Summary
This paper focuses on how to drive change to capture the full value of technology-enabled maintenance transformations – it is not simply another article purely describing technological innovation.
For the past few years, industries with distributed fixed assets have mostly concentrated on increasing asset availability and system reliability. As a result, these have reached new heights across industries on average. In contrast, the opportunities for labor efficiencies created by new technologies have not yet been fully realized. The key challenge to capturing the full value from technology-enabled maintenance transformations is a massive mindset shift. Companies need to entirely rethink how they manage their maintenance workforce: from identifying clear technology-enabled business cases to capturing their benefits in the deployment phase. They need to minimize the root causes for low productivity, adapt their organizational setup and performance management, and build the required skills.
Today’s specific challenges of maintaining distributed fixed assets
In many industries, the asset structure is fragmented throughout a region and burdened by legacy equipment with limited technological possibilities. Typically, there is no dedicated maintenance team per asset; the teams cover whole areas and regions. The past focus on high asset availability has often led to low labor productivity levels, typically caused by non-optimal maintenance frequencies, no or limited remote information on asset conditions, long travel and transport times, as well as unevenly distributed knowledge in the workforce.
Opportunity for companies with distributed fixed assets
To drive efficiency and labor productivity for distributed fixed assets, optimizing preventive maintenance, reducing the number of maintenance trips, minimizing travel time, and sharing knowledge are key. New technologies such as sensor-based condition monitoring, automated and dynamic planning, scheduling, dispatching and routing, and digital instructions allow for significant changes in all these areas. Already today, advanced companies have realized technology-enabled efficiencies in labor productivity and a 20 to 30 percent decrease in maintenance costs. As maintenance costs amount to 20 to 60 percent of overall opex spend, depending on industry and asset type, these opportunities are sizable and should be captured. In addition, the cost of innovative technology has dramatically decreased over the past several years. The opportunity has therefore never been better.
This paper focuses on how to drive change to capture the full value of technology-enabled maintenance transformations – it is not simply another article purely describing technological innovation.
For the past few years, industries with distributed fixed assets have mostly concentrated on increasing asset availability and system reliability. As a result, these have reached new heights across industries on average. In contrast, the opportunities for labor efficiencies created by new technologies have not yet been fully realized. The key challenge to capturing the full value from technology-enabled maintenance transformations is a massive mindset shift. Companies need to entirely rethink how they manage their maintenance workforce: from identifying clear technology-enabled business cases to capturing their benefits in the deployment phase. They need to minimize the root causes for low productivity, adapt their organizational setup and performance management, and build the required skills.
Today’s specific challenges of maintaining distributed fixed assets
In many industries, the asset structure is fragmented throughout a region and burdened by legacy equipment with limited technological possibilities. Typically, there is no dedicated maintenance team per asset; the teams cover whole areas and regions. The past focus on high asset availability has often led to low labor productivity levels, typically caused by non-optimal maintenance frequencies, no or limited remote information on asset conditions, long travel and transport times, as well as unevenly distributed knowledge in the workforce.
Opportunity for companies with distributed fixed assets
To drive efficiency and labor productivity for distributed fixed assets, optimizing preventive maintenance, reducing the number of maintenance trips, minimizing travel time, and sharing knowledge are key. New technologies such as sensor-based condition monitoring, automated and dynamic planning, scheduling, dispatching and routing, and digital instructions allow for significant changes in all these areas. Already today, advanced companies have realized technology-enabled efficiencies in labor productivity and a 20 to 30 percent decrease in maintenance costs. As maintenance costs amount to 20 to 60 percent of overall opex spend, depending on industry and asset type, these opportunities are sizable and should be captured. In addition, the cost of innovative technology has dramatically decreased over the past several years. The opportunity has therefore never been better.
