What is a Smart Factory?
The Smart Factory is a concept for expressing the end goal of digitization in manufacturing. A smart factory is a digitised manufacturing facility that uses connected machines, devices, and production systems to continuously collect and share data. The data can then be used by self-optimizing devices or across the organization to proactively address issues, improve manufacturing processes and respond to new demands.
Various technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have made smart manufacturing practices fully comprehensive.
What is / Why do we need Smart Maintenance?
Smart Maintenance is about machines that can send condition data in real time, and through software algorithms, predict and prevent malfunctions before they happen. That is not and just only a good start.
Smart maintenance is about tying many data sources together such as machine condition data, machine criticality, service levels, spare part supply, availability of service engineers, travel time, traffic or weather conditions and more. It’s about being able to pull all this data together and to visualize, automate and optimize decision alternatives through software systems. And worth saying, it has never been easier than it is today to benefit from new technologies such as cloud computing, mobile solutions, scheduling and automation solutions, IoT and big data applications.
Smart maintenance offers a whole range of benefits. Most importantly, it reduces costs because less time and fewer resources are needed to repair or replace equipment. E.g. one difference between preventive and smart maintenance is that a wearing part is only replaced when it is essentially necessary. In addition to maximizing uptime, smart maintenance benefits as:
- Reduce costs - Downtime is expensive. This saves money on repairs, spare parts and working time.
- Extend equipment lifetime - Clear insights into the condition of your machinery/equipment and well-scheduled maintenance and repairs are sure to lengthen the lifetime of your equipment.
- Ensure compliance - The reporting features and procedures enabled by smart maintenance solutions help you easily comply with all maintenance-related standards, such as the ISO55000 standard.
- Increase productivity - Technicians work more efficiently because the data and information they receive is more accurate. This allows them to react more quickly to errors or even avoid them. This in turn results in everyone else working more efficiently because there are fewer errors in the system or even failures.
- Enhance safety, cut energy consumption and CO2 emissions - By timely monitoring and fixing potential problems, your employees work under safer conditions. Moreover, advanced tools can help cut energy consumption while reducing CO2 emissions.
We are very proud to introduce some innovations to serve you such as:
- The remote vibration analysis solution - Advisor services,
- A truly unique reliability tool for the Industry 4.0 mechanic - RT-300,
- Predictive maintenance software to harness the power of Artificial Intelligence - NESTi4,
- Software for predictive maintenance on ultrasonic signals - DataSuite
Would you like to know more about how you can transform your business with smart maintenance? Please contact us.
