Predictive smart maintenance
Maintenance requirements place a heavy cost burden on manufacturers. Aside from the repair costs, time lost to maintenance shutdowns is expensive – particularly if that shutdown is unplanned. The steel industry is moving away from reactive maintenance and towards a predictive maintenance model, wherein problems are dealt with before failure occurs.
With the increased use of digital technology, the opportunity exists for steelmakers to approach this model in a more intelligent way, utilizing advanced data analytics and forecasting techniques. Recognizing the potential these solutions hold, Fives has developed a predictive smart maintenance offering.
Smart maintenance is an intelligent equipment management tool designed to increase machine life and optimize performance by predicting problems before they occur, creating customized reports and analysis to enable operators to take preventive action in a timely and efficient manner.
The software collects information and generates data from three different sources:
— Maintenance requests
— Preventive maintenance
— Predictive smart maintenance
Real-time information about plants and machinery is displayed on a control dashboard, which is available in the cloud to any operator with access. Having collected the data, smart maintenance generates maintenance requests, which are managed by maintenance workers.
Main benefits:
- Improved production efficiency
- Reduced maintenance costs
- Increased machine life
- Faster fault detection
- Only one repository per plant
- Shorter maintenance outages
Reduced maintenance costs
By automating maintenance planning, steelmakers can eliminate common pain points, such as:
- How to keep track of maintenance tasks?
- Creating a forward-thinking maintenance schedule
- Reporting on assets (i.e. equipment and systems)
- Verifying that tasks have been performed to the required standards
The aim is to achieve zero unplanned shutdowns and zero equipment failure. If planning is undertaken properly, maintenance should always be performed before failure occurs. The steelmaker will benefit from predictable and reduced maintenance costs as well as smoother operations and greater productivity.
Empowering decision makers with cloud-based support
Smart maintenance gives operators the insight they need to make informed decisions about maintenance practices – and in some cases that can mean a reactive, unplanned response. In order to help you reach this decision, Fives has equipped smart maintenance with a remote support feature that gives machine manufacturers and maintenance providers secure remote access to the necessary data. This gives steelmakers the benefit of quick and insightful feedback from the experts without having to wait for them to schedule a visit to the site to collect data of their own.