Big Data, Predictive Analytics and Maintenance

Written by Sandy Dunn.

How are recent developments in areas such as Big Data, the Internet of Things, Predictive
Technologies and Predictive Analytics impacting on traditional Preventive Maintenance and
Predictive Maintenance activities? Where are these trends taking us, and what should
maintenance organisations be doing now to take advantage of the opportunities that these
technologies enable?
This article attempts to answer these questions. First, lets start by defining some key terms.
What is Big Data?
Wikipedia describes big data as being a broad term for data sets so large or complex that
traditional data processing applications are inadequate. Challenges include analysis, capture, data
curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, and information privacy. The term often
refers simply to the use of predictive analytics or other certain advanced methods to extract value
from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data). Immediately we see the conflict in this definition; the
first sentence says that the data sets are large and complex, while the third sentence states that the
terms is often used independent of the size of the data set.
For the purposes of this article, we will focus on big data as describing the large amounts of
data that are available from disparate systems (such as ERP systems, process control systems,
condition monitoring systems etc). The most important aspect of this, from a maintenance
perspective, is that traditionally these datasets have been stored and analysed independently of
one another. With the advent of the Internet of Things and other advances in information
technology, we now have the capability to store and analyse a more complete picture of asset
health, based on a more complete set of data drawn from a variety of sources.
What is the Internet of Things?
Put simply, the Internet of Things is the network of physical objects or "things" embedded with
electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect
and exchange data. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things). From an asset
management and maintenance perspective, we have been fitting assets and asset systems with
electronics and sensors for decades think about flow indicators, pressure indicators etc. In the
past, however, these sensors have been connected via proprietary communications protocols, and
their outputs have usually only been available for viewing via a proprietary control interface, such
as a Process Control System in a control room. With the advent of the Internet of Things,
however, these devices can now communicate using standard internet communications protocols,
using open standards, and as a result, the data is now potentially available to be used for a range
of additional uses, beyond just process control, and is also potentially available to a much wider
audience of users.
In addition, the ever-decreasing cost of electronics makes it increasingly more cost effective to fit
equipment with a range of ever-more sophisticated sensors and processors which can do more
than just measure a simple parameter (such as overall vibration levels), but can also do additional
analysis and diagnostics on the machine (such as calculating RMS acceleration, true peak

acceleration, compensated peak using bearing diameter and speed to normalize output, as well as
other analysis. When these sensors are connected back to a communications backbone, this
greatly increases the volume of data that is available for analysis, and also has the potential to
enable real-time analysis.
What are Predictive Technologies and what is Predictive Analytics?
The terms Predictive Technologies and Predictive analytics are often used
interchangeably. However, we would prefer to consider that Predictive Analytics is the analysis
which is used to make predictions about unknown future events. Predictive analytics uses many
techniques from data mining, statistics, modelling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to
analyse current data to make predictions about the future
(http://www.predictiveanalyticstoday.com/what-is-predictive-analytics/).
The key here is that there are a range of possible techniques that can be used to predict the
future. In its simplest form, a simple rule that says that if bearing vibration exceeds a certain
value, then the bearing is about to fail is a simple form of Predictive Analytics. However much
more sophisticated predictive models are possible, and it is in this area that a lot of development
is occurring.
In comparison, Predictive Technologies are the technologies that enable Predictive Analytics to
occur. This could include the technologies which detect the initial warning signals that an event
is about to occur (such as Vibration Monitoring technologies, Oil Analysis technologies etc) as
well as the information processing technologies which are used to run the Predictive Analytics
models.
What is Preventive Maintenance and What is Predictive Maintenance?
There are differing views on the definition of Preventive Maintenance and Predictive
Maintenance depending on whether you apply the Reliability Centred Maintenance definitions or
an alternative. Some people and organisations define Predictive Maintenance as being a
particular subset of Preventive Maintenance, with both having the aim of preventing in-service
failures of critical equipment.
For the purposes of this article, we will use the Reliability Centred Maintenance definitions,
where:
Preventive Maintenance is a routine activity where components or equipment items are replaced
or overhauled at a specific, pre-defined interval, regardless of their condition at the time, and
Predictive Maintenance is a routine activity to inspect or test for the presence of warning
conditions that indicate that the item is about to fail. A corrective maintenance action is then
scheduled (for completion at an appropriate future time) to replace, repair or overhaul the item
before it suffers an in-service failure.
In this context we could consider replacement of the engine oil in a motor vehicle engine every
10,000km as being a Preventive Maintenance activity, while measuring the tread depth on the
tyres would be a Predictive Maintenance inspection.
In general (most of the time but not always) Reliability Centred Maintenance prefers the use of
Predictive Maintenance tasks to Preventive Maintenance tasks when determining an optimum

Predictive and Preventive maintenance program. This is because (again, in general, and where
technically feasible), Predictive Maintenance tasks maximise equipment uptime and component
life by scheduling repairs and overhauls only when the equipment itself is telling us that this is
needed, based on an assessment of equipment condition. There are exceptions to this general
rule, but we will not explore this in detail in this article, in the interests of time and
space. Instead, as a general rule, we consider that Predictive Maintenance provides better overall
better business outcomes than Preventive Maintenance.
So what does all this mean? How do Big Data and the Internet of Things impact on our
Predictive and Preventive Maintenance program? Lets explore this by first outlining a
conceptual model of the Predictive Maintenance process.
A Model of Predictive Maintenance
In order to use Predictive Maintenance to avoid the consequences of in-service failures, the
elements shown in Figure 1 below must be present in a Maintenance system.

Figure 1
Lets examine each of these elements, as they may be applied in a traditional Condition
Monitoring program, and in a 21st century Maintenance program which makes use of the
advances in Big Data, the Internet of Things and Predictive Analytics.
Failures to be Avoided
The Failure to be Avoided is a specific failure event with an associated failure cause (failure
mode), for a specific equipment item (or class of equipment). In both a traditional Condition
Monitoring program and a 21st Century program, these are typically identified following some
form of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), whereby the functions of an equipment
item are identified, as well as the failure causes (failure modes) which may lead to loss of
equipment function. This process may, or may not, be associated with formal Reliability Centred
Maintenance (RCM) analysis. Note also that not all failure modes may be able to be predicted
using predictive maintenance techniques. Some failure modes may give no warning of impending
failure, others may give some warning, but the amount of warning given is insufficient to avoid
the consequences of failure, and for others, the costs of detecting the impending failure may
exceed the resulting benefits.
However, it is true for all Predictive Maintenance programs that, in order to establish an effective
failure prediction system, it is essential that the failures causes (modes) that are to be avoided are
known.
For failures that are to be avoided through the use of more advanced techniques (such as those
that make use of complex data analysis and complex modeling techniques), the cost of developing
and using these techniques means that, at present, in order to justify the funds required to develop
and implement these complex technologies, the consequences must be significant. Preferably

there should be a significant gap between the performance of any existing failure prediction or
prevention strategies and those that may be achievable through the application of more advanced
techniques. In other words, advanced predictive technologies need to be directed at the most
significant opportunities to improve overall business performance they must meet business
needs, not just technical needs.
Detection of the Incipient Failure
Detection of the Incipient Failure consists of the measurement techniques, measurement data and
supporting models that are able to detect and diagnose the existence of an incipient failure (a
Potential Failure condition in RCM terminology). Traditionally, methods used have been mostly
manual (periodic vibration analysis, oil analysis, human observations etc). In addition, traditional
models used a single input (e.g. overall vibration level) with a single alarm level to detect
incipient failures.
In a 21st century maintenance system however, the capabilities of big data and more sophisticated
predictive analytical techniques allow us to analyze and synthesize a much greater quantity of
data (for example, process data such as temperatures, pressures etc., or environmental data such
as ambient temperature, rainfall etc.). Multiple variables, often from disparate sources, can now
be used as inputs for inclusion in models which detect the existence of incipient failures. And this
data does not necessarily need to be numerical. Work is being done to permit the analysis of
written text from log sheets and inspection sheets, so that the existence of certain keywords in
these documents can be used as inputs into these predictive models. As one example, rather than
simply using a predictive model that solely relies on the results of engine oil analysis to determine
whether the engine is about to fail (and the risk that a very high reading could be misdiagnosed as
a bad sample, it would be possible to correlate the results of the oil analysis, with recent engine
fuel consumption (either from the onboard engine monitoring system, or from data obtained from
the fuel bowser) and with reports of increasing levels of exhaust smoke recorded in a logbook to
give an increasingly accurate picture of the existence of a potential failure condition.
There are a number of Predictive Analysis techniques that can be used to determine the variables,
combinations of variables, and alarm levels to predict equipment failures. These range from the
most simple, such as personal experience (I know that when smoke starts coming out of the
bearing, then it is about to fail!), through to combined learned experience (based on our collective
experience, we know that vibration levels greater than 9mm/sec on this pump bearing indicate
that it is about to fail), and on to more sophisticated mathematical techniques. The most common
of these techniques, which draw on the availability of Big Data, include:
Regression techniques. These use various forms of statistical analysis, from simple linear
regression models to multivariate adaptive regression models in order to predict that
equipment failure is about to occur.
Machine learning techniques. Put very simply, these emulate the way that humans learn by
detecting patterns amongst variables that have, in the past, led to equipment failure, and then
using pattern recognition techniques to identify situations similar to those that have occurred in
the past.

The main differences between these are that regression techniques typically require you to
formalize the relationships between your input variables in the form of a mathematical
equation. On the other hand machine learning is an algorithm that can learn from data without
relying on rules-based programming. For a more detailed explanation of the differences, there is

a good article at http://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2015/07/difference-machine-learningstatistical-modeling/.

However a common issue with all forms of predictive analytics, when it comes to predicting
equipment failure, is that we actually need to have failure data to analyse. Most organisations,
particularly when it comes to critical assets, tend not to allow these assets to run to failure for
obvious reasons. As a result, the best that we can do is to obtain data that relates to suspended
failures we replaced/overhauled/repaired the asset before it failed, so we know something about
it it lasted to that point in time without suffering a functional failure but we do not know how
much longer it would have continued to function if we had not intervened at that point of
time. So a shortage of accurate, available data to be able to populate and test these mathematical
analytical models, which may predict equipment failures, is a limitation which needs to be
overcome.
Nevertheless, most of the current modeling effort, when it comes to big data and predictive
analytics in the maintenance space, is currently focused on developing more sophisticated and
accurate models to predict the existence of incipient failures.
In addition, more and more of this data is available in real-time, via equipment items fitted with
an ever-increasing range of sensors, and which are increasingly connected to other system via the
Internet of Things. Further, the models used to detect the existence of incipient failures are also
developing at increasing rates. These days, techniques such as multivariate statistical analysis
and machine learning, which use a number of inputs, can be used to develop more sophisticated
models for detecting incipient failures. Frequently Big Data can facilitate the development of
these models.
Forecasting the Likely Consequence
Once you understand that an equipment failure is in its early stages of development, Forecasting
the Likely Consequence is important in order to ensure that the correct decision is made regarding
how to proceed. At present, it is generally assumed that the consequence of each incipient failure,
were it allowed to progress to functional failure, is fixed, and is therefore predetermined.
However, in practice, for any single failure event, there is a range of possible consequences of
that failure, and these can change over time. For example, high wheel bearing temperature on a
train could either lead to the bearing seizing, with subsequent damage to the wheel and track, or it
could lead to bearing collapse and potential derailment. Further, the consequences of this could
vary depending on where the train happened to be located at the time of the bearing failure, and
whether the train was loaded or unloaded. As another example, high bearing temperature on a
conveyor drive motor feeding a ship loader will have different consequences depending on how
much time remains before the ship is completely loaded, and the length of the break between the
ship that is currently being loaded and the next ship that will require to be loaded.
In a traditional maintenance system, we record a single value for asset criticality and, once
established, it rarely changes. However in a future, 21st century maintenance management system,
the criticality of an asset will be able to be updated constantly, in real time, using inputs from a
range of different systems such as production planning systems, process control systems,
reliability/capacity models of production processes, sales and marketing systems, as well as realtime asset condition data obtained via the Internet of Things. Based on this real-time assessment,
we will be much more able to fully understand the potential business implications and

consequences of an individual incipient failure, and make a more informed decision regarding the
corrective action to be taken, and the urgency with which it should be executed.
At present, there is much less work being done in this space. More work is being done to develop
more sophisticated methods of identifying whether an incipient failure exists, in a technical sense,
but not a lot of work being done to develop more sophisticated methods of deciding whether this
incipient failure matters in terms of the likely business outcomes. However, over time, I expect
that this will be a growing area of interest.
Forecasting the Timing of a Functional Failure
Once we have established that an incipient failure (Potential Failure condition) exists on an asset,
and that the consequences of a Functional Failure mean that this Functional Failure should be
avoided, if possible, the next question that arises is How long have we got before we will suffer
this Functional Failure?, or more precisely, How long have I got before I need to do something
to the equipment to prevent this Functional Failure from occurring? This is where we enter the
realm of prognostics, and advances in Predictive Technologies and Big Data may be able to assist
in better answering this question.
At present, as those who are familiar with Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) will know,
one of the key pieces of information we need to know in order to avoid the potential
consequences of a Function Failure is the PF Interval (illustrated in Figure 2 below) that is, the
time interval from the point P (the point at which we can first detect the existence of the Potential
Failure condition (or incipient failure) and the point F (the point at which we suffer the Functional
Failure).

Figure 2
The PF Interval is important for two reasons.
The first is that, if we are conducting periodic inspections of asset condition, then we need to
perform these at a frequency that is less than the PF Interval indeed sufficiently smaller than the
PF Interval to allow us to be able to take the necessary corrective action to avoid the
consequences of the Functional Failure before the Functional Failure actually occurs.
The second is that the PF Interval tells us how quickly we need to take the necessary corrective
action in order to prevent the Functional Failure from occurring.

Note that the advent of the Internet of Things, whereby more and more equipment condition
parameters are being reported in real time, rather than via periodic inspection, allows us to select
Potential Failure conditions (the point P in Figure 2) that are closer to the Point F while still being
able to avoid the consequences of failure. This allows us to have a much more just in time
approach to failure prevention, thereby extending component life. This is particularly the case
with mobile equipment, such as mining haul trucks and road-going trucks, where the time interval
between periodic conventional inspections can be quite large. Many of the reported benefits of
the Internet of Things relating to vehicles actually are due to this factor alone.
See https://hbr.org/2014/11/finding-the-money-in-the-internet-of-things for more discussion of
this.
So how do we determine what the PF Interval actually is? At present, most organizations
estimate the PF interval (except perhaps for highly critical failure modes) by using estimates from
experienced maintainers and operators. This is often obtained in workshops by asking questions
such as How long will it take from when the bearing sounds noisy until it finally seizes? Given
that these estimates are likely to be inaccurate, often a conservative approach is taken, and the PF
Interval is assumed to be lower than the group consensus (or the inspection is performed at a
frequency considerably higher than the estimated PF Interval would suggest is required).
Predictive Analytics, combined with real-time condition monitoring enabled by the Internet of
Things, however, may be able to allow us to estimate the PF Interval with more accuracy, by
collecting information about how measured equipment condition changes over time during the PF
Interval period. Further, Big Data may allow us to determine the additional factors that may
influence what the PF Interval actually is, for a given failure mode, on a specific piece of
equipment, under specific conditions. For example, by measuring the electrical load on an
electric motor, and combining this with information about bearing vibration levels, we may be
able to determine the impact that load on the motor has on the rate of deterioration from the point
P to the point F.
As was mentioned earlier when discussing methods for determining the existence of Potential
Failure conditions, however, a major limitation with more sophisticated Predictive Analytic
techniques is the availability of sufficient failure data to accurately predict the PF Interval. In
practice, we rarely allow the equipment to reach the point F because the consequences of doing
so are too great. Without that data, we need to make some assumptions based on the suspended
failure data, as mentioned earlier.
Recommending a Corrective Action
The next step, now that we know that an asset is in the process of failing, we understand what the
business consequences are if that asset was to fail while in service, and we know how long we
have before the asset will fail, is to determine the most appropriate corrective action to be
taken. For example, for our conveyor motor example we mentioned earlier, imagine that we had
a shipping window opening up in 10 days time, and we could successfully change out the
conveyor drive motor during that window with no impact on production. However, our modeling
tells us that there is a 30% chance that the bearing will fail within the next 10 days. Alternatively,
we have a smaller shipping window available in 2 days time, but we will need to delay loading
the next ship by 4 hours in order to complete the motor replacement. Which action would you
choose?

The short answer, in most current organisations, is that there is no formal, analytical process in
place for making this decision. If you are highly risk averse, you would be likely to select the
second option. If you were a bit more of a risk taker, then you may choose the first one.
In a 21st century maintenance organisation, however, we would use the better information that we
have as a result of Big Data, Predictive Analytics and the associated models to make a much more
informed decision regarding the most appropriate course of action.
Of course, this represents a major cultural shift in most organisations. Traditionally, we have left
these decisions up to specific individuals, and their pride and feeling of self-worth often revolves
around making these big calls. And these decisions are generally made spontaneously and
without a lot of analytical forethought. Interposing a structured decision making process, with
associated decision support tools into this process will represent a major change in thinking and in
culture in many organisations.
Executing the Recommended Corrective Action
Finally, knowing that an equipment item is about to fail, and making a decision about what to do
to avoid the consequences of that failure is of little value unless the appropriate action to either
avoid or mitigate the consequences of the failure is actually taken in a timely manner. Once
again, this represents a major cultural shift in many organisations. At present, Condition
Monitoring technicians in many organisations and in many industries will be able to regale you
with many stories about the time that they told the maintenance execution team that an asset was
about to fail, and recommended an appropriate course of action, only to find that their advice was
either ignored completely, or was overlooked until it was too late, and the asset failed in service
in any case.
In a 21st century Maintenance program, our Maintenance Management system and our Predictive
Analytics systems will be integrated. If our models tell us that a corrective action has to be taken
before a specific date, then this will be reflected in the due dates for the work order in our
Maintenance Management system. Overdue and imminent corrective actions will be able to be
flagged and monitored. The Maintenance Execution team will not be able to change these due
dates, and they will ignore them at their peril in theory at least!
The Game Changer The Internet of Things, Big Data and Predictive Analytics.
So we can see that the Internet of Things and Big Data represent, potentially, a huge opportunity
to improve equipment reliability and reduce maintenance costs. In the past, the biggest roadblock
that has existed for online condition monitoring is how to get the information from the equipment
for analysing. The advent of cheap wireless technologies now means that where once sensors
would have needed to be hard wired, a costly exercise, information can now be transferred
wirelessly. Coupled with applications such as the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine
interfaces, Clouds and server capacity, large volumes of information, or Big Data, can be shared
quickly.
With significant continued investment in the fields of sensor design and predictive failure
modelling platforms, what these technologies can deliver continues to grow. With inputs from
sensors, actuators, control parameters and operational data from data historians such as SCADA,
predictive technologies, as shown in Figure 2, can provide
Visual Data exploration
Dash boards
Operation warnings
Automatic Intervention
Predictions on when the equipment will fail
In some cases, information can be captured within the CMMS system to complete the cycle.

Figure 3
Systems designed to achieve automated predictive maintenance claim the benefits as being

Increased asset reliability

Shortened maintenance times

Improved uptime percentage

Boost to Safety and Quality

Early detection of minor disturbances

Reduced maintenance costs

Verification of developing fault from more than one data source

Automated diagnostics reduces burden on maintenance staff

Some systems claim to be able to predict remaining machine life

Improve Root Cause Analysis

Remote Access to Data

Predictive Analytics and Maintenance The challenges
Successful implementation of predictive maintenance can be linked to two key areas explored in
Table 1.
1. Organizational integrated approach across all levels of the organization.
2. Model/data sufficiency models need to balance accuracy and stability to yield high data
quality.

Organisational
Model / Data Sufficiency
Trust in Information
Lack of Data
Expense
Data Quality/Integrity
Establishing Benefits of Predictive
Data Volume
Maintenance Program
Priority conflict between departments (IT and Model Usability
Operations
Resourcing Specific skill set required
Model Complexity
Implementation/Integration impact on
Data Security
process and behaviours
Table 1

Case Study Typhoon Fighter Jet Maintenance

Finally, let us explore one case study where Big Data, the Internet of Things and Predictive
Analytics claim to have delivered measurable benefits.
The objectives of the Typhoon Fighter Jet Maintenance program were to:
1. Reduce cost and backup inventory of aircraft maintenance
2. Maximize aircraft uptime
The expected benefits were a $3.1 Billion dollar maintenance saving over 25 years on 10 aircraft
Predictive Modeling techniques were used to predict component failures. The failure rates of
aircraft components change with changing operating conditions, just as inventory requirements
are dependent on air base locations. In all, 2000 components on each aircraft are simulated for
wear, with each simulation generating a 40-megabyte output file that becomes the input for the
next run of the model. Predictive modeling runs various iterations of the model to predict the
effect of trends and changes in environment.
The stated outcomes of this program include:
Identified capacity constraints within maintenance, ahead of time, so new plans can be put in
place.
Modeling has enabled data driven decisions about where maintenance is conducted to be
optimized either on site or back in the UK.
Aircraft uptime has increased, for example, aircraft on ground awaiting spares downtime has
improved from double digits to 4%.
For more information, see http://data-informed.com/predictive-models-guide-fighter-jetmaintenance-for-raf-squadron/
Conclusion
Given technology advances, challenging operating conditions, possible return on investment and
the opportunities that data sharing presents, Big Data, the Internet of Things and Predictive
Analytics are currently more than feasible when applied to maintenance, and represent a huge
potential opportunity for benefit for those organizations who are ready and able to take advantage
of these technologies. The field is still in its infancy, and much work needs to be done to uncover
the full potential that these technologies represent, but forward thinking organizations need to
consider how they will get involved in developing and implementing these techniques in their
organizations.
This article has only discussed the use of Big Data, the Internet of Things and Predictive
Analytics to predict equipment failures. These technologies can also be used, not just to predict

incipient equipment failures, but to eliminate them as well. That is potentially an even more
exciting prospect, but is a topic for another article.
If you are interested in discussing the contents of this article, feel free to contact me, or join in the
discussion on LinkedIn.
Sandy Dunn