Modern computer-aided maintenance of manufacturing equipment and systems: Review and Perspective

This paper examines various methods in modern computer-aided maintenance including machine monitoring, fault detection and fault diagnostics. A perspective on proactive maintenance by monitoring the degradation of manufacturing equipment and systems is presented and illustrated. If the behavior of manufacturing equipment and systems can be monitored and measured adaptively then an early warning of possible faults can be generated. By doing this, maintenance personnel can perform early diagnostics and part replacement during regular maintenance hours. The paper also addresses the research needs based on the industrial perspective. The author believes that the development of in-process monitoring of machine degradation and faults is one of the most important research tasks for increasing machine uptime and improving production quality.