In the manufacturing industry, minimizing machine downtimes and optimizing maintenance processes are decisive factors for a company’s success. This is because traditional maintenance approaches are often still reactive and isolated in practice. This can lead to inefficient processes and high costs. Against this backdrop, digital solutions with comprehensive data integration and automation of maintenance processes are becoming increasingly important. This case study illustrates how the use of the SIMPL industry platform based on i-flow’s Unified Namespace (UNS) solution enables digital and automated maintenance management for manufacturing companies. This makes maintenance processes more efficient, reduces downtime and improves decision-making based on real-time data.
Today’s challenges in the digitalization of maintenance management
Today’s companies face numerous challenges in maintenance management, including:
- Reactive maintenance: This approach can often lead to unplanned downtimes, which in turn interrupt production processes and drive up costs.
- Lack of real-time data integration: Silos and system breaks (e.g. due to disparate Excel lists) mean that there is a lack of data for effective and timely decision-making.
- Inefficiencies in maintenance planning and communication: Disparate system make it difficult to share information between teams, resulting in the loss or delayed sharing of important information.
Solution: The combination of SIMPL and i-flow
The combination of SIMPL and i-flow offers a comprehensive solution for digital and automated maintenance management. SIMPL is a digital platform that efficiently manages service and maintenance processes. The platform offers tools for creating maintenance plans, commissioning, after-sales services, inquiry and order systems as well as digital planning boards and document management. i-flow provides a central, harmonized interface to factory systems. This is based on an innovative, event-based system architecture, the Industrial Unified Namespace (UNS). i-flow standardizes connected system data (e.g. maintenance-relevant data from machines, sensors or databases) and makes it available in a central MQTT broker. The broker then distributes the data to all systems that have subscribed to these data packets (e.g. SIMPL). 
A large number of systems can be integrated across factories with SIMPL as follows (see architecture diagram):
- Connectivity and data harmonization with i-flow: i-flow connects machines, sensors and other systems in the factory and harmonizes the data. In doing so, i-flow monitors key parameters and extracts relevant information for maintenance management.
- Maintenance events in the i-flow MQTT broker: i-flow provides critical events in a defined format in the MQTT broker to make them usable for maintenance.
- Automation with SIMPL: SIMPL subscribes to the MQTT events and automatically creates maintenance tickets as soon as defined process parameters, such as temperature or vibration limits, are exceeded.
- Ticket management in SIMPL: SIMPL manages the automated tickets and uses integrated tools for planning, resource allocation and communication.
The structure of this architecture requires the following steps:
- Phase 1: Data Integration
- Identification of critical systems and machines for integration.
- Set up i-flow to collect and harmonize data from these sources.
- Definition of parameter limits and events for proactive maintenance triggers.
- Phase 2: Configuration of SIMPL
- Customization of SIMPL to handle automated ticket generation.
- Training of maintenance personnel in the use of the SIMPL interface and tools.
- Phase 3: Testing and optimization
- Executing pilot tests to ensure seamless function and data accuracy.
- Optimization of work processes based on feedback and key performance indicators.
Advantages of SIMPL and i-flow
The combination of the SIMPL platform and i-flow results in significant advantages for manufacturing companies, including:
- Increased uptime: Significant reduction in machine downtime thanks to proactive maintenance.
- Increased efficiency: Improved maintenance planning and resource allocation, leading to higher productivity.
- Improved communication: Optimized communication between maintenance teams and other departments.
- Data-based decisions: Better decision making through real-time data and analytics.
Conclusion
High downtimes caused by reactive maintenance, a lack of real-time data integration and inefficient maintenance planning are a key problem for many companies. The case study shows how the combination of digital solutions from SIMPL and i-flow helps production companies to digitize and automate maintenance processes. This reduces downtime and increases efficiency. By implementing i-flow and SIMPL, a digital platform for managing maintenance processes, companies can change their maintenance strategies from reactive to proactive. i-flow ensures the networking and harmonization of machine and system data, while SIMPL uses this information to automatically generate and manage maintenance tickets as soon as certain parameters are exceeded. Implementation takes place in three phases: Data integration, configuration of SIMPL and final testing and optimization. The benefits of this combined solution are significant: machine uptime is increased through proactive maintenance, the efficiency of maintenance planning and resource allocation is increased, communication between teams is improved and informed, data-based decisions are enabled.
