On the road to maintenance 4.0
Maintenance is currently undergoing a complete metamorphosis
In most European countries, there is less investment in new plants and equipment, and much more focus on Asia and other low-cost countries for investments. European companies have to keep their old machines and factories running at maximum capacity to maintain their profitability and competitiveness. In the future, the role and importance of maintenance will be emphasised considerably. Thanks to new and rapidly emerging technical developments, the corresponding knowledge and know-how will grow in importance so rapidly that it will be difficult to keep up.
The traditional maintenance manager (who in the past only lubricated the bearings and tightened the bolts) has evolved into a true maintenance specialist. His knowledge must be constantly updated to cope with new working methods, work processes, new computer programmes and equipment such as "condition monotoring", etc. Modern professional maintenance requires constant further training. Modern professional maintenance requires constant further training.
It is also a fact that older people are now ensuring the service in the maintenance business. Many companies save money by not hiring new maintenance staff. In this way, valuable maintenance knowledge is lost when these older employees retire. In most countries, there is also a shortage of maintenance staff. Unfortunately, young people do not see the maintenance world as a challenge. The business is not attractive enough, it lacks "glamour".
Maintenance is developing rapidly
In the past, it was customary to wait for equipment to break down and then repair it - known today as "firefighting". Management considered maintenance a necessary cost of doing business. Fortunately, today there is a change in this standard way of working. Maintenance is developing rapidly. Today, the goal is to optimise the site's performance by shifting as much as possible from traditional corrective actions to a fully integrated proactive approach to increase reliability. However, several studies in different European countries show that corrective maintenance is still the standard. 35-50 % still apply the "we'll fix it when it's broken" approach.
On the road to Maintenance 4.0
One of the most important trends in the industry is increasing digitalisation and connecting 'things' via the internet. We know this by the collective name 'industry 4.0', with terms such as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), big data, predictive analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, etc... These new tools offer unprecedented possibilities in the fields of maintenance, reliability and condition monitoring, for example by 'predicting' future failures and estimating the remaining useful life (RUL). The use of these new digital techniques in maintenance is summarised with the term 'Maintenance 4.0'. You may also add these terms to your maintenance dictionary:
Preventive Maintenance - Prevention is better than cure, also in maintenance. Do not wait until a malfunction occurs, but have software schedule a maintenance. This way, you prevent failures. The complete opposite of how fires used to be extinguished.
Predictive Maintenance - Predictive maintenance goes one step further: using software, you look at the condition of your assets, based on condition monitoring. This data comes from oil analyses, infrared measurements, ultrasonic measurements, etc. This way, a prediction is made as to when a failure might occur.
Prescriptive Maintenance - To date, this is the most advanced form of maintenance. Prescriptive maintenance goes one step further than predictive, because it also examines which approach is the best, based on big data, simulations, machine learning, etc.
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So it should be clear: maintenance is changing profoundly. The importance of maintenance and the requirements in terms of knowledge about maintenance will increase so quickly that no one will be able to manage it alone. In order to ensure that people, organisations and companies will benefit from the best know-how and competitiveness that knowledge in maintenance can offer, we need to break through the existing boundaries.
BEMAS wants to play a pioneering role in this. Thanks to our networking events and bedrijfsbezoeken, you can get to know other maintenance professionals who are facing the same challenges as you. In addition, you can constantly brush up your knowledge in our opleidingen, whether you are still at the beginning of your maintenance career or are already taking steps from maintenance to asset management organisation. You are welcome at BEMAS.
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