Continuous Improvement on Information and On-line Maintenance Technologies for Increased Cost-effectiveness

Industries are increasingly paying attention to maintenance services, due to the relevance that maintenance is taking as a business and profit centre within the companies. Many of the improvements could be obtained using new technologies and strategies to maximize service level and to reduce the maintenance costs. Predictive maintenance (PdM) technologies, whether on-line or inspection, are key in this change as they provide supervision and control over assets condition. However, it is important to avoid risky upgrades that may have no positive effect on maintenance operations cost-benefits, and hence may serve to underestimate the potential of PdM and finally stop maintenance progress. Here is important to pay attention to several aspects of the proposed upgrades, such as the maturity of the proposed technologies. Also, the culture and organization of the company should be taken into account, and in particular is very important to understand the existing level of information management at the company, where bottlenecks at information acquisition, transmission or processing concerning reliability and maintenance operations can be expected. This paper presents a methodology that provides a continuous assessment of PdM technologies with respect to specific business scenarios. The methodology integrates existing reliability and maintenance business analysis techniques and standards, always having in mind the positive impact that may have the implementation of these technologies. A critical simulation tool is also developed in order to compare different PdM strategies. The paper finally explains how this methodology has a positive impact not only on the cost-effectiveness of maintenance processes, but also on the maintenance information available.