Open Access

Philipp Jussen, Michael Kurz, Tobias Harland, Frederick Birtel

• The FIR at the RWTH Aachen University continuously develops the concept and the principles of RoM further. It is already noticeable that the gap between companies that began preparing their maintenance departments for Industrie 4.0 years ago and those that are still struggling with the mere foundations of a professional maintenance organisation is rapidly increasing. The first driver of the development sparked by Industrie 4.0 is the collection of and work with condition data. It is used to create a digital shadow of a service, e.g. maintenance measures in a specific context. In the future, critical machine functions will be monitored continuously within production processes. Based on these observations, the likelihood of machine failures can be predicted, which makes it possible to prioritize data-based maintenance measures. This means that maintenance activities, i.e. production plans, are based on prognoses regarding machine failures. By doing so, the currently existing separation between inspection, maintenance and reactive measures can be overcome, resulting in a holistic approach to maintenance. Maintenance specialists receive support from assistance systems, which give them access to all relevant information (e.g. machine history, spare part availability, proposals for measures, etc.). As a result, they can take on routine tasks in different areas as well and contribute to the increased flexibility of the production process. Although data is becoming an increasingly important driver of successful maintenance strategies, maintenance employees continue to be central to specific tasks, machines and systems. In the future, it can be expected that they choose to become experts in a certain field and, ideally, actively share their knowledge with others within an open maintenance culture. Systems for interdisciplinary collaboration will be made part of everyday practice. The maintenance department will be a center and distributor of knowledge in the agile company of the future.Only through the interaction of the outlined success principles, which amount to a paradigm shift within the maintenance department, the potential benefit of maintenance as defined by RoM can be fully exploited, creating a long-term competitive advantage for those who consistently follow the path towards Industrie 4.0 in maintenance.