In this our fourth article on Predictive Maintenance, we look at how predictive maintenance techniques can set your business on the path to asset management maturity.
Predictive Maintenance, as we’ve seen over the last three articles, uses analytics to predict an asset’s condition, future reliability and general maintenance requirements. And we also know that maintenance increases the availability and longevity of assets and generates revenue.
In this technological world, it makes bad business sense to rely on the maintenance procedures of old. However, many businesses are still struggling to comprehend the level of data at their disposal, and therefore also lagging in predictive maintenance procedures. This of course, leaves them behind in the path to maturity.
Take a moment to think about how your business is currently performing maintenance. If you persist in sending staff for visual inspections of your assets, then your business is lagging way behind in the quest for maintenance maturity. Any maintenance decisions made by this route rely solely on the person’s expertise, experience, and opinion.
Perhaps your business uses instruments to undertake inspections. This method combines the above method with instrument read-outs; it’s slightly more tech-savvy than visual inspections alone, but still lagging on the path to maturity. This method still relies on the staff member’s opinion with the added benefit of rudimentary data sets.
Condition monitoring is a good way for a business to perform maintenance on assets, providing monitoring of assets in real-time. Alerts based on certain rules allow for maintenance to be pre-supposed rather than ad-hoc and relying on break-down or staff inspections. This method is edging its way up the path to maturity.
But if your business is submersed in predictive maintenance, then you are exhibiting asset maintenance maturity levels of the highest order. The continuous real-time monitoring can predict future failures in assets as well as providing effective preventative measures based on accurate and uninterrupted data.
It is data that opens doors to support maintenance decisions for your assets and bring down overall costs to the business. Predictive maintenance will set you on the path to asset maintenance maturity.
Are you a member of AM Council? Find out more about our affordable membership options here. Consider joining our Maintenance and Reliability in Asset Management Special Interest Group to network with others in the sector.