Application of Predictive Maintenance Concepts Using Artificial Intelligence Tools

Abstract

The growing competitiveness of the market, coupled with the increase in automation driven with the advent of Industry 4.0, highlights the importance of maintenance within organizations. At the same time, the amount of data capable of being extracted from industrial systems has increased exponentially due to the proliferation of sensors, transmission devices and data storage via Internet of Things. These data, when processed and analyzed, can provide valuable information and knowledge about the equipment, allowing a move towards predictive maintenance. Maintenance is fundamental to a company’s competitiveness, since actions taken at this level have a direct impact on aspects such as cost and quality of products. Hence, equipment failures need to be identified and resolved. Artificial Intelligence tools, in particular Machine Learning, exhibit enormous potential in the analysis of large amounts of data, now readily available, thus aiming to improve the availability of systems, reducing maintenance costs, and increasing operational performance and support in decision making. In this dissertation, Artificial Intelligence tools, more specifically Machine Learning, are applied to a set of data made available online and the specifics of this implementation are analyzed as well as the definition of methodologies, in order to provide information and tools to the maintenance area.