Your business is multifaceted. Perhaps it has multiple field assets, fleet cargo, hard-working equipment, or high-maintenance vehicles—these make up its innate structure.
Maintenance management is an important part of building a healthy business ecosystem.
With advanced IT systems, instant monitoring and maintenance alerts are at your fingertips. It has many benefits and ways it can actively serve you.
We're here to guide you so you can grab them with both hands and manage your business effectively.
What is maintenance and monitoring?
Whether you want to receive maintenance alerts for your fleet or a critical asset on your premises, it all forms part of asset maintenance and monitoring under the umbrella of asset management.
What exactly is asset monitoring? It refers to the management and evaluation of an organization's assets and equipment, which includes tracking how the assets are used.
The main purpose of asset maintenance is to ensure efficient operations, create a safe working environment and protect your assets. Quality asset maintenance will ensure you get the maximum value from your assets and the longevity of your business investment.
Real-time asset tracking allows asset-intensive companies to monitor the condition of their assets and how they are used. In order to instantly monitor the efficiency of assets and receive maintenance alerts immediately, we need instant asset tracking through various technologies and sensors.
What is real-time monitoring?
In other words, we mean data monitoring – a path to real-time monitoring.
Real-time monitoring is an IoT-enabled process in which data collected by sensors is continuously streamed for immediate access and review, with zero to very little delay between collection and delivery.
Traditionally, other monitoring solutions such as data loggers have been used. These require expensive installation, creating data blind spots and problems. But with real-time monitoring, the gap in data processing and interpretation is smaller due to the continuous data flow. Additionally, you can use a time monitor for additional visibility.
There are various management methods available for data collection, such as fleet management. For example, in fleet management and cargo transportation monitoring, real-time monitoring is very important.
Sensor devices can be placed in the fleet's cargo. It will collect data on temperature, light, humidity and more – depending on the fleet manager’s requirements for data processing.
It will be interpreted by the vehicle supplier's software platform, such as Cartrack, where the data points will be streamed instantly. Businesses can consolidate information using the platform’s comprehensive reporting tools.
But let’s talk about how it forms the basis of vehicle and asset maintenance. Now, we're digging into instant maintenance alerts.
Real-time monitoring example
What does real-time monitoring do?
Let’s say you own a national food delivery company with a fleet of vehicles. Fleet management and vehicle cost-efficiency are top priorities. Vehicle maintenance is an important consideration in reducing costs and ensuring an efficient production line.
fleet managerReal-time data on vehicle health collected by vehicle tracking companies such as Cartrack can be leveraged, which will provide streamlined data and alerts related to vehicle maintenance.
Their fleet management platform uses remote information processing software to provide you with necessary information and real-time vehicle diagnostics.
We will explore this in more depth later.
But let’s first look at some practical examples and benefits of how asset tracking and maintenance alerts can illustrate your business – additional services offered by vehicle tracking providers.
5 major real-time monitoring business advantages:
- Improve asset utilization
Intelligent algorithms will alert you when your assets and machines need maintenance. Receive maintenance alerts on moveable assets, such as industrial equipment on a manufacturing site. This improves their durability by better managing them through asset tracking. For example, forklifts that are not managed and maintained on site can break down, causing more maintenance issues. Additionally, use monitoring to ensure equipment maintenance is completed in a timely manner.
- cut costs
Reduce asset repair or replacement costs. Well-maintained equipment reduces the frequency or necessity of purchasing new equipment or replacing damaged parts. It also helps with inventory inventory management. If equipment fails, it can impact production costs and supply, thereby impacting sales and customer retention.
- Improve employee and employee safety
If assets are well maintained, workers will be protected from hazards posed by the equipment. If there is any danger at the scene, authorities will be alerted accordingly. You can also prevent situations that could threaten your security.
- Asset and business management
If you are implementing asset maintenance management, you can go a step further and create risk assessments based on maintenance reports to help identify equipment with high security risks. Once identified, an appropriate maintenance program can be implemented to plan for part replacement or upgrades. This will help manage your business more efficiently.
- Improved management processes
Part of vehicle and asset management is developing maintenance strategies to make the most of software data and maintenance alerts. Maintenance tasks can involve a lot of procedures, leaving us in a position where we don't know where to start. To make it easier for you, we can break them down into predictive, preventive, or corrective maintenance. The difference between preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance lies in the data analyzed.
Maintenance type
Part of vehicle and asset management is developing maintenance strategies to make the most of software data and maintenance alerts. Maintenance tasks can involve a lot of procedures, leaving us in a position where we don't know where to start. To make it easier for you, we can break them down into predictive, preventive, or corrective maintenance. The difference between preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance lies in the data analyzed.
Let's unpack it a little more
Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance is an advanced form of planned maintenance that monitors asset condition in real time. It relies on monitoring and analyzing data from the actual current conditions of operating equipment. In predictive maintenance, there are condition monitoring tools for detecting equipment failures and damage.
How does predictive maintenance work?
Maintenance workflows are used to retrieve your asset or vehicle diagnostics so that you receive necessary maintenance alerts. Vehicle tracking providers are usually already prepared.
Sensors are connected to the assets being monitored, data is collected from the sensors and parameters are set within an identifiable baseline. While the asset is running, sensors will detect any performance anomalies and send maintenance alerts. Maintenance will then be performed before running the asset as usual. Advanced warnings like this can save your business from excessive maintenance costs, or worse, irreparable damage to your assets.
Here are the tools and techniques that make it possible:
- Condition monitoring equipment
These are sensors typically used in maintenance to obtain information from an asset and capture data, which is then communicated to software to instantly assess the condition of the asset. Alerts can be configured as a cloud monitoring service for maintenance as part of internal operations. You can configure single or multiple condition-based alerts to notify you of issues that may require your attention. When a condition-based alert is triggered, you are notified through one or more notification pipelines.
In addition to increasing the service life of the equipment. Machine condition monitoring supports a variety of manufacturer goals, including:
– Reduce and eliminate unplanned machine downtime
– Optimize machine health and performance
– Improve quality and reduce parts scrap
– Drive maintenance performance planning based on accurate machine data
– Automation based on real-time machine status data
There are various condition monitoring sensors that can detect environmental phenomena.
Here are some examples for businesses to consider:
- Vibration monitoring. Vibration patterns can indicate many different things. Monitoring vibration patterns can provide insight into a part's durability, and changes in this pattern can indicate tool failure, often taking 15 minutes or more before a human operator begins to notice the problem.
- temperature. Temperature is a strong indicator of any potential problems in the machine. If the temperature deviates from set parameters or standards, employees will be alerted to any impending machine failure, machine failure or even fire in hazardous environments. These may also pose significant health risks.
- Torque: A job site may have assets that operate using twisting force around an axis, known as torque. Use sensors to identify abnormalities in machine rotational force and understand how it changes during a job run. Monitor its daily functionality and identify any correlations with scrapped parts, machine failures and broken tooling. Website administrators can integrate the retrieved data into their maintenance strategies.
- Internet of Things (IoT): Internet of things refers toequipmentthe way they interact with each other. The role of IoT is to analyze and understand device data. Different sensors collect and share data with other parts of IoT technology, such as user interfaces and connections within central information systems.
- Forecast formula: From here, predictive formulas determine common equipment maintenance trends, including service, repair, or replacement. TheseformulaRely on predetermined algorithms that compare a machine's current behavior with its expected behavior. Once the trend deviates far from the standard, there will be a signal of gradual deterioration. Maintenance teams can then take steps to prevent equipment failure.
What are the main industries currently using predictive maintenance?
Manufacturing benefits most from predictive maintenance. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, by using predictive maintenance, global manufacturing could save up to $630 billion by 2025. Manufacturers can use this maintenance strategy to manage factory floor equipment, facilitate operations, and improve workplace safety.
preventive maintenance
Preventive maintenance relies on historical data, averages, and life expectancy statistics to predict when maintenance activities are needed. It involves taking the necessary precautions and actions to prevent equipment accidents or malfunctions before they occur.
The benefits of preventive maintenance will reduce business downtime and productivity caused by equipment not working properly. It will also ensure that all equipment and employees work only during scheduled hours, eliminating the need to pay employees overtime due to unforeseen machine breakdowns.
Real-time vehicle monitoring advantages
According to vehicle safety experts, all vehicles are subject to wear and tear, and unless maintained regularly, this wear and tear can eventually lead to unsafe vehicles and vehicle failures that impact your downtime and productivity.
Regular scheduled maintenance is a key step in preventing this.
We know that for operations managers, on-site maintenance and management is a necessity. The same applies to the fleet, which is equally crucial.
Here are some ways real-time monitoring is used in vehicle maintenance.
- Improve driver safety as poorly maintained vehicles can cause life-threatening accidents on the road.
- Seamless maintenance schedule that’s easy to adjust
- Avoid road breakdowns and accidents. Receive instant alerts of any engine problems, brake pad wear, oil and water fluctuations, and other diagnostics so you can pre-determine which vehicles need service.
- Respond immediately to maintenance needs. Schedule maintenance and alert drivers in advance via our app and keep workflow uninterrupted. Communicate directly to your drivers when a fault is detected and let them know instantly where to take the vehicle, helping you minimize downtime and future issues.
- Automated preventive maintenance. Our platform easily automates maintenance schedules for each vehicle by using your usage time and the time of last service
- Reduce maintenance costs. A robust maintenance service program helps prevent vehicle breakdowns and minimizes major indirect and direct costs.
- Extend vehicle life. With a proactive maintenance program, your vehicle will stay healthier for longer, ensuring you get more out of it.
- Reduce unnecessary downtime. Prevent vehicle breakdowns and plan repairs in advance to reduce project disruptions.
- Improved maintenance workflow: For your fleet, you can use the Cartrack app, which will provide you with real-time maintenance alerts. As a result, you can better streamline your processes and workflow.
Other uses for real-time monitoring apps
- What is real-time database monitoring? It is used to measure the performance of a database in real time. Receive alerts to identify issues and other properties that may cause future issues.
- Real-time monitoring tools are extremely useful in the healthcare industry. Maintained instant alerts are critical to patient safety in the hospital.
- Real-time monitoring of call centers refers to the tools and software used by managers to monitor and track agent calls. Alerts can be routed faster to the appropriate staff or even to automated systems for future mitigation.
use Cartrack Take ownership of your vehicle maintenance and/or asset maintenance and develop a maintenance strategy that works for you.