Prevention is better than cure: does it also apply to predictive maintenance of large public works?
(by Vito Coviello AIDR Member and Head of the Digital Technologies Observatory in the transport and logistics sector) The history programs, as we know, must necessarily make a selection of the most significant events that have marked, for better or for worse, the evolution of human species. It is for this reason that those of the most recent decades are often missing from the pages of history.
Sometimes, however, the reason is also different: the less recent the facts to tell, the easier it is to describe them with a critical sense and greater detachment.
For the most recent eras we can (and must) reconstruct the evolution of customs, society, politics and the economy through the many books, articles and documentaries now easily available online.
We may find for example that some Great Works were done in an incredibly short time frame, but we could also remember which other works were completed many years after the promised time or were never completed.
I don't know how many know that on 4 October 1964 the “Milan-Naples” highway of the sun was inaugurated, 755 kilometers long and built in just 8 years! The work cost about 300 billion old lire and was delivered without price increases 3 months in advance.
Many will say that they were other times, which were the years of the economic boom, the years of Italy that was in a hurry to grow and move away from the dark years of the Second World War.
It is true that the work was designed a few years after the end of the war, the works began in 1956 and ended in 1964! A delegation of experts flew to America to study the construction and procurement techniques of major works.
The historical video referred to in the link below takes us back in time, with a little nostalgia
Now many readers will probably think that for Dante's "principle of retaliation by contrast", we have then undergone the biblical times of Salerno - Reggio Calabria.
But it is not the analysis of the negative causes of many other major works carried out with significant delays that is the scope of this article, but the positive approach in the design of the Autostrada del Sole: innovation, the study of new technologies and the will to grow, were the success factors of that time and should be the success factors of the next great new works.
The EU Next Generation offers us a new opportunity, not to be wasted.
But if we manage to carry out the major works quickly and the latter will then act as a driving force for economic recovery, we must then also be able to ensure adequate maintenance of what has been built.
We refer to predictive maintenance for maintaining the efficiency of the country's infrastructural heritage: let's think of roads, bridges and many other works.
Predictive maintenance is a type of maintenance that is carried out to prevent deterioration and intervene earlier, with much lower costs and impacts.
It is the old proverb “prevention is better than cure” applied in the sector of the most technologically advanced infrastructures and to the IoT (Internet of Things) to ensure the duration of Great Works and to protect investments.
Predictive maintenance is carried out by identifying the parameters to be measured and processing the data using appropriate mathematical models, all in order to know the time remaining before the failure and to intervene following the program.
Today we can therefore foresee and plan maintenance thanks to the IoT following specific plans that are essential to guarantee the proper functioning of company resources.
It is a total change of paradigm because previously in the field of industrial maintenance the “reactive maintenance” model was applied, that is, the response to the occurrence of the problem.
In addition to the higher costs, reactive maintenance caused cascading problems generated by the failure which was often followed by production downtime.
After reactive maintenance, the preventive maintenance model was applied which allows to plan in time and rationally the interventions with the plant stopped and without causing repercussions on industrial production, reducing downtime and replacing the "pieces" before reaching 100 % of attrition.
Today, however, it is possible to carry out predictive maintenance thanks to the IoT (Internet of Things): we can monitor the health of plants and machinery by identifying the problem before it occurs.
But how does predictive maintenance work? It exploits all the potential of the IoT (Internet of Things) and uses small electronic sensors.
In a nutshell, today we have the ability to process huge amounts of data that we receive from a network of sensors by applying complex mathematical models to use them in "predictive" mode. This new and complex maintenance model is created thanks to "data miming" or the set of techniques and methodologies adopted to extract useful information for maintenance purposes.
Predictive maintenance is able to monitor industrial machinery in "real time" and, consequently, allows you to intervene before the problem occurs.
But let's go back to the Great Works, how can we protect our great heritage?
The predictive maintenance model should be applied to bridges, roads and, more generally, to all large public infrastructures, alongside a more streamlined model of budget coverage, planning and assignment of interventions, having the technologies available and the mathematical models that today make it possible to plan interventions with the support of reliable data in real time, increasing safety and lowering costs at the same time.
We must therefore also get used to the knowledge and use of new terms such as CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) which is the software that guarantees this evolution of maintenance management. They are web apps where the data collected by the sensors are brought together for analyzes aimed at providing targeted solutions that anticipate and solve problems.
Will it be possible to make a change of pace and paradigm also in the models to be applied for the construction and maintenance of major works before implementing the Next Generation Plan Italy?