By Bjorn Mjatveit
Technical Education Committee Member
EMR Consulting AS
The electromechanical repair and service industry has evolved over decades by reacting to the various changes in the dynamic landscape. These changes are apparent in parallel with the development of evolving maintenance philosophies:
- Reactive (Run to failure)
- Preventive maintenance (calendar-based)
- Predictive (condition-based)
- Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM)
Many service centers established after the Second World War started with breakdown services where the customers' reactive maintenance plan released large volumes of rewinds and repairs, resulting in lost production and increased downtime.
Years later, the plant owners (customer base) adopted a new maintenance philosophy: preventive maintenance. This reduced the number of rewinds and large repairs. As a natural consequence of reduced repairs, our industry had to adjust. Many service centers started to offer field services. The scope of work shrank and required maintenance that could be done on-site. Consequently, the service center staff had to be trained and approved for field services.
In the mid-90s, condition monitoring equipment became cheaper and more accessible for service centers. At the same time, the customer base was ready to upgrade its maintenance philosophy to predictive maintenance. That reduced the number of larger repairs again and further extended the service interval.
Again, did the rotating service industry adapt to the changes in the market and follow its customers' new requirements? Many service centers established their own condition monitoring departments, and some trained their personnel without organizational changes. This gave the customers a higher service value. The service centers trained their existing repair personnel, many of whom already had hands-on experience and could correlate analysis findings with equipment knowledge. This practice provides the equipment owner extra value in the troubleshooting and repair process.
Along with the move from preventative to predictive maintenance, customer requirements also changed in relation to the repair itself. They expected root cause analysis, so the failure was repaired and prevented from happening again. We saw new phrases emerge, including "life cycle service," "lifetime extension service" and "one-stop shop."
EASA has also participated in this development and supported its members throughout these changes. In 2004, EASA released its “Root Cause Failure Analysis” training based on member feedback.
In the late 2010s, more changes emerged as the digital wave came. This has since caused many new buzz words such as “artificial intelligence (AI),” “machine learning” and “industry 4.0” to enter our vocabulary.
This new technology has yet to find its place in the industry as many EASAns struggle to identify how it impacts their business. As a natural response, EASA has established its Ad-Hoc Committee on Emerging Technologies to monitor the new trends.
Today, most service centers support the United Nations' (UN) sustainable development goals without even knowing it.
During rewinds, the good parts are reused, and all other materials, including copper, are recycled.
Right now, some believe the scariest concepts are "Internet of Things (IoT)," "AI" and "connectivity." Also, we still do not know how significantly they will impact us. Some in our industry may be waiting to see what the impact will be, while others are in the middle of expensive development projects.
Many are unsure how to approach the new emerging technologies. From my perspective, many of the changes must be customer-driven as they are paying for the development and have the data and capability to see where the return on investment is highest.
If the changes are accelerated from either legislative actions or government incentives, the equipment owners will still decide which technologies to utilize.
What can we extract from all this? The industry has developed; it has cannibalized its business strategy several times and adjusted its business model to fit customer expectations. As technology develops, the industry as a whole will continue to evolve.
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