CMMS – An integrated view from maintenance management to on-line condition monitoring

Abstract

Nowadays, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems or, more specifically, Computer Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) need to fill requisites like the following ones: To work in all platforms, independently of operating system, being this cross-platform and multi operating system. However, CMMS also need to work in any language, being this native, where they were developed or any other, like English, Greek or Arabian. Even the precedent challenges weren’t big enough it is also necessary that CMMS receives and manages data from any type of sensors, independently where they are placed, locally or remotely, and the signals transmitted through wire or wireless. In consequence, the on-condition predictive maintenance reached a new level to enlarge the availability. Furthermore, it is also necessary to manage the configuration of the EAM itself to be able to communicate with the several existent platforms. There are new technologies that represent new limits, not beyond tomorrow but for today. Such technologies like Augmented Reality, Artificial Vision and even holography have potential to increase maintenance performance. The physical assets are each time more and more strategic to the organizations competitiveness then the EAM need to manage not only the maintenance of assets but also all their Life Cycle Cost, including investment, renewal and withdrawal aspects, and also resources optimization. This is a complex equation that increased in complexity along the time and, simultaneously, ought to be managed in a friendlier way by the final user and, yet more, its cost must be, each time, cheaper than before. These are the main subjects that will be discussed in the paper and also the proposed solutions, both the software and hardware solutions in an integrated view, that represent not only a state-of-the-art but a step ahead in the physical asset management area, in general and in maintenance management, in particular.