Industrial Maintenance Solutions

WHAT IS MAINTENANCE 4.0? Industry 4.0 is a name given to the current trend of automation and data exchange in industrial technologies. It includes the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT), wireless sensors, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Industry 4.0 is commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. Maintenance 4.0 is a machine-assisted digital version of all the things we have been doing for the past forty years as humans to ensure our assets deliver value for our organization. Maintenance 4.0 includes a holistic view of sources of data, ways to connect, ways to collect, ways to analyze and recommended actions to take in order to ensure asset function (reliability) and value (asset management) are digitally assisted. For example, traditional Maintenance 1.0 includes sending highly-trained specialists to collect machinery vibration analysis readings on pumps, motors and gearboxes. Maintenance 4.0 includes a wireless vibration sensor conne...

WRITEN BY: Erik Hupje, Roadtoreliability.com Whether you are developing a new maintenance program. Or improving the maintenance program for an existing plant. All reliable maintenance programs should be based on the following Principles of Modern Maintenance: Principle #1: Accept Failures Principle #2: Most Failures Are Not Age-Related Principle #3: Some Failures Matter More Than Others Principle #4: Parts Might Wear Out, But Your Equipment Breaks Down Principle #5: Hidden Failures Must Be Found Principle #6: Identical Equipment Does Not Mean Identical Maintenance Principle #7: “You Can’t Maintain Your Way To Reliability” Principle #8: Good Maintenance Programs Don’t Waste Your Resources Principle #9: Good Maintenance Programs Become Better Maintenance Programs As a Maintenance & Reliability professional, you must understand these principles. You must practice them. Principle #1: Accept failures Not all failures can be prevented by maintenance. Some fail...

Maintenance 4.0 is the application of Industry 4.0 to operations and maintenance (O&M) activities. The goal is simple: To maximize production uptime by eliminating unplanned, reactive maintenance. Let’s look at a simplistic depiction of common O&M work streams. Figure 1 shows a graph depicting the activities that occur after an industrial asset unexpectedly fails.   Figure 1: O&M work streams in Industry 3.0 vs Industry 4.0 Once the failure event occurs and is reported, a series of activities occurs. First, repair crews are assigned and then travel to the worksite where they receive repair instructions. Parts must be ordered and transported to the site. Typically, root cause analysis (RCA) is performed and valuable time expended on identifying it. Working under pressure to resume production, work crews engage in trial and error activities to identify the cause of the failure. After repairs and an inspection, production resumes. Maintenance 4.0 brings artific...

By Sandy Dunn, (2003) Director, Assetivity Pty Ltd Summary In his seminal book on Reliability Centred Maintenance, John Moubray suggested that, to date, there have been three distinct “generations” of maintenance. The first is characterized by a focus on repair tasks, the second by a focus on improving maintenance planning and scheduling, and the third by a focus on predicting, preventing and avoiding the consequences of equipment failures. This paper discusses the major issues that may shape the nature of the “fourth” generation of maintenance and argues that the fourth generation of maintenance will focus on failure elimination, rather than prediction or prevention. This will involve two major improvement thrusts - the first involves an expansion of the technical focus of maintenance managers and professionals in areas such as equipment selection and design, and the second involves failure elimination through the more effective application of organizational, systemic, and cul...