THE INTERVIEW APRIL 2019
SMART FIXING
The world of maintenance has been
slower to adopt Industry 4.0 than the
rest of the factory. However, say RS
Components, manufacturers are starting
to see the benefits of smart maintenance
BY CHRIS BECK
I t’s every manufacturing manager’s worst
nightmare. You’re sat at home and get a call to
say Line Two is down, and will take at least 48
hours to fix. Thoughts start running through
your head – can we redeploy another line? What
will the financial impact be? How do we tell the
customer? Why didn’t anyone see this coming?
Maintenance is a vital part of running a factory,
yet all too often manufacturers get stuck in a
fire-fighting habit: waiting for things to go wrong,
instead of predicting when they will and planning
for it. However, this is starting to change. Industry
4.0 and increasingly connected factories are arming
manufacturers with more and more data to predict
when – and what – is about to break down. I sat
down with RS Components’ Allen Boney, product
marketing manager, and Richard Jeffers, technical
director, to find out more.
How is Industry 4.0 transforming the
world of maintenance?
Allen Boney: It’s looking to enable a more
connected, integrated environment where it is easy
to see the overall performance of a process, and the
key areas to focus on for improvement. Where it is
much easier to gather the required data, to analyse
it and build a plan of attack to systematically
improve machine up-time. This could be done in
small steps on individual machines, or scaled up
across a complete process.
Richard Jeffers: From what I’ve seen within
manufacturing end users, the Industrial Internet
of Things and the wider Industry 4.0 is still more
of an embryonic concept in the maintenance
space, and while the technology is starting to allow
greater understanding of OEE (Overall Equipment
Effectiveness) or performance changes, it’s far from
transformational. One connected technology that
is starting to gain traction within
both OEMs and end users is
IO-Link. This enables greater
levels of status information
to be gain from previously
‘unintelligent’ presence and
proximity sensors – many of
which are already designed into
either the machinery or process.
What benefits can
manufacturers gain from
taking a tech-based
approach to maintenance?
AB: A lot of the quick, easy wins
to reduce process down-time
have already been seized. It is
therefore harder to identify the
remaining, diverse causes of
down-time, prioritise and put
in place actions to prevent or
predict recurrence. A tech-based
approach is able to capture a
wide number of variables, and
tirelessly log them 24/7 to allow
in-depth analysis from which it is
possible to build a plan.
RJ: I think the key to this is twofold.
Embracing those connected
automation technologies that
can be retro-fitted to existing
machines or process, and
demanding greater levels of
self-monitoring and performance
data provision from OEMs.
Whether it’s via IO-Linkenabled
sensors or tapping into
existing process data to allow
greater performance trend or
downtime analysis, it’s the data
that facilitates the informed
maintenance decisions.
Are companies aware
enough of these benefits?
AB: Not by any means. And
many that do understand the
benefits have not yet realised
that as the technology develops
and becomes more available
from multiple manufacturers, it
is becoming more affordable. So
while the cost may previously
have outweighed the potential
benefits, as costs reduce it is
easier to justify investment, with
more attractive ROI timescales.
RJ: The more enlightened
businesses have already started
to see the benefits of embracing
TPM (Total Productive
Maintenance) and understanding
Despite many
‘easy wins’
already being
seized, plenty
of opportunities
still exist, says
Allen Boney
“Industry 4.0 will enable
a more connected,
integrated environment”
Allen Boney, product marketing manager, RS
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