Real-time monitoring is a business practice in which employees monitor the performance of machinery and equipment. It can benefit you regardless of what kind of facility you manage or work in. In the manufacturing industry, innovation promotes productivity and safety. Real-time data monitoring and predictive maintenance can make an outstanding difference in your employees’ well-being, ultimately boosting profits by ensuring a smoothly running operation.
What Is Real-Time Data Monitoring?
Real-time data monitoring involves using sensors and other data sources to monitor a machine’s performance in any industrial setting. With real-time alerts, employees can closely monitor a machine on the work floor to track productivity and monitor potential hiccups. A real-time network isn’t just for productivity’s sake; real-time monitoring solutions allow you to observe potential safety or network security risks in your machinery.Â
What Is Predictive Maintenance?
Predictive maintenance is the data-based prediction of when a piece of machinery will fail. Such data is beneficial to places like a factory or plant because every machine needs maintenance at some point, no matter how carefully you use it, and understanding when that maintenance should occur can help employees work more effectively. Predictive maintenance helps solve problems before they happen, reducing downtime while promoting safety.
Another aspect of predictive maintenance is machine learning, which allows organizations to make informed decisions by analyzing real-time monitoring data. As the algorithm takes on more data, it can better understand and display results to employees and supervisors in charge, helping translate machine data and propose suggested paths forward. As a tool, machine learning assists employees in leadership positions by predicting when a machine will need maintenance, what parts are more or less likely to require repair, and what a proper maintenance schedule might look like in the future.
Why Use Machine Learning?
Unlike AI, machine learning is a tool rather than a form of intelligence per se. It does not make decisions but collects and displays data.Â
Why Use Real-Time Data Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance?
The benefits of real-time data monitoring and predictive maintenance encompass production and safety. Machines that break or shut down for required maintenance could halt production not just on the floor they are part of but also in entire departments to which they’re connected. By using real-time monitoring as a predictive tool for scheduled maintenance, employees can organize more effectively when a machine needs repair to minimize disruption.Â
Another advantage of real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance is that it keeps everyone on the floor safe. A data monitoring system that notices an anomaly with a machine could save someone from harm by stopping production and fixing the machine immediately, especially if running it in its current state poses a danger to those working with and around it. Recognizing safety hazards is yet another reason innovations like real-time monitoring, machine learning, and predictive maintenance are important for any workplace.