Maintenance engineering today and tomorrow

Following the event, exhibitors were asked where they see the maintenance engineering sector now and how they see it changing in the coming years. Three of them - Direct Air, a leading supplier of air compressors; FLIR, a world leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of thermal imaging cameras and sensors; and RS Group, a global omni-channel provider of product and service solutions for designers, builders and maintainers of industrial equipment and operations - share their thoughts on maintenance engineering both today and tomorrow. 

Direct Air 

Based on current key concerns in the UK and around the world, we predict that the future for the industry will be focused more than ever on energy. With the global challenge of climate change being more severe than ever and compressed air systems accounting for up to 40% of a facility’s total energy bill, ensuring customers are using that consumption as efficiently as possible is essential.

Alongside this, within the first quarter of 2022, customers saw the official industry standard compressed air cost rate rise from 13p per Kw/h to 34p per KW/h. That’s why, we’re having more conversations than ever with customers about the Direct Air services that can fit their requirements whilst creating cost and energy savings.

Specific energy saving solutions Direct Air are focusing on currently and moving forward include heat recovery, with over 90% of the electrical input to a compressor being lost as heat. Energy auditing, leak detection, variable speed technology, flow monitoring, and free system assessments are also resulting in significant savings for customers.

FLIR 

Preventative maintenance and condition monitoring activities are as important now as they ever have been. With increasing energy costs, fuel prices, pressure on operative salaries and a focus on sustainability, equipment must perform to its maximum potential for as long as possible. 

Teledyne FLIR have products covering vibration monitoring, thermal inspections and acoustic imaging, three of the four ‘core pillars’ of condition monitoring. Our goal is to support decision making by visualising and reporting the invisible condition of components and equipment. The insights that our products provide enables manufacturing processes to be optimised for reliability, efficiency and minimum energy consumption. 

The operating challenges that businesses face in 2022 and beyond will focus on efficiency, not only in production/manufacturing, but in the management of operating expenditure too. It is vital that every asset performs as reliably and efficiently as possible, which is what makes condition monitoring so important. 

Teledyne FLIR develop both products and software to capture, report and analyse the condition of production and manufacturing equipment, to give our customers an extra advantage when inspecting their business assets and planning the continued successful operation of their business. 

RS Group 

There hasn’t been a significant step change in maintenance management from where we were five years ago, but the most notable development is possibly the perception and use of the term Industry 4.0. As such a broad concept, combining what is a multitude of processes, technologies and deployment types under one umbrella term has been more of a hindrance than a help.

Forward-thinking organisations do not want to be in a reactive maintenance cycle, and as more maintenance professionals recognise the value of a proactive approach - rewarding the preventor of the maintenance issue rather than the reactive hero – the exploration of digitisation in maintenance has moved from the drawing board to the factory floor.

It’s still a ‘toe-dip’ for many organisations, and pilot projects are helping them in this gradual exploration. There will unlikely be an explosion of adoption, but we should over the next decade see the early minority moving to early majority. Subscription services and misconceptions about security threats are common barriers currently, which over time will subside as understanding grows. This mindset switch is slow but existent, and will be key to IIoT adoption in industrial maintenance.

Keep up with maintenance technology changes at Maintec 2023

Maintec, the premier event for the maintenance, reliability and asset management industry will be back from 7-8 June 2023 at Birmingham's NEC. Part of the Manufacturing and Engineering Expo alongside two other key events – the Design and Engineering Expo and Manufacturing Expo, this is a must-attend event for anyone in the sector who is looking to source the latest maintenance technologies to secure the efficiency and reliability of their business for the future.

Maintec has been a leading event for professionals from the building, supply chain & industrial maintenance sectors for over 40 years, showcasing the very best in innovation and sharing practical solutions to common maintenance engineering dilemmas.

The event features a wide range of maintenance-focused products and services from over 100 exhibitors, making it the ideal place to source equipment for any engineering business.

A comprehensive CPD accredited conference and workshop programme provides knowledge and advice that will benefit maintenance engineers in their role covering topics such as reliability techniques to improve sustainability, vibration-based condition monitoring, energy efficiency through data insights, measuring bearing friction in real-time, how to detect air leaks accurately, digitalisation for maintenance operations and how to avoid predictive maintenance project failure