Top 3 Benefits of Predictive Maintenance for Asset Management

Predictive maintenance isn’t a buzzword that’s ‘in’. It’s an asset management concept that is a culmination of intelligent processes and platforms with full enterprise mobility. Predictive maintenance means that you are able to preempt asset issues (breakdown, higher scraps, higher resource consumption, or depleted throughput).

It further helps direct the engineers/technicians (with a preemptively planned maintenance to fix the issues, armed with the right tools, full IOT-driven mobility, and smart Workflows). This means that your assets are always in near-prime condition (as per expectations) with a high throughput, optimal resource consumption, and high uptime.

These essentially are the core benefits of predictive maintenance, other than being future-proof, agile, and market-ready. We will expand on the top benefits mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

There is a constant flow of resources utilized and consumed during production. This could be the raw materials, workforce hours, utilities, etc. An asset is performing as expected when it consumes an optimal number of resources to generate a consistent amount of quality throughput. A mismanaged asset may become suboptimal using higher resources for lesser outputs, eroding the profit margins.

Predictive maintenance, as mentioned before, ensures that the asset runs smoothly throughout its lifecycle. Regular planned inspections (or using sensors) can help detect minute triggers or anomalies in an asset’s functioning. Predictive maintenance enables an altogether Intelligent Asset Management system that factors in multiple asset metrics to pinpoint abnormal behavior for any particular asset.

This instigates a targeted check of said asset. The engineer/technician has pre-filled information in their cMaintenance app on their smartphone or tab. They follow a smart Workflow to inspect the asset. They capture the data directly while scanning the asset and/or spare parts with their phones.

Everything is automated, including the approvals and requisitioning. The Intelligent Asset Management system interacts with the finance or warehouse systems to streamline the resources for the maintenance task.

Coming to the point, a predictive maintenance system ensures that assets that are misbehaving are detected at their nascent stage before they can disrupt anything. It further helps to fix the issues with optimal use of the technicians’ time and spare parts. There’s minimal supply chain lag for the parts as the requisitioning is instantly processed and approved on the spot, pushing for the timely replenishment of all resources. Mostly, these parts are replenished ahead of time using the same ‘trigger’ principle within the predictive maintenance system.

As mentioned in the point above, the predictive maintenance system recognizes (through inspections, sensors, and/or asset metrics-based triggers) anomalies in an asset’s functioning. This is fed into the maintenance planner, which designates the right person with the right skill-sets and the right tools to fix the issue.

Since this problem is preemptively identified, the facility manager has the luxury to schedule the maintenance task at an opportune time – vis-à-vis – during an already scheduled downtime (off-hours).

This ensures that while the asset is functional, it is kept in near-prime condition (within expected parameters) with next-to-zero disruptions, slowdowns, or breakdowns.

In other words, its high uptime with a consistent throughput supported by a dynamic and Intelligent Asset Management system.

Let’s check out the scoreboard – high uptime, full resource optimization and minimal supply chain lag for parts/materials.  All this builds up to the maximizing asset lifecycle value. An asset is a capital investment with its value depreciating overtime. A productive plant or factory needs to ensure that these assets deliver high value across their life cycles.

The usual impediments to this are constant wear-and-tear, undetected anomalies that develop into bottlenecks or breakdowns, and high downtime that runs up the costs and erodes value.

Predictive maintenance, in alignment with the benefits mentioned above, ensures that any anomaly is identified early and fixed in time. It also ensures that the asset runs perfectly with consistent output with regular maintenance.

With the higher uptime and resource optimization, accompanied by longer asset lifespans, the overall asset lifecycle value can be maximized.

This is the predictive maintenance way.

Predictive maintenance is something that the smarter facility managers crave for. It’s not a gimmick but a smarter and more efficient way of doing things. If you aren’t looking at predictive maintenance to amplify your profit margins, you can realistically assume that your competitors are looking at it right now.

It comes down to who does it right. This requires efficient partners with expertise in enterprise solutions, platforms, and asset management. It requires Crave InfoTech.

Crave InfoTech is a revered SAP and Zebra Technologies partner with multiple and successful Intelligent Asset Management implementations across industries. And predictive maintenance isn’t a selling point, but a driving point for us.

It just figures that with predictive maintenance by your side, you can ensure that your assets and processes remain agile. You can alter production particulars knowing-well that the assets and processes would respond smoothly.

Further, it helps ensure that you’re future-proof. Crave InfoTech helps set up a fully-intelligent system to drive this predictive maintenance. With agility and future-proofness, you can rest assured that during progressions or recessions, your assets will give you higher value per dollar invested – over their entire lifecycle.

Does this feel like something you and your enterprise might want to discuss? Just drop in.