19 May, 23

Not Yesterday, Now: Using Real-Time Data to Drive Efficiency

Tom HedgesBLOG, NewsNo Comments

Traditionally, maintenance management was a reactive process where maintenance teams would wait for equipment to fail before addressing the issue. This approach often led to costly downtime, emergency repairs, and reduced efficiency.

The rise of analytics has transformed maintenance management into a proactive and data-driven process – and the key to the most effective analytics process is to gather and review data in real-time. This enables the quickest response, where potential issues are monitored and addressed before they become critical.

Despite the benefits, only 39% of manufacturing executives that are already using data driven insights have been able to scale it beyond the production process of a single product (World Economic Forum, 2022). With that in mind, this article reviews how you can use real-time data to improve efficiency and profitability at scale.

How Real Time Data Improves Maintenance Efficiency

There are many ways in which real time data significantly drives efficiency. A few highlights are discussed below.

Fast Decision Making

Computerized maintenance management software usually includes various dashboards that visually display data, making it easy to get a real time overview of operations at-a-glance. Combined with reports, these tools enable maintenance managers to make important decisions in an instant.

Real-Time Alerts

Whenever issues are detected or KPIs diverge from their pre-defined limits, maintenance teams receive alerts automatically. This ensures they can respond immediately and restore the situation, avoiding more downtime than necessary and preventing quality issues from getting out of hand.

Root Cause Analysis

Organisations can prevent recurring issues thanks to root cause analysis. For example, if a general manufacturing facility is experiencing a decrease in production output, perhaps a particular machine is running at a reduced speed, or there is an issue with the supply chain that has delayed the replacement of a defective component. Tracking the relevant KPIs and activities ensures that the cause can be identified and addressed promptly.

A Single Source of Truth

The collection of real time data – and its storage in the cloud – ensures that all stakeholders have a single source of truth regarding maintenance operations. Siloed data leads to miscommunication and, potentially, incorrect conclusions and sub-optimal or incorrect decisions.

A cloud based computerized maintenance management system prevents such issues and standardises operations across departments. It also increases transparency; a centralised source of information presented through easy to understand dashboards makes it easier for personnel to hand over at the end of a shift.

Examples of Using Real-Time Data in Maintenance Management

Fleet Management

Real-time analytics helps the emergency services to perform at their greatest capacity with no unexpected surprises. By analysing data such as fuel consumption, mileage, and engine performance, maintenance teams can identify when vehicles need attention – before any issues occur. This reduces the frequency of breakdowns and improve the safety and reliability of the fleet, ensuring the emergency services can operate continuously and always be prepared.

Predictive Maintenance in Manufacturing

By monitoring the performance of equipment, maintenance teams can predict when defects or failures are likely and take proactive measures to prevent such occurrences; performance and output is then maximised. Condition tracker features allow users to set their own limits for parameters such as oil analysis, drive-belt tension, and operating temperatures/pressures.

Energy Efficiency

Real-time data on energy usage can be monitored in any facility (for example, our Overall Equipment Effectiveness module provides real-time intelligence on water and energy consumption). This helps in identifying processes that can be optimised in order to reduce energy costs and improve sustainability.

Quality Control

By analysing data on product specifications and defects, maintenance teams can quickly identify issues with production equipment or processes and make adjustments as needed. This helps to improve product quality and reduce waste.

Inventory Management

With real time stock management, gone are the days of stock-outs or overstocking. Some CMMS software also includes automatic re-ordering features, intelligently replenishing your inventory at the right time.

Power Generation

Among the sectors we serve is utilities and facilities. Monitoring equipment such as turbines and generators allows issues to be detected ahead of time, for maximum power generation capacity.

How Idhammar Systems Supports Real-Time Data Analytics

Our enterprise asset management solutions feature several modules that use real-time data to your advantage.

Data Capture

You likely don’t want to settle for a mediocre OEE score. The thing is, when OEE reaches 65%, manual data collection won’t cut it anymore – it’s just not possible to manually capture all the intricacies about your assets in the granular detail necessary. This module is able to do what a human workers cannot, capturing highly detailed information at the shop floor, and manual and automatic lines, at every moment.

Condition Tracker

The ultimate early warning system for plant engineers and calibration specialists, and a vital tool for implementing predictive maintenance. It also provides verification that legal, quality, environmental and safety tests are passed, helping to ensure that your operations are EHS compliant.

Core Analysis

Root cause analysis and what-if reports determine how your OEE score will change if certain risks were eliminated. Advanced analytics tools show the impact of machines, components and shifts on your operational efficiency.

OEE Monitoring

It’s essential to keep tabs on this crucial metric at all times. Save time by automating its calculation using our OEE Monitoring module so your staff needn’t waste time on admin and instead, can focus on activities that improve this KPI. Again, this is a real-time calculation for the ultimate agility. The module also provides an Overall Labour Effectiveness score before and after each production run.

Reporting

This module creates comprehensive daily and weekly operational reports. It also offers easy to understand dashboards so staff can quickly make data-driven decisions. Andon boards are positioned at the end of each production line in order to display OEE information and real time data on other relevant KPIs, making life easier for line improvement teams. The displays refresh automatically for continuous monitoring, and automatic alerts help to speed up response times.

Inventory Management

Our CMMS software features automatic re-ordering based on real time data, reducing the time spent on manual checking. The module also lets you manage requisitions, purchase orders, deliveries, invoices and credits all in one place.

Conclusion

In summary, using real time data in maintenance management is a powerful tool for driving efficiency. Whether it’s the emergency services managing their fleets or a manufacturer looking to maximise uptime, real time data improves the ability of an organisation to carry out their mission with minimal disruption.

One of the benefits of using real time data is fast decision making – which is necessary for preventing a broad range of issues from getting out of hand and reducing output and quality. This proactive approach is necessary for staying competitive.

We gave a brief overview of how our world class systems leverage real time data to reduce maintenance costs and boost efficiency – but to gain a deeper view of how we can transform your operations, contact us today to book a demo.

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