The shift from traditional factory to smart factory had triggered the adoption of predictive maintenance in many organisation as their maintenance strategy approach. If you are the decision maker in your organisation, what will your decision be? When stumbled upon an option with significant impacts on future operations, trends or lifestyles, the best practice is to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the option. What are the advantages and disadvantages of predictive maintenance (PdM) ?
Less Machine failure
Predictive maintenance involves monitoring of machines using sensors and other smart technologies. The data obtained provides information and prediction on the health condition of machines. Early detection of defects and failures allows the maintenance team to take fast action thus reducing the number of machine failures. It provides extensive proactive and early warning and downtime forecasts in advance, so your service team possesses a means to decide what to prioritize or scheduled early replacement for the manufacturing part in a proactive manner, rather than reacting upon downtime then acting on basis.
Increase in service Lifetime of Machines
Predictive maintenance is a maintenance strategy that involves calculation on the frequency of repairs, severity of machine damage and the actual condition of the machinery after repairs. This approach prevents severe damage to machine and also other plants systems. Reducing the severity of machine damage will in turn prevent propagation of machines defects. In addition, predictive maintenance offers the ability to predict the mean time between failure (MTBF). This data gives mean in determining the most effective cost in replacing the part of machines instead of carrying out maintenance that
Increase in Return of Investment (ROI)
Reduction in machines failures increases productivity as the maintenance team and managers are able to focus on vital maintenance labour.
Reduce in maintenance cost
The maintenance cost includes the cost of labour and maintenance department overhead, also the spare parts and tools needed. Through predictive maintenance, the reduction of severity of damage reduces the maintenance cost.
Improved Safety
Machines failures can lead to injuries and accidents. The ability to estimate the failures through predictive maintenance provides safer work environment to the plants workers.
Planning and scheduling time
Organisation has to spend considerable time in planning and implementing predictive maintenance schedule.
Additional cost
Predictive maintenance involves the use of various types of smart technologies and sensors. While these technologies can provide a lot of functionalities, they usually are costly in the beginning of implementation. In addition, workers should to have the ability to handle the new machines (sensors and other monitoring equipments) making the organisation required to invest in training or recruiting skilled personnels.
In conclusion, predictive maintenance can be costly in the beginning of implementation, however it offers more advantages which over time is profitable to an organisation.
E-SPIN Group in the enterprise ICT solution supply, consulting, project management, training and maintenance support for multinational and government agencies, across the region E-SPIN do business. Please feel free to contact E-SPIN for your inquiry and requirement, so we can assist you on the exact requirement in the packaged solutions that you may require for your company digital transformation (DT), industry 4.0 transition requirements. Implementing infrastructure continuous monitoring and providing proactive alerting, early warning and insight for minimizing unplanned downtime is just one of the many areas we may help.
