Uptake just returned from the annual International Maintenance Conference (IMC), which brought together top professionals from across the heavy industrial landscape.
The theme of this year’s conference was as timely and relevant as ever: “Reliability for everyone, with no one left behind — the intersection of asset management and reliability.”
Over the course of five days and more than 140 sessions, we explored viable ways that heavy industrial businesses can save time and money by switching their operations from reactive to proactive.
In the spirit of sharing, here are the top three takeaways you need to know about from IMC 2018:
3) Maintenance and reliability still draw record-breaking crowds.
Practitioners who are on the front lines care deeply about maintenance and reliability. These are tried-and-true topics that continue to cut to the core of today’s heavy industrial businesses, as evidenced by the record audience. More than 1,000 professionals from 50 countries attended the conference, marking one of the biggest crowds in the event’s 33-year history.
A majority of the keynotes, breakouts, networking and surrounding discussions centered on one core issue: implementing cost-effective maintenance strategies that deliver maximum asset reliability in our increasingly connected world.
2) Industrial AI and IoT are fundamentally changing the conversation.
Practically everyone is talking about industrial AI and IoT. It’s clear that these technologies are playing a transformational role in shaping where we’re headed as an industry. But this makes it even more important to put theory into practice. It’s incumbent on solution providers to show where the rubber hits the road.
For example, practitioners want to see how pre-built, pre-trained industrial AI and machine learning engines do the heavy lifting. They’re interested in knowing how those engines filter out unnecessary noise from raw data, analyze current asset conditions to identify deviations from normal operating behavior, predict probability of future failures using historical data plus current asset conditions, and more.
Equally important is solving for the reality that not all critical assets are connected or capable of generating data. Future-proof technology investments will support the full spectrum of asset connectivity by leveraging deep libraries of industrial content to provide data-backed maintenance strategies for machines, equipment and components that aren’t equipped with sensors.
1) We must focus on the critical elements of calculating risk.
There is both an art and a science to effectively managing risk. The right technology addresses each aspect.
First, it’s crucial to understand the foundational science of risk management and never lose sight of it. Here it is at its most basic level: Risk is a function of frequency (i.e., probability of failure) and consequence (i.e., cost of failure).
Second, the artform is in operationalizing data-backed strategies. These strategies enable businesses to effectively mitigate risk, cost-optimize maintenance decisions without compromising safety, and deliver the maximum asset reliability for the right price.
At Uptake, we believe the next generation of Asset Performance Management (APM) will usher in a new era of financial outcomes for heavy industrial businesses. Want to see how Uptake Asset IO helps customers prevent failures, monitor asset conditions and predict performance?