A review of e-maintenance capabilities and challenges

Within the era of e-manufacturing and e-business, e-maintenance provides the opportunity for a new maintenance generation. E-maintenance integrates existing telemaintenance principles, with web-services and modern e-collaboration principles. Collaboration allows not only to share and exchange information but also knowledge and (e)-intelligence. This paper outlines the basic capabilities provided by e-maintenance to companies as well as describes emerging challenges to benefit from these new operational improvement opportunitie

Mobile Maintenance Management

The paper gives a short overview of the enabling tools and technology available to the maintenance engineer in manufacturing industry, in relation to the emergence of e-maintenance practices and the introduction of mobile computing devices. An analysis of the main characteristics of the e- maintenance concepts and the associated challenges is provided, highlighting the lack of use of condition-based maintenance strategies. The potential of using ubiquitous computing in industrial maintenance practice is then examined, followed by an original vision for the adoption of mobile maintenance management solutions, which can facilitate the implementation of condition-based- maintenance. This vision is supported today by the European Integrated Project DYNAMITE 017498 (Dynamic Decisions in Maintenance)

A component based system for S-maintenance.

International audienceThanks to ICT, Web emergency and Internet, the achievement of maintenance services and monitoring can be performed automatically, remotely and through various distributed information systems. Hence the emergence of the concept of services offered through maintenance architectures, ranging from autonomic systems to integrated systems where knowledge management, cooperation and collaboration are vital to any operation. Into this context, new services like intelligent maintenance, self maintenance, etc are required. To this end, a new concept called s-maintenance is emerged. This concept defines a new generation of maintenance systems founded on a knowledge based system. While existing systems don't respond to the characteristics of this new generation of systems, we design in this paper an architecture of a maintenance component based system respecting the characteristics of s-maintenance. Each component in the system is defined to respond to one or many characteristics of this concept

A Review of using Data Mining Techniques in Power Plants

Data mining techniques and their applications have developed rapidly during the last two decades. This paper reviews application of data mining techniques in power systems, specially in power plants, through a survey of literature between the year 2000 and 2015. Keyword indices, articles’ abstracts and conclusions were used to classify more than 86 articles about application of data mining in power plants, from many academic journals and research centers. Because this paper concerns about application of data mining in power plants; the paper started by providing a brief introduction about data mining and power systems to give the reader better vision about these two different disciplines. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the collected articles and classifies them according to three categories: the used techniques, the problem and the application area. From this review we found that data mining techniques (classification, regression, clustering and association rules) could be used to solve many types of problems in power plants, like predicting the amount of generated power, failure prediction, failure diagnosis, failure detection and many others. Also there is no standard technique that could be used for a specific problem. Application of data mining in power plants is a rich research area and still needs more exploration

The incidence of the factor human in the maintenance

[ES] El factor humano es intensivo en la actividad de mantenimiento y afecta de una manera especial a la fiabilidad y operativa de la empresa. En este artículo, se realiza una visión básica de la función del mantenimiento, contemplando a continuación el efecto humano en dicha actividad así como diversos documentos y normativas que lo contemplan. Para obtener una medida correcta y conocimiento de la fiabilidad del sistema debe tenerse en cuenta la posible contribución del error humano. Los análisis de diseño de sistemas, de procedimientos e informes posteriores de accidentes, muestran que el error humano puede causar un accidente inmediato o bien puede jugar un importante papel en el desarrollo de sucesos indeseados. Sin la incorporación de las probabilidades del error humano, los resultados son incompletos y a menudo mal valorados.[EN] The human factor is intensive in the maintenance activity and affects a special reliability and operations of the company. In this article, is a basic overview of the maintenance function, then contemplating the human effect in such activity as well as various documents and regulations, which support it. To obtain a correct measurement and knowledge of the reliability of the system, the possible contribution of human error must take into account. The design of systems, procedures and subsequent reports of accidents, analysis shows that human error can cause an immediate accident either can play an important role in the development of unwanted events. Without the incorporation of the probability of human error, the results are incomplete and often poorly valued.Cárcel Carrasco, FJ. (2016). La incidencia del factor humano en el mantenimiento. 3C Tecnología. 5(1):1-12. doi:10.17993/3ctecno.2016.v5n1e17.1-12S1125

Intelligent maintenance management in a reconfigurable manufacturing environment using multi-agent systems

Thesis (M. Tech.) -- Central University of Technology, Free State, 2010Traditional corrective maintenance is both costly and ineffective. In some situations it is more cost effective to replace a device than to maintain it; however it is far more likely that the cost of the device far outweighs the cost of performing routine maintenance. These device related costs coupled with the profit loss due to reduced production levels, makes this reactive maintenance approach unacceptably inefficient in many situations. Blind predictive maintenance without considering the actual physical state of the hardware is an improvement, but is still far from ideal. Simply maintaining devices on a schedule without taking into account the operational hours and workload can be a costly mistake. The inefficiencies associated with these approaches have contributed to the development of proactive maintenance strategies. These approaches take the device health state into account. For this reason, proactive maintenance strategies are inherently more efficient compared to the aforementioned traditional approaches. Predicting the health degradation of devices allows for easier anticipation of the required maintenance resources and costs. Maintenance can also be scheduled to accommodate production needs. This work represents the design and simulation of an intelligent maintenance management system that incorporates device health prognosis with maintenance schedule generation. The simulation scenario provided prognostic data to be used to schedule devices for maintenance. A production rule engine was provided with a feasible starting schedule. This schedule was then improved and the process was determined by adhering to a set of criteria. Benchmarks were conducted to show the benefit of optimising the starting schedule and the results were presented as proof. Improving on existing maintenance approaches will result in several benefits for an organisation. Eliminating the need to address unexpected failures or perform maintenance prematurely will ensure that the relevant resources are available when they are required. This will in turn reduce the expenditure related to wasted maintenance resources without compromising the health of devices or systems in the organisation

Estratégias de implementação de plataformas de e-maintenance na indústria: desenvolvimento de uma aplicação para um sistema logístico de viaturas

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica – Sistemas Eléctricos de EnergiaA evolução tecnológica, com particular incidência nas tecnologias de informação, e a necessidade de uma integração cada vez mais profunda do sector da manutenção na gestão estratégica global da empresa, contribuíram para o aparecimento do fenómeno denominado e-maintenance. Para ir ao encontro das necessidades da empresa do futuro, os conceitos associados à manutenção deverão ser cada vez mais refinados e explorados, tais como a manutenção proactiva, a manutenção baseada em condições, a manutenção remota ou a manutenção colaborativa, entre outras. Neste trabalho o termo e-maintenance foi entendido como uma componente de suporte à manutenção, onde se incluem os recursos, serviços e actividades de gestão necessários para habilitar a execução de processos de decisão proactivos. O desenvolvimento de plataformas de e-maintenance, entendidas como a agregação de software, hardware e outras tecnologias que, integradas, oferecem um determinado serviço, foi determinante para a evolução deste conceito, na medida em que permitiu a estudantes, grupos de investigação ou empresas o aprofundamento das suas diversas valências. Contudo, quando se analisam as realidades concretas de algumas unidades industriais, verifica-se que a implementação de plataformas de emaintenance na indústria não é um processo simples, devido a vários factores, como a heterogeneidade de sistemas em funcionamento, custos envolvidos ou resistência à mudança. O presente trabalho tem por objectivo desenvolver uma aplicação que irá transformar um sistema automatizado de pesagem de viaturas, usado na indústria cimenteira em vários países, numa plataforma de e-maintenance. O sistema é baseado na monitorização constante da degradação dos componentes críticos e através de um sistema de alertas permite antecipar as falhas, enviando ordens de serviço a equipas de trabalho previamente definidas e com habilitações específicas. É ainda enviada a informação documental referente à intervenção, bem como ao conjunto de acessórios e peças de substituição necessários. A aplicação denomina-se SLV_EMAINT e foi desenvolvida na Framework SLV Cement da empresa Cachapuz. Foram desenvolvidos vários módulos, denominados e-team, e-doc e e-sparts, bem como o módulo de gestão da manutenção que permite definir e controlar todo o fluxo de informação. Um sistema de aquisição de dados faz o interface entre a componente física e o módulo de gestão. Foi desenvolvido um simulador digital para permitir verificar o comportamento do sistema em situação de degradação dos componentes ou de avaria efectiva.The technological evolution, with particular relevance in the information technologies, aside with the need for a deeper integration for the maintenance area in the global strategic management of the company, contributed for the emergence of the phenomenon called e-maintenance. To meet the needs of the company of the future, the concepts related to the maintenance should be gradually refined and exploited, such as Proactive Maintenance, Condition Based Maintenance, Remote Maintenance or Collaborative Maintenance, among others. In the present work, the term e-maintenance was understood as a maintenance support component, where are included the resources, services and management activities that are needed to enable the execution of proactive decision making processes. The development of e-maintenance platforms, understood as the aggregation of software, hardware and other technologies that, when integrated, offer a certain service, was determinant to the evolution of this concept, allowing students, investigation groups or companies to make deeper studies on the various aspects of the e-maintenance potentialities. However, when the concrete realities of some industrial facilities are analyzed, it’s verified that the implementation of e-maintenance platforms in industry is not an easy task, due several aspects such as heterogeneity of the active systems, costs involved or resistance to change. The present work has as objective the development of an application that will transform an automatic system of weighting vehicles, used by cement industry in several countries, in an e-maintenance platform. The system is based in the constant monitoring of the critical components degradation and, through an alert system will allow the anticipation of failures, sending service orders to previously defined work teams and with specific qualifications. The documents necessary to the intervention are send along, as well as the needed set of accessories and spare parts. The application is denominated SLV_EMAINT and was developed in the SLV Cement Framework, of the company Cachapuz. Several modules were developed, namely e-team, e-doc e e-sparts, as well as the maintenance management module, which allows the definition and control of all the information flow. A data acquisition system makes the interface between the physical component and the management module. A digital simulator was developed to allow the verification of the behavior of the system in the circumstances of degradation of components or effective failure

Diagnóstico de fallos y optimización de la planificación en un marco de e-mantenimiento.

324 p.El objetivo principal es demostrar el potencial de mejora que las técnicas y metodologías relacionadas con la analítica prescriptiva, pueden proporcionar en aplicaciones de mantenimiento industrial. Las tecnologías desarrolladas se pueden agrupar en tres ámbitos: - El e-mantenimiento, relacionado fundamentalmente con el desarrollo de plataformas colaborativas e inteligentes que permiten la integración de nuevos sensores, sistemas de comunicaciones, estándares y protocolos, conceptos, métodos de almacenamiento y análisis etc. que entran continuamente en nuestro abanico de posibilidades y nos ofrecen la posibilidad de seguir una tendencia de mejora en la optimización de activos y procesos, y en la interoperabilidad entre sistemas.- Las Redes Bayesianas (Bayesian Networks ¿ BNs) junto con otras metodologías de recogida de información utilizadas en ingeniería nos ofrecen la posibilidad de automatizar la tarea de diagnóstico y predicción de fallos.- La optimización de las estrategias de mantenimiento, mediante simulaciones de fallos y análisis coste-efectividad, que ayudan a la toma de decisiones a la hora de seleccionar una estrategia de mantenimiento adecuada para el activo. Además, mediante el uso de algoritmos de optimización logramos mejorar la planificación del mantenimiento, reduciendo los tiempos y costes para realizar las tareas en un parque de activos

Use, Operation and Maintenance of Renewable Energy Systems:Experiences and Future Approaches

The aim of this book is to put the reader in contact with real experiences, current and future trends in the context of the use, exploitation and maintenance of renewable energy systems around the world. Today the constant increase of production plants of renewable energy is guided by important social, economical, environmental and technical considerations. The substitution of traditional methods of energy production is a challenge in the current context. New strategies of exploitation, new uses of energy and new maintenance procedures are emerging naturally as isolated actions for solving the integration of these new aspects in the current systems of energy production. This book puts together different experiences in order to be a valuable instrument of reference to take into account when a system of renewable energy production is in operation