Say No to Unplanned Downtime in Trying Times

The dawn of the new decade has not arrived quietly. Companies are navigating an unprecedented and challenging economic landscape. Enterprise industrial businesses are facing massive cost pressures and need to do more with fewer resources. This is placing a huge emphasis on technology as companies try to extract more production capacity out of existing legacy assets.

1. Don't be blindsided by unplanned downtime: This movement, commonly known as Digital Industrial Transformation or Industry 4.0, is playing a key role in helping to increase productivity levels - and one important area of attack is unplanned downtime. This is an issue that costs the world's top companies hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year and is often caused by operator mistakes, poor maintenance and hardware or software error, not to mention natural disasters.

Industry analysts agree that unplanned downtime is disastrous for business. Clearly no business wants to be blindsided with unplanned downtime. The question organisations are asking is, ‘How can technology be applied to existing assets to expose a new competitive advantage?' When it comes to preventative maintenance, it's time for organisations to begin mapping their roadmaps to asset performance management and risk-based maintenance. 

2. Zero-tolerance of downtime: Today, preventative maintenance, based on time or usage statistics, is one of the most commonly adopted approaches to keep industrial operations running. Performing maintenance regularly lowers the probability of asset failure. However, in most cases, this approach often results in either over-maintenance or under-maintenance of assets due to differences in equipment ages, operating environment and unpredictable performance.

It's a practice that needs to stop. In fact, a zero-tolerance approach to unplanned downtime will become the norm as companies develop and invest in their industrial digital strategies, the foundation of which is Asset Performance Management (APM). This means managing assets and machinery by implementing technologies that exist today. 

3. Factory failure is not an option: Machine learning, artificial intelligence and cloud technology are all enabling predictive maintenance strategies that significantly reduce unplanned downtime. Automation technologies connect operations acting as a data nerve system to enable experts to see what's happening inside the facility in real time, while mobile tools can provide access to that data anywhere for improved collaboration across business units.

Kim Custeau is Global Asset Performance Management Lead at AVEVA. She develops and leads the strategy for industrial Asset Performance Management solutions that help customers improve asset reliability and performance to maximise return on capital investments and increase profitability. Kim has 30+ years of experience in industrial asset management software and services. Prior to AVEVA, she was responsible for the strategic direction, commercialization and development of Schneider Electric Software's Asset Performance software portfolio globally.

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