (Industry 2.0), then on to the use of computer and communications technologies in the production process (Industry 3.0). Today, Industry 4.0 encompasses smart and autonomous systems fueled by data and machine learning.

Less well understood, but equally momentous, has been a parallel evolution in asset maintenance. Maintenance 1.0 relied on highly-trained specialists to visually inspect machinery. Maintenance 2.0 gave humans instrumentation to measure how equipment was running, while Maintenance 3.0 used real-time monitoring to understand the condition of an asset systematically and programmatically. Now with the Internet of Things (IoT) collecting massive amounts of sensor data, Maintenance 4.0 sees that data captured in a data lake repository, and applies algorithms and analytics to better interpret why assets fail, when a given asset will fail, and how to correct the problem.

Moving from reactive to prescriptive

Most organizations are moving from reactive maintenance­—sometimes the easiest approach but often the most expensive, in the long run—to a more preventive, condition-based, or predictive maintenance strategy. In other words, they are moving along the maintenance maturity spectrum. The ultimate goal is prescriptive maintenance (RxM), or Maintenance 4.0: where systems not only identify issues before they happen but also advise maintenance personnel on the actions to take to avoid asset malfunction.

The potential benefits are enormous. Downtime in manufacturing can be catastrophic to production and profitability. Keeping expensive equipment and machinery in peak operating condition is the goal of every manufacturer, and optimizing maintenance is the key to achieving that goal.

Learn how a Maintenance 4.0 strategy can elevate your critical equipment performance and improve human productivity. Infor’s Maintenance 4.0 site, hosted by IndustryWeek, offers a wealth of information to get you started.

On the site, you’ll find:

• background on how prescriptive maintenance impacts safety, asset lifecycles, productivity, and regulatory compliance
• the three critical guidelines for adopting a Maintenance 4.0 strategy
• a better understanding of where you fall on the maintenance maturity spectrum
• and more.

Take a look at the Maintenance 4.0 site for ideas on accelerating your journey towards better asset performance.