Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) fills the role of a critical
interface fostering interactions between sophisticated intelligent systems and
diverse individuals, including data scientists, domain experts, end-users, and
more. It aids in deciphering the intricate internal mechanisms of ``black box''
Machine Learning (ML), rendering the reasons behind their decisions more
understandable. However, current research in XAI primarily focuses on two
aspects; ways to facilitate user trust, or to debug and refine the ML model.
The majority of it falls short of recognising the diverse types of explanations
needed in broader contexts, as different users and varied application areas
necessitate solutions tailored to their specific needs.
One such domain is Predictive Maintenance (PdM), an exploding area of
research under the Industry 4.0 \& 5.0 umbrella. This position paper highlights
the gap between existing XAI methodologies and the specific requirements for
explanations within industrial applications, particularly the Predictive
Maintenance field. Despite explainability's crucial role, this subject remains
a relatively under-explored area, making this paper a pioneering attempt to
bring relevant challenges to the research community's attention. We provide an
overview of predictive maintenance tasks and accentuate the need and varying
purposes for corresponding explanations. We then list and describe XAI
techniques commonly employed in the literature, discussing their suitability
for PdM tasks. Finally, to make the ideas and claims more concrete, we
demonstrate XAI applied in four specific industrial use cases: commercial
vehicles, metro trains, steel plants, and wind farms, spotlighting areas
requiring further research.Comment: 51 pages, 9 figure