Predictive maintenance at the heart of Industry 4.0: challenges and benefits

To meet the challenges of optimal economic prosperity, companies are looking for strategies to reduce their operating costs. In today’s competitive global environment,Industry 4.0 seems to be emerging as the smart way to go. Its technologies are based on the installation of sensors at all stages of a factory’s manufacturing process. If digitalization represents one of the many assets of Industry 4.0, preventive maintenance plays an important role in increasing the productivity of the industries of the future. To what extent do software and algorithms provide turnkey answers to technicians in charge of maintaining production systems?

The evolution of trade on a global scale does not pass without the need for companies to review their management policies. Industry 4.0 and IIoT are by definition powerful ways to address these concerns.

Among the measures considered, predictive maintenance allows them to increase their profitability and operational flexibility, by putting an end to the risk of machine failures. In concrete terms, preventive maintenance :

• anticipates more than it corrects;
• limits the production line stoppages due to breakdowns;
• maximizes the life of equipment and spare parts;
• facilitates the work of the technicians, by a better processing of the data collected by the software.

In the vast digital universe that characterizesIndustry 4.0, predictive maintenance is by definition at the forefront. Indeed, it exploits the undeniable benefits ofIoT (Internet of Things) and CMMS(Computerized Maintenance Management Information System) technologies to :

• the establishment of algorithms, which accelerate the decision making process;
• installation of sensors to monitor the temperature of the motors and prevent overheating;
• a planned intervention of all maintenance tasks;
• improving the reliability of the machine fleet and reducing management costs, using modeling and simulation software.