Electronics Prognostics--"Driving Just-In-Time Maintenance"

Electronic equipment prognostics (EPS) and health management is a critical technology for accurately predicting impending failures and providing a decision process and a mechanism for replacing components safely before actual failures occur. Equipment diagnostics, on the other hand, involve the process of determining by examination (operator, visual, test data) the nature and circumstances of the "failure condition" in the equipment, after the fact. In modern electronic systems, the systems themselves have internal health monitoring mechanisms which can provide early diagnostic indications (data) of the impending failures so that a "prognosis" of the equipment can be made with a reasonable level of confidence. It is this ability to leverage the diagnostic data from the equipment\´s own internal health monitoring mechanisms and predict impending failures that we call "Just-in-time Maintenance". This paper outlines a vision for an EPS design framework and discusses the synergy and benefits of using Just-in-time Maintenance.