THE NEW APPROACH TO MAINTENANCE
Maintenance, both industrial and infrastructure, is no longer considered a mere cost factor, but is integrated into the core strategy of companies
Maintenance, both industrial and infrastructure, is no longer considered a mere cost factor, but is integrated into the core strategy of many companies. Effective and efficient maintenance provides a significant advantage over the competition in the productive sector and in the quality of service in the world of infrastructure. To guide maintenance management, we recommend working on two fundamental lines:
1. Maintenance Strategy.
The approach of a suitable maintenance strategy for your equipment is a matter of great importance in which the management of the company should be involved, since its integration into corporate processes and strategies is decisive for corporate success.
Regardless of the maintenance strategy that the company chooses, it is necessary to manage and document the work carried out. Many companies use IT solutions for maintenance planning and management (CMMS / EAM) that facilitate management, documentation, planning and complete data recording. In turn, these solutions offer the exchange of information with ERP business systems (for example, SAP, Navision) and the collection of real-time data from your equipment and processes through integration with the SCADA – MES/MOM.
It is advisable to minimize and automate the management tasks associated with maintenance (with mobile terminals, electronic data entry devices, barcode readers, etc.).
For this purpose, in some companies it will be necessary to further expand and optimize the IT structure of maintenance. In this way, in the future the operational maintenance activities can be organized more efficiently and effectively.
In this maintenance strategy, environmental protection and energy consumption play an important role in the maintenance strategy (from the acquisition of machines to the disposal of spare parts).
2. Maintenance Digitalization
The main objective of digitalization in the industrial sector is to achieve the reliability, safety and performance objectives of the assets through the knowledge of the working models of the equipment/processes, the collection and management of the data, the proactivity through the management of maintenance in Real Time and the orientation towards a predictive management. In turn, we know that the success of industrial companies will depend on their ability to develop and implement a data-based strategy in order to improve asset performance. Based on this premise, industrial maintenance becomes highly relevant and requires a digital transformation strategy (Industry 4.0) to modernize its management processes, improving its efficiency and reducing its costs until it has an integrated business model with the other industrial areas in order to align all processes.
This new approach to maintenance not only has to maintain/optimize machines/assets and automation systems, but also has to ensure that the different systems communicate with each other (both upstream and downstream), providing information to the various industrial areas in Real Time. It must also ensure that it is possible to perform data analysis through different solutions in order to optimize its internal operations, costs and resource consumption.
Therefore, industry 4.0 and digital transformation generates a new approach between IT and maintenance. This new approach is also a great challenge for companies. Can we help you?
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