AN EVOLUTIONARY STEP FORWARD IN PLANNED MAINTENANCE, PROMISING MAXIMUM ASSET UPTIME, OPTIMAL RESOURCE EFFICIENCIES AND SUBSTANTIAL COST REDUCTION
THE MAINTENANCE DEFICIT
Every day, businesses in all sectors sacrifice valuable income to unsustainable asset maintenance strategies. While recognising the need to dramatically reduce high maintenance costs, managers are forced to budget for unforeseen breakdowns that might bring business operations to a halt. If such stoppages endure, it could mean hundreds of thousand or even millions in lost profit. Clearly, a better outcome is required.
TRADITIONAL MAINTENANCE
Traditionally, companies only had 2 strategies for dealing with asset maintenance.
Reactive maintenance
The maintenance team repairs assets only when they fail. This approach often makes matters worse because a single part that breaks could cause more severe damage to an asset. It could lead to extended downtime, unwanted production stoppages and, ultimately, loss of income. Reactive maintenance is still practiced today in situations where budgets are inadequate or assets must remain operational at all costs.
Preventive maintenance
A saner approach is preventive maintenance. Here, the maintenance team follows the asset manufacturer’s service schedule, replacing parts and materials before failure occurs. This scheme offers the company greater control because it can plan maintenance in advance and schedule asset downtime when it will least impact operations. However, it’s still a costly solution because assets earmarked for servicing may be far from failing, parts may remain operational well into the future, and production need not be taken offline at all.
SHORTCOMINGS OF TRADITIONAL MAINTENANCE
Companies face a number of problems with traditional maintenance models:
- Maintenance is carried out either too late or too early.
- Both methods falsely assume that similar assets degrade at the same rate.
- Unplanned breakdowns result in excessive downtime.
- Uncertain lead times can force companies to procure and hold components long before they are needed.
- Expensive components held in stock for unplanned breakdowns tie up life-giving capital.
- Maintenance teams react haphazardly to critical breakdowns or adhere blindly to a set plan.
- Operations are interrupted too frequently, to satisfy a rigid maintenance schedule.
PREDICTABILITY
All problems with traditional maintenance can be reduced to one critical flaw – they depend on limited knowledge of asset performance, individually or in operational groups. High maintenance costs, inefficient resource utilisation and downtime are the price companies pay for the inability to accurately foresee if and when an asset will fail and prioritise their response accordingly. If breakdowns were more predictable, they could enjoy a quantum leap forward in cost-effective maintenance and operational efficiency. Now, thanks to emerging information and communication technologies, they can.
ONPRO PRESCRIPTIVE MAINTENANCE
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance is a technology-based solution that can:
- Accurately predict when an asset will fail based on its historical performance and maintenance data.
- Project the minimum stock holding for replacement components based on expected failure and supplier reliability.
- Project the optimal time to service an asset with consideration for business operations continuity.
- Prioritise asset maintenance according to its impact on business operations continuity.
- Identify business-critical assets, asset groups or asset configurations whose failure could bring wide-ranging interruptions to operations.
- Schedule asset maintenance in relation to its predictions and availability of maintenance personnel.
- Attach digital tags to assets that, when analysed across operational groups, can reveal hidden business improvement opportunities.
- Collect data from line-of-business systems, such as asset registers or warehouse management systems, to be included in analysis.
- Provide data to line-of-business systems, such as ERP or advanced scheduling applications, to facilitate planning, transactions and analyses.
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance is ideal for smart, automated maintenance management of any stationary or mobile land-based asset, as well as any land, air or sea faring vehicle. The solution’s predictive model satisfies the unique requirements of all industries, whether air transport, mining, manufacturing, logistics or any other business type.
BENEFITS
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance offers the benefits companies have been seeking from their maintenance programmes. For example:
- Predictability of breakdowns promises a sensible, accurate maintenance budget.
- Lower maintenance frequency and reliable lead times reduce component purchases and stock holding.
- Minimal parts and materials inventory frees up capital for business-critical investments.
- Optimised maintenance prioritisation results in maximum return on investment in skilled maintenance teams.
- Maximum uptime of assets means assured operational continuity and profitability.
- Minimal maintenance costs result in substantial savings.
In short, the solution delivers lowest maintenance costs for highest asset availability.
HOW IT WORKS
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance is implemented as follows:
- We attach sensors to your assets or use assets’ existing sensors to extract performance data while they run. Where sensor fitment is not possible, recorded performance data can be captured by personnel.
- The performance data uploads to our cloud-based AI that’s specially designed for predictive maintenance.
- Our AI learns your equipment’s running characteristics inside out and identifies risk patterns.
- Our AI makes accurate predictions about if and when assets will fail so they can be serviced in time but no sooner than necessary.
- Our AI prioritises and schedules maintenance according to risk and optimal use of maintenance resources. It also projects component procurement and stock holding requirements.
- The solution can advise on whether to repair or replace an asset based on an accurate prediction of its remaining useful life.
COSTS
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance is a large-scale computational platform well outside the price-range of most companies. However, because it is a cloud-computing system, its powerful analytical capabilities can be accessed over the Internet for a per-use fee. Additional services, such as sensor fitment and configuration, business analysis, data science and business consulting, are determined and costed against the unique requirements of each client. In general, the cost of implementing Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance is nominal compared to cost-of-maintenance savings.
TECHNOLOGIES
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance employs the following stable technologies:
- Sensors capture various types of data from operating assets. Sensor technology has advanced significantly and prices have dropped substantially, making sensors cost-effective and practical.
- IoT (Internet of Things) comprises a variety of technologies that allow sensor-fitted devices and assets to transmit their data securely to online analytical and transactional systems, other devices, or directly to people through communication services.
- Big Data is a methodology by which massive amounts of information, potentially in many different formats, can be cleaned, normalised, indexed and stored, to make it easier to analyse.
- Digital tags of any description can be attached to asset data so that the performance of all assets with a specified tag or list of tags can be analysed as a whole. This can reveal hidden patterns in asset operation and configuration, and expose business improvement opportunities.
- Analytics refers to a set of technologies that allow asset data to be categorised, grouped and summarised to provide insights into its meaning.
- AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a technology that allows computers to solve problems that would normally require human intelligence. Because computers process information so rapidly, they can produce solutions much faster than any person. Many AIs have been created for various problems.
- Machine Learning extends artificial intelligence by allowing AIs to build their knowledge of any given subject and find patterns that are meaningful. The longer an AI learns the subject, the better it becomes at offering solutions to problems and predictions of outcomes related to it.
- Microsoft Azure. Microsoft’s trusted Cloud platform provides an array of cutting-edge computational and storage services that are used to enable Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance.
ONPRO CONSULTING SERVICES
Onpro Predictive Maintenance is augmented by the industry expertise and technical know-how of Onpro Consulting. We provide the following services to ensure that the system is complete and reliable.
- Sensor fitment and configuration. Many assets come fitted with a variety of sensors that can be used immediately to collect performance data. For others, sensors must be fitted and configured for data to be recorded.
- Data collection. In some instances, sensors cannot be fitted to assets and performance data must be captured manually using specialised equipment or methods. Onpro Consulting can provide the technical skills required for these activities or train your staff to perform them.
- Business analysis. Onpro Consulting provides comprehensive audits and analysis of assets, their location and operating conditions, requirements for monitoring their performance, analysis of the current maintenance schedule and more, to produce a complete set of guidelines for implementing the solution.
- Data science. Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance uses an AI that is trained to analyse asset performance patterns. Where unique operating conditions exist, our data scientists can implement customised machine-learning algorithms to help the AI factor those conditions into its analyses.
- Business consulting. Our management consultants offer guidance on the most appropriate practices and technologies for your business goals or problems.
THE ONPRO ADVANTAGE
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance provides measurable value through the integration of 3 essential planned maintenance components:
- The human factor. While other solutions focus on technology, Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance recognises that human activity accounts for 80% of asset maintenance. Tracking and optimising these actions is a prominent feature of the system.
- Tagging. Digital tagging provides essential insights that can help businesses make strong strategical decisions, adding to the system’s ROI.
- Expert support. Our solution is backed by business and technology expertise that companies can leverage get the most from it and to meet the challenges of an ever-changing business environment.
IMPLEMENTING ONPRO PRESCRIPTIVE MAINTENANCE
The lack of predictability inherent in traditional maintenance models prevents companies from reducing budgets confidently and without risk to their operational continuity. By implementing Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance, they can break the barrier, enjoy maximum uptime for minimum maintenance costs, and improve efficiencies across their organisation.
Onpro Prescriptive Maintenance starts with a discussion that will answer all your business, operational and technical questions. Once you’re completely satisfied that our solution will solve your maintenance problems, we can start the implementation process.
HOW TO START
Contact Onpro Consulting through our website (www.onpro.co.za), by sending an email to info@onpro.co.za or by calling +27 11 881 5855 to set up an appointment. We’d be happy to provide more details at a time most convenient to you.