Digitalisation of Maintenance

The digitalisation of industry and the Industry 4.0 concept with its connected ICTs are important developments for the industry to acquire and implement to be able to keep ahead in competition. In connection to Industry 4.0, the predictive maintenance systems and approach are getting more popular in maintenance. This is because these systems enable a change in the maintenance mind-set where the break-fix mentality is substituted by a predictive maintenance system, such as Condition Based Maintenance (CBM), where the equipment is monitored with the support of ICTs to detect failures before they occur. The Industry 4.0 seems more attainable even for small and medium sized companies because of the drop in the prices of the components of these systems, both in the sensing elements and in the data processing part. The manufacturing methods used in the Integrated Circuit (IC) industry create the possibility to reduce significantly the price tag of sensors and processors. Therefore, the authors go through the CBM approach and technologies, such as Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) sensors as well as such emerging ICTs as the Cloud and Big data. These could offer a turning point in traditional maintenance by widening the amount of monitored assets, allowing multiple parameters to be measured and analysed and enabling wireless and immediate data access across the globe.