Predictive maintenance : Maximizes machinery health

As the name implies, predictive maintenance anticipates equipment outages rather than reacting to them. Benefits include fuller useful life for equipment and lower backup inventory. Initial cost of predictive monitoring systems tends to be high, but much less than forced reactive maintenance due to just one serious outage of a manufacturing line. As predictive maintenance methods become more cost-effective, their usage will spread to smaller and more varied equipment. Size of machinery is not the main criterion, however. Protecting processes vital to an enterprise gets first attention. At the same time, available products continue to grow in variety and number. This calls for integration tools to help users manage maintenance tasks.