Economical and technological prospects for e-maintenance

E-Maintenance has raised increased interest in recent years. During the last years we have seen the development of e-Maintenance techniques. The key elements are the extensive use of Internet that has exploded and rapid development of sensors and processing power. It can be claimed that the use of e-Maintenance at the moment still is at infant stage. This paper offers a generic view of e-Maintenance and points out both the benefits as well as the hurdles there still exist on the road to support the complete life cycle of a product with e-Maintenance, while providing a critical assessment of the current state of things. Based on this discussion, the paper seeks to assess how e-Maintenance will develop within the next five to ten years. Special emphasis is given on how the end users can benefit from e-Maintenance i.e. how radical the change really is and what are the financial implications related to its adoption.