What is Predictive Maintenance?
Predictive maintenance is all about taking a strategic approach to servicing equipment. It uses real-time data to detect equipment issues the moment they occur, so you can get engineers on-site immediately. But more importantly, it’s going to pinpoint where issues are likely to pop-up, so you can address them before a fault occurs.
The result: happy customers, disasters avoided, reputational glory for being the hero, and a clear edge on the competition.
Definition of Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance proactively manages assets by using sensors to give you accurate information about the current state of each piece of equipment. Rather than relying on historical service histories to plan your maintenance schedule, predictive maintenance tells you the exact moment equipment needs servicing. Now your field service engineers are only on-site when they really need to be.
You’ll also keep assets running at peak performance for longer. Just imagine…being able to predict when medical devices are likely to fail, so you can get engineers on-site to recalibrate systems before it puts a patient in danger. Keeping office workers happy in the 30+ degree heat because you knew to clean the filters before the heatwave hit. And reducing the H&S risks associated with scissor and tail lifts, because you’ve always got eyes on the condition of the equipment.
How Predictive Maintenance Works
Predictive maintenance works by following a simple 3-step process:
Step 1: Data
Without data you can’t have an accurate picture of the equipment’s current condition, and can’t intervene before something goes horribly wrong. By using sensors, which are measuring variables like temperature, noise, vibrations, and fluid levels, you now have real-time information about what’s going on.
Step 2: Analysis
The moment anything goes wrong, like a HVAC unit spiking in temperature, the sensors will trigger a warning for an emergency call out. But predictive maintenance also predicts when and where failures are likely to happen. When all the sensor data is run through AI and machine learning tools, it detects trends and patterns, which indicate a piece of equipment isn’t running at peak performance.
Step 3: Action
Rather than schedule proactive maintenance, for example, by time, usage, or manufacturer’s recommendations, predictive maintenance allows you to only schedule servicing when you really need to.
Predictive vs Preventive Maintenance: What’s the Difference?
Preventative maintenance ensures check-ups are performed at regular intervals by specially-trained engineers, so proactive servicing can take place.
Predictive maintenance is 1 of 4 types of preventative maintenance. It uses real-time data to tell you the exact moment equipment needs servicing, so it can stay operational for longer.
Why Predictive Maintenance Matters for Service Providers
Predictive maintenance offers several benefits to your customers. For example, it reduces machine downtime by 30% to 50%, a welcome improvement when downtime costs an average of £5,121 per hour. But it also holds a lot of value for your own business.
Better Fix Rates
Engineers spend 80% of their time on reactive maintenance. By switching to real-time interventions, you’re going to free up that time, while at the same time, increasing the equipment’s life by 20% to 40%.
Lower Costs
Predictive maintenance has been shown to save up to 40% on operating costs when compared to reactive maintenance. And when it comes to fixing equipment, predictive maintenance catches issues earlier, which reduces servicing costs by 25%, giving you larger margins.
Safer Environments
Because predictive maintenance is monitoring equipment in real-time, it reduces the risk of something catastrophic happening at work. In fact, research indicates that adopting this proactive approach to maintenance reduces H&S risks by 14%.
Benefits of Predictive Maintenance for Asset-Centric Businesses
Empowered Teams
Reliant on data and real-time analytics, your team has better visibility over the condition of every asset you service. Now, your engineers can stop being sent to endless emergency call-outs (which let’s face it, can cause you a scheduling headache) in favour of more routine fixes, which you have more time to plan for.
Accurately Forecast Future Operations
The foresight given by equipment data means that firstly, you can keep your parts inventory accurately stocked. And secondly, allows you to account for changing market influences, like an economic downturn, which could affect your fixed costs. By bringing more predictability to your operations, predictive maintenance allows you to plan and act earlier.
Informed Decision Making
If you’re using predictive maintenance software, which contains an asset’s full maintenance history, along with manufacturer handbooks and client history, the addition of real-time data means your engineers have all the information they could possibly need on-site, to support first-time fixes with targeted intervention.
Competitive Advantage
While your competitors are stuck in reactive maintenance mode, you have the opportunity to steal the inside track because you have greater visibility. Your business becomes more predictable, which means you can be more strategic to align your customers’ maintenance with your financial goals, and ensure predictable expenses, so you’re not hemorrhaging costs.
Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Predictive maintenance may sound like the perfect way to service equipment, but it does have its challenges.
Data Integration
In theory, you pull your data into a system and it spits out some wonderful insights you can act upon. But the reality is, integrating data from different sources is really complex. It can be in different formats, without a naming convention, and there’s no guarantee the data’s even accurate or complete.
Plus, as well as integrating systems for your real-time data, you also need to integrate historical data sets. Without your past data, AI and machine learning technologies will struggle to identify trends, which enable you to predict the future. The same is also true if your data is of poor quality, because it can lead AI algorithms to generate false positives.
Initial Investment
Long-term, predictive maintenance will help to reduce your operational costs. But short-term, you’ll have to swallow some high set up costs.
First, you’ll need to upgrade legacy technologies, and potentially adopt some new systems into your IT infrastructure, to support tasks like data analysis. And then there’s the cost of ‘smart’ equipment, IoT devices, and sensors, which will provide real-time data for the condition of each piece of equipment.
Cultural Change
Finally, switching from reactive to predictive maintenance is a huge change, and as with any change, you’re likely to encounter some resistance. In particular, AI breeds fear and skepticism because it’s new technology. And by upgrading and enhancing your tech stack, you’ll likely introduce new dashboards and reporting procedures that people need to wrap their heads around.
How Predictive Maintenance Software Supports Field Service Teams
Predictive maintenance software will support your engineers in several ways:
Mobile Engineer Tools
Keep your engineers connected while they’re on-site with access to all the information they need. They can also capture images, log time, and raise quotes, which cuts down paperwork and ensures no detail is missed.
Stock and Inventory Management
With an organised inventory, your engineers can access all the parts they need, when they need them. Also, mobile pick lists, automatic replenishment, and integrated purchasing, helps reduce errors and saves time, ensuring maintenance and servicing run without a hitch.
Automatic Job Creation
Field service engineers receive a customised daily schedule and new job alerts on the go, which allows them to accept/decline jobs without delay, ensuring the right tasks are done at the right time, by the right person.
Asset History
Now you can keep a detailed record of every asset and every examination to fully understand its lifecycle, performance, and profitability. And give engineers access to the right guidance at their fingertips to boost first-time fixes. Nothing is overlooked.
Why Service Geeni Is Built for Predictive Maintenance
Service Geeni takes the guess work out of predictive maintenance because it brings assets, data, and engineers together in one platform, giving you total visibility and service efficiency. It’s literally built with field service teams in mind to allow them access to everything they need to do a great job, while streamlining service management, reducing downtime, and improving operational efficiency.
It doesn’t matter whether you manage 20 or 200 engineers, our platform is designed to scale with you, integrate with your existing systems, and adapt to the way you work. Giving you total control without unnecessary complexity.
Is Your Business Ready for Predictive Maintenance?
- Strategy: Have you built the business case? What impact will predictive maintenance have on your business?
- Operations: How does predictive maintenance sit with your current offerings? How much customer demand is there?
- Data governance: Is your data of high quality? And are your data repositories fully integrated?
- Budget: Have you considered the setup costs for predictive maintenance? Do you know what legacy systems need updating?
- Training: Do your field engineers understand the importance of predictive maintenance? Are they excited for the change?
Need some help?
Talk to our expert team, we’re always happy to answer your questions and help you decide if predictive maintenance is a smart move for your business.
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