The Internet of Things or IOT is one of the upcoming technologies in the market these days. What is IOT? – In Short, IOT is basically smart devices sending data related to their performance, state, etc. over the internet which can be acted upon, if required, without much human intervention.
There is an infograph which explains what IOT is all about and its applications. This is the most informative and interactive article that I have come across on IOT, make sure you turn to full screen mode when viewing this infograph.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-internet-of-things-a-primer/
How Maximo fits into the world of IOT?
Consider a scenario of a manufacturing unit which has its assets installed with sensors that can monitor the performance, state and other parameters of the asset and upload it to the network – basically smart assets. These performance parameters can then be picked up by Maximo and –
- Parameter values can be updated against assets (meter reading) and
- If any deviations are found, Investigation or corrective actions can be initiated through condition monitoring.
This can significantly reduce the downtime on the asset due to breakdowns and increase its reliability, efficiency & performance. This is just one example; there can be thousands of applications of IOT.
How IOT is transforming businesses? – have a look at the IBM IOT page. Do watch the customer stories.
Very interesting article. Adding a different aspect to this…
Posting asset performance parameters and meter data over internet will definitely be helpful for rental assets where the maintenance is vendor’s obligation, but cases where the maintenance facilities are located inside the production boundaries, factors described below play a major role:
1- Predictive or Corrective maintenance are real time maintenance by nature and so generally give little time to act upon making planning and scheduling very difficult and be tken like an overhead.
2- Human intervention is generally required and the first activity may be like shutting down the affected equipment or production line before fullextensive maintenance can be performed.
3- It is very difficult to have meters automatically detect potential Predictive or Corrective maintenance needs [ identifying readings for a characteristic meter is difficult and human intervention is generally required. Guage meters can still be read automatically].
4- Digitizing the meter readings for characteristic meters had always been a challange, and this would be needed so that required data flow into maximo can be automated.
Most organization perfer maximo only for preventive maintenance because this kind of maintenance can be plannedscheduled well in advance as opposed to Predictive or Corrective maintenance. In such cases Predictive or Corrective maintenance are perormed outside maximo and maximo is used just for recordkeeping purpose [ logging of actuals- to track the cost implication against the maintenance activity]
In a typical manufacturing domain Predictive or Corrective maintenance are taken care at SCADA level. [rationale- If I got the information sooner, why should I wait for it to flow to upper levels to act upon. I would rather have corresponding PMs defined here for this]
An example of predictive maintenance need- Corrosion going beyond acceptible limit in a gas pipeline making it succeptible to severe fire hazard