Food Engineering’s recent Food Automation & Manufacturing Conference addressed several high-tech Industry 4.0 topics, including OEE, IIoT, predictive maintenance (PdM), artificial intelligence (AI) and equipment self-diagnosis, and automated parts ordering. One of our speakers jested that since there were no dedicated cybersecurity talks on this year’s schedule, we must have figured out how to do cybersecurity.
So, I’m not going to hammer you with IIoT cybersecurity warnings and prognostications in this article. I did enough of that in February with “Cybersecurity helps manufacturers create more secure, resilient networks.” Rather, I’d like to show how you can use IIoT tools to improve your maintenance program—to move beyond preventive maintenance (PM) activities to PdM—and maybe even better your OEE scores in the process.