Maintenance in the Era of Industry 4.0: Issues and Challenges

The fourth generation of industrial activity enabled by smart systems and Internet-based solutions is known as Industry 4.0. Two most important characteristic features of Industry 4.0 are computerization using cyber-physical systems and the concept of “Internet of Things” adopted to produce intelligent factories. As more and more devices are instrumented, interconnected and automated to meet this vision, the strategic thinking of modern-day industry has been focused on deployment of maintenance technologies to ensure failure-free operation and delivery of services as planned. Maintenance is one of the application areas, referred to as Maintenance 4.0, in the form of self-learning and smart system that predicts failure, makes diagnosis and triggers maintenance. The paper addresses the new trends in manufacturing technology based on the capability of instrumentation, interconnection and intelligence together with the associated maintenance challenges in the era of collaborative machine community and big data environment. The paper briefly introduces the concept of Industry 4.0 and presents maintenance solutions aligned to the need of the next generation of manufacturing technologies and processes being deployed to realize the vision of Industry 4.0.The suggested maintenance approach to deal with new challenges due to the implementation of industry 4.0 is captured within the framework of eMaintenance solutions developed using maintenance analytics. The paper is exploratory in nature and is based on literature review and study of the current development in maintenance practices aligned to industry 4.0.