The Role of Sensor Technology in Revolutionizing Preventive Maintenance

The Role of Sensor Technology in Revolutionizing Preventive Maintenance

For many years, reactive maintenance dictated the days of maintenance professionals. When machines failed on the factory floor, the HVAC system stopped working in an office building, or the plumbing needed to be repaired in a restroom, maintenance technicians were called in. They often spent their work days going from one emergency to the next.

As companies recognized the high cost of working in this manner, many began to implement preventive maintenance plans in an effort to reduce both the cost and stress of working in a purely reactive manner.

While preventive maintenance tasks will always have their place in a comprehensive asset management program, today’s predictive maintenance sensor technologies are promising to revolutionize how preventive maintenance is handled and raise the performance bar even higher for critical assets.

The Limits of Traditional Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance is typically based on a combination of time- and usage-based metrics that dictate when tasks should be completed. For example, certain pieces of equipment may require lubrication, inspection, or replacement after a set number of weeks, months or years. Maintenance work orders may be triggered for other assets after they run for a certain number of hours or miles. 

While this approach does make sense and can certainly reduce the number of emergencies, these tasks are usually scheduled regardless of equipment condition. As a result, unneeded maintenance can increase costs while the potential for unexpected equipment failures still exists.

Sensors Bring Equipment Performance into PM Equation

As sensors that can track things like temperature, humidity, and vibration have come on the market, manufacturing firms have gained the ability to monitor critical equipment around the clock. Since sensors can collect equipment performance data every few minutes as well as send alerts to your maintenance team when acceptable ranges are violated, they enable real-time data collection and condition monitoring.

As a result, maintenance technicians can be sent out to inspect or repair those machines that are exhibiting signs of potential breakdowns. They strike that delicate balance of scheduling maintenance interventions before costly failures, and probable downtime, occur, while also minimizing unnecessary maintenance tasks.

Wireless technology and integration into an overall maintenance system allows this rich performance data to be centrally collected, remotely monitored, and efficiently processed. This not only allows the timely assignment of work orders but today’s sensor technology can be combined with sophisticated machine learning algorithms that allow you to analyze sensor data and identify patterns, anomalies, and failure modes over time. This, in turn, helps to fuel smarter decisions about repair and replacement of machinery.

Predictive sensors can improve asset reliability and efficiency by identifying early signs of degradation, which results in reducing downtime and improving overall equipment effectiveness.

How to Select and Integrate the Right Sensors

In order to move your organization to this next level of preventive maintenance, it’s important to consider which assets you will focus on, the best types of sensors to purchase, and how the technology can be integrated into your overall maintenance system.

It’s important to begin by prioritizing those assets that will benefit most from sensor technology. Start by choosing one or two critical assets that are most important to your production line or business. For example, a food manufacturer must keep its products within certain temperature ranges for quality and safety. Temperature sensors that send alerts immediately when refrigerators or freezers fall out of these ranges can prevent the spoilage and loss of ingredients or final products, significantly reducing costs of such an event.

Once you’ve selected the right sensors for the appropriate equipment, you’ll want a centralized way to collect, store and process this ongoing, significant amount of data. After all, having real-time data on your assets alone will not enhance your maintenance program; you’ll need to convert that information into a usable form that fuels corrective action.

Be sure you select the right kind of sensors for your equipment, taking into consideration the type of machinery, operating conditions, and environment. For instance, monitoring equipment on the shop floor requires different sensors than tracking the performance of an asset operating in a harsh outdoor environment. You’ll want to look at sensor accuracy, durability, compatibility, and installation requirements.

Finally, tap into the expertise of a partner that can help you maximize the use of your sensor data. Be sure you provide the necessary ongoing training to your own maintenance team so they understand how to optimize and leverage your new sensor technologies effectively.

Conclusion

Predictive maintenance technologies such as sensors and associated machine learning and artificial intelligence will evolve in coming years. Used well, these technologies can help manufacturers continue down the path to real-time, condition-based maintenance programs. While reactive and preventive maintenance tasks will still have their place within a comprehensive system, sensors can make a big difference in improving performance, reducing downtime, and decreasing costs when it comes to critical asset operations management.

UpKeep Edge is designed to help you monitor critical assets in real time, no matter where you are. Reach out today to learn more about how to leverage secure gateways, sensors and advanced analytics and gather asset intelligence that moves maintenance and reliability operations to an even higher level of proactiveness.