In fast-paced industries like manufacturing, construction, and utilities, it is quite common that we hear about the unplanned production freeze that occurs mostly due to equipment failures, which eventually turns out to be an expensive affair. The longer these operational disruptions last due to equipment failures, the greater the negative impact on productivity, time-to-market, and customer satisfaction.
Predictive Maintenance using the connected services is enhancing the tangible efficiencies across many organizations:
- Reduced Downtime & Increased Uptime through Real-Time Monitoring
- Increased Asset Lifespan
- Lower costs through improved operational efficiency
- Just-in-Time Parts Helping Inventory Management
- Seamless Customer Experience
- Unified Analytics for better decision-making
What is field service predictive maintenance?
It is a device and data-driven model to service and maintain the equipment in an optimum state. While the traditional maintenance was a reactive approach, waiting for the faults to occur for the technician to action the maintenance tasks, the predictive maintenance is the other way around; it is proactive in nature, using the connected IoT sensors monitoring the asset health in real-time to schedule the service just-in-time.
In other words, predictive maintenance can:
- Detect early warning signs of equipment failures
- Schedule maintenance at appropriate times
- Extend the asset life span.
- Avoid frequent expensive parts replacements
How is Dynamics 365 Field Service making predictive maintenance possible?
Field Service is renowned for scheduling, managing, and optimizing field operations, and when it is combined with predictive maintenance, it can support:
- IoT Integration & Real-Time Monitoring
Dynamics 365 Field Service integrates with the Microsoft Azure IoT platform, allowing the organizations to access sensors to monitor equipment’s temperature, pressure, and fuel levels in real time, enabling technicians and supervisors to keep an eye on the equipment health.
- Automated Alerts and Work Order Creation
When an unusual behaviour or fault occurs, IoT is intelligent enough to trigger automated workflows that eventually generate an on-call work order that schedules the technician for a site visit. This can avoid extended disruptions.
- Optimized Resource Scheduling
The AI engine within the field service can pick up the relevant technician with appropriate skills and location-specific knowledge that can avoid the delays and limit the machine’s damage.
- Asset History & Insights
Dynamics 365 Field Service has the complete service history, and combining this with Microsoft Power BI allows deeper insights into the repetitive failures that can eventually lead to avoiding future disruptions.
References:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/field-service/connected-field-service/
‘https://akitais.com/news/predictive-maintenance-dynamics-365/