Predictive maintenance of plant floor assets is a critical component of the e-Manufacturing concept.
Predictive maintenance systems, also referred to as e-Maintenance in this document, provides manufacturing,
and operating systems with near-zero downtime performance through use and integration of (a)
real-time and smart monitoring, (b) performance assessment methods, and (c) tether-free technologies.
These systems can compare a product’s performance through globally networked monitoring systems to
shift to the degradation prediction and prognostics rather than fault detection and diagnostics. To achieve
maximum performance from plant floor assets, e-maintenance systems can be used to monitor, analyze,
compare, reconfigure, and sustain the system via a web-enabled and infotronics platform. In addition,
these intelligent decisions can be harnessed through web-enabled agents and connect them to e-business
tools (such as customer relation management systems, ERP systems, and e-commerce systems) to achieve
smart and effective service solutions. Remote and real-time assessment of machine’s performance
requires an integration of many different technologies including sensory devices, reasoning agents, wireless
communication, virtual integration, and interface platforms [14–17].