Digitalization and the Industrial IoT have triggered a major revolution in the field of maintenance in recent years. Gone are the days when machines and systems were serviced according to fixed dates in the calendar. Fixed maintenance cycles have been replaced by an agile and flexible system that constantly monitors the condition of machines using smart sensors and intervenes when wear becomes noticeable. But other developments and trends are also having an impact on maintenance: supply chain difficulties and an increased focus on sustainability as part of the ESG aspects of environmental, social and governance.

Efficiency: predictive maintenance works
Predictive maintenance has long proven its worth in increasing efficiency in production. Companies can detect impending machine failures and avoid costly machine and system downtime. A survey conducted by Senseye revealed that industrial companies lose an average of 323 production hours per year due to machine downtime. This costs an average of around half a million US dollars (532,000 US dollars) per hour.

Predictive maintenance is an important factor for a company's profitability, especially when companies are exposed to high cost pressure due to sharp rises in energy prices. In addition, manufacturers save resources, time, energy and money through constant condition monitoring and continuous optimization of processes.

What do supply chain difficulties have to do with maintenance?
Due to the acute and ongoing supply difficulties in the electrical industry, manufacturers are increasingly having to change their suppliers on the spur of the moment or switch to other products. Be it semiconductors, electric drives or plastic parts - due to component shortages, companies have to be flexible and use new and unfamiliar products. This also means that they lack experience in the use of these components in terms of quality.

On the other hand, buyers and end customers continue to expect flawless quality in the products produced. Predictive maintenance has a key role to play here, as it can ensure that machines produce without faults and meet all quality standards, even with untested spare parts.

Focus on sustainability and ethical production
Since the beginning of 2023, German companies have been obliged to ensure sustainable and ethical business practices along their entire supply chain as part of the Supply Chain Act. In addition, further sustainability initiatives such as the EU product passport are planned to ensure ethical and sustainable raw material extraction and product manufacturing. This may also mean that companies have to change suppliers in order to meet new standards. This in turn can have an impact on product quality.

However, it is more important that companies themselves develop a greater awareness of the need to make their own production as sustainable as possible. In addition, from 2023, many medium-sized companies will be subject to the regulation requiring them to include a sustainability report in their annual report. Maintenance will play an important role in order to be able to produce in a resource-efficient manner and with low levels of waste. Predictive maintenance can reduce rejects caused by machine wear. It is also possible to use smart sensors and digital machine models to adjust individual parameters so that the entire production process can be made more efficient. Saved resources or lower power consumption in turn have a positive impact on the eco-balance.

Predictive maintenance makes companies future-proof
Another advantage for predictive maintenance is that the technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated: More powerful small semiconductors are making predictive maintenance even more effective. They are equipped with NPUs (Neural Processing Units) and enable the immediate processing of data on site and in real time. Advances in 3D printing are also making it easier to print the required spare parts quickly and in high quality. This means that supply chain bottlenecks can be avoided through on-demand printing. In view of these trends in industrial manufacturing, predictive maintenance is becoming increasingly important for companies. It is therefore good that the technology is becoming increasingly established. A survey conducted by Reichelt Elektronik in 2021 shows that 78% of manufacturing companies are already using predictive maintenance.