What Is Prescriptive Maintenance? (Pros, Cons & Examples)

Prescriptive maintenance (RxM) involves collecting and analyzing asset data to provide recommendations on how to reduce risk of equipment failures. This condition-based strategy uses a combination of real-time data, advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms (artificial intelligence) to predict when an asset needs maintenance and what the best course of action should be to improve operating conditions. 

When coupled with a powerful computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), prescriptive maintenance gives teams greater insight into equipment performance and health while ensuring maintenance decisions are both timely and effective. Understanding this strategy — and others like it — can help you quickly resolve asset issues, save time and money, and increase operational efficiency. 

Prescriptive vs. Predictive Maintenance 

Prescriptive and predictive maintenance are similar maintenance strategies in that they use sensors to collect data for machine learning algorithms to help predict when critical equipment will break down, but they differ in scope. Predictive maintenance is a strategy that monitors an asset’s health in real time. These data analytics are then compared to the asset’s historical data and used for maintenance program decision-making. 

Prescriptive maintenance goes beyond just predicting when failure events will occur. Using collected data run through machine learning algorithms, this type of maintenance also gives teams guidance on what the best course of action should be to delay or prevent potential failures from ever occurring. As these preventive maintenance tasks are performed, breakdowns are less likely and the asset’s lifespan is extended. This set of tasks is then used when performing future prescriptive maintenance calculations. 

How to Perform Prescriptive Maintenance 

Maintenance teams typically take the following steps to perform effective prescriptive maintenance:

1. To track critical data points — for example, temperature, vibration or pressure — in real time, a maintenance team adds condition-monitoring sensors to an asset. 
2. Data collected by sensors is then sent to paired software, where it is continuously monitored and centrally stored.
3. The software uses AI to run a data analysis on a piece of equipment. It looks for signs of potential breakdowns and suggests solutions based on the asset’s health and maintenance history. Processing large blocks of data to identify patterns and predict issues provides guidance on what maintenance activities a team should perform. 
4. The maintenance team reviews these recommendations and chooses those with the best outcomes. They then perform the maintenance work as advised by the software. 
5. After the maintenance work is completed, the team records the task information, which can be used for future predictions and recommendations. 

Tools Required for Prescriptive Maintenance 

To carry out prescriptive maintenance effectively, teams use specific tools to monitor, analyze and act on asset data such as: 

• IoT devices: Internet of Things (IoT) devices are physical objects (such as sensors) used to collect and exchange data. IoT devices constantly monitor asset conditions through various parameters — for example, an asset’s temperature, vibration and pressure. 
• Monitoring tools: Predictive maintenance tools analyze data from IoT devices to identify patterns, trends and potential issues with an asset. They provide a foundation for a prescriptive maintenance program.
• CMMS: A CMMS stores and organizes current and historical data, performs AI calculations and automates task scheduling. It also keeps team members involved in the project up to date, no matter their location. 
• Reporting and communication tools: Through reports and communication tools, prescriptive analytics insights and recommendations are shared effectively among team members and departments.

Prescriptive Maintenance Examples 

Many industries use prescriptive maintenance to monitor asset performance and keep assets healthy. Some examples include:

Aerospace 

In the aerospace industry, an airline might use an engine health monitoring system (EHMS) to track factors like vibration levels, oil pressure and temperature. Based on the analysis of these data points, the system prescribes specific actions, such as replacing a turbine blade or servicing the engine after a certain number of flight hours or cycles, predicting when the engine will require maintenance to avoid any unplanned downtime.

Manufacturing

In a manufacturing plant, prescriptive maintenance can be applied to a critical asset, such as a CNC (computer numerical control) machine for precision parts production. The system continuously monitors parameters like temperature, vibration and spindle speed by integrating sensors and IoT devices with the machine. The data is analyzed in real time, and the maintenance system prescribes specific actions, such as replacing a worn-out bearing or lubricating a high-friction part before the machine breaks down.

Gas & Energy

In the energy sector, prescriptive maintenance can be applied to electrical transformers. Sensors attached to the transformer can monitor factors like temperature, humidity, oil level and load current. Predictive algorithms analyze this data, and the system prescribes actions such as replacing insulation, topping off oil levels or cleaning components at a precise time based on the operational data instead of relying on routine schedules. 

Benefits of Prescriptive Maintenance 

There are a number of benefits to using prescriptive maintenance for your maintenance needs. These include: 

• Increased equipment uptime and reliability: Since prescriptive maintenance can predict specific failures and give teams precise tasks to tackle these failures before they take place, this lessens the number of breakdowns over an asset’s lifespan and improves its overall reliability. 
• Improved equipment longevity: With fewer failures and more scheduled proactive maintenance, the asset’s lifespan is extended. 
• Enhanced employee safety and compliance: Regular inspections and proactive maintenance can lessen safety hazards for personnel working with the asset and ensure it meets compliance standards. 
• Savings on maintenance costs: Avoiding issues before they occur is more cost-effective than dealing with equipment downtime and emergency repairs.
• Better maintenance scheduling: Prescriptive maintenance allows companies to schedule maintenance actions with more efficiency. It uses data to accurately forecast the best times to perform maintenance without disrupting operations. 

Disadvantages of Prescriptive Maintenance 

While the advantages of prescriptive maintenance are numerous, there are some disadvantages. For example, setting up the necessary sensors, hardware, data collection systems and computers to process that data can be costly. These tools will also need maintenance or replacement over the years as well. However, while much of this expense is upfront, prescriptive maintenance can help companies save more money in the long run.

Secondly, prescriptive maintenance tools and strategies are not always intuitive for team members, who may experience a learning curve before they know how to read the sensors and use the technologies to analyze the data accurately. Also, machine learning software will not generate immediate results — it needs to experience many failures to collect enough data to learn how an asset works. 

Using Coast to Streamline Prescriptive Maintenance

Coast is your one-stop shop for all things prescriptive maintenance. It tracks, centralizes and analyzes data to give you guidance on the best actions to take for proactive asset management and maintenance. It makes generating work orders and scheduling tasks easy and allows team members to communicate with each other from any location. 

Our CMMS will keep your systems and equipment running with fewer breakdowns and production interruptions, reducing your company’s overall costs. Sign up for a free trial with Coast today to experience these benefits firsthand.