IoT has transformed the entire pace of the manufacturing landscape, ushering in the era of Industry X.0. This incredible technology has created an ecosystem of connected IoT devices and platforms, allowing data to speak, measure, evaluate, monitor, and predict. IoT has hence delivered exponential efficiency across every operational node of the manufacturing landscape. However, one of the most beneficial applications of IoT has been in streamlining predictive maintenance in manufacturing.
The manufacturing ecosystem has always been battling the hazards of unexpected equipment failures. Just a single equipment failure has the power to endanger the operations of the entire manufacturing plant, with extensive repercussions in terms of cost, labor, machine shutdown time, assembly line disruptions, and loss of productivity. So equipment maintenance, especially predictive maintenance, is a focus area where no risks or guesswork can be entertained. The need of the hour is an innovative solution that can proactively give you accurate and easily accessible indicators of equipment health anytime, from anywhere, and through any device. IoT is the ideal solution that delivers on all these expectations across all process and discrete manufacturing industries.
Let’s find out a little more about IoT and its predictive maintenance capabilities.
Why is predictive maintenance in manufacturing so critical?
The primary goal of any smooth manufacturing process is the power of knowing exactly when an equipment or machinery is likely to fail or needs part replacements. Hence, organizing for immediate equipment maintenance or triggering an automated part replacement process can help prevent unplanned machine and process downtime. Unplanned downtimes are detrimental, especially when they occur during the production process, because they delay the schedule, add cost, cause extensive losses to stakeholders, and decrease productivity.
In addition, functional capabilities of equipments change drastically as they age, with their ability to carry out routine tasks and respond to stimuli degrading as time passes. Manual monitoring of each of these equipments can be quite challenging. You need a system that not just consistently captures standard machine parameters but also effectively estimates the aging of your manufacturing equipment.
Predictive maintenance is the ideal solution that can help you overcome both these hurdles. It can tell you when an equipment is in immediate need of maintenance, warn you about any impending machinery breakdown, or point out potentially aging machinery. Another critical advantage of predictive maintenance is its ability in preventing unnecessary panic attack maintenance schedules. It also saves any time wasted on procuring critical parts, since the part procurement process is automatically triggered.
Thus, predictive maintenance smartly transforms your operational approach from a reactive response to a proactive response.
How can IoT help with predictive maintenance in manufacturing?
IoT is all about connecting devices and equipment through smart sensors, creating a robust and communicative network that shares data in real time. Another empowering nature of IoT is its ability to capture, validate, analyze, and transform data into understandable insights. A symbiotic amalgamation of both these capabilities makes IoT the best choice for initiating predictive maintenance. IoT enables proactive predictive maintenance in manufacturing, thanks to its many benefits.
The benefits of IoT-enabled predictive maintenance in manufacturing
- It effectively captures critical equipment data based on predefined parameters round the clock. These variables can be modified any time, depending on the equipment, environment, or other production requirements.
- Any equipment performance variable can be mapped to determine predictive maintenance. For example, you can choose variables that analyze vibrations, assess moisture levels, deliver comprehensive thermal imageries, and much more.
- You have the power to monitor the performance of every equipment from a single, intuitive dashboard, which allows you to drill down to details and provide cognitive forecasts and patterns based on the data collected.
- This solution provides you complete visibility across the manufacturing system. It also helps you determine maintenance requirement at every single node of the system. You can then arrange for the right resource to step in at the right time, preventing complete production standstill.
- Since the insights and forecasts are based on real-time data capture, you can avoid unnecessarily scheduling routine maintenance. This will help you plan a logical equipment maintenance strategy.
- These data insights are precious inputs to your research team who can study the data patterns to optimize equipment performance.
- In case of any impending emergency, IoT-enabled solutions also have the ability to send immediate alerts to predefined stakeholders.
- IoT also enables you to clearly predict the lifetime and health of every equipment. This gives you ample time to either place the equipment on a close watch or replace it.
IoT-enabled predictive maintenance in manufacturing – a worthy investment for Industry X.0
Detecting equipment failures and aging machinery proactively is top of every manufacturer’s wish list. IoT-enabled predictive maintenance delivers on this expectation completely. The ecosystem of connected devices helps capture critical performance parameters. It also empowers stakeholders to take accurate and timely decisions even from remote locations. Predictive maintenance brings innumerable benefits to the manufacturing landscape – from eliminating unnecessary maintenance checks to part inventory management. So, the first step you need to take is to determine the ideal IoT solution to achieve predictive maintenance.
We make IoT accessible, accurate, and manageable. Connect with us today and we’ll show you how IoT can enable your equipment to tell you when it requires extra attention.