Analysis & Commentary:

THE DIGITAL DOCTOR IS IN

Breakdowns of industrial machinery cost companies millions each year, with most of the cost resulting from lost production time while unscheduled repairs or maintenance are performed.

The problem has the manufacturing industry working with researchers in Wisconsin and Michigan to develop cost-effective technology that would predict when machinery needs maintenance, long before a breakdown occurs. The research also will produce e-tools to help customers make decisions about how to handle potential problems, and allow them to monitor performance of equipment simply by walking by with a Palm Pilot or cell phone in hand.

Such innovations are taking shape at the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS), a joint research center of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

The two universities recently received a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation that supports the work of the IMS Center and its industrial partner-members, and designates it as an NSF Industry/ University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC).

The Center, located in the Cozzens & Cudahy Research Center in Milwaukee, recently has developed software and other computing solutions that aid in predictive maintenance. IMS also is researching remote monitoring and Web-enabled agents to achieve near-zero-breakdown conditions on the factory floor.

It's a project that has joined business and science in the name of reliability. Led by Dr. Jay Lee, a global authority on e-manufacturing and e-maintenance research, the Center already has more than 40 companies as member-partners, including Intel, Xerox, Ford, Kodak, GE Medical Systems, Johnson Controls, General Motors, Harley-Davidson, Toshiba, Kone Elevator, and United Technologies.

The Center's first innovation -- intelligent software called the Watchdog Agent -- can be embedded in a product or machinery to allow continuous assessment. It essentially serves as a digital doctor, alerting operators of changes, or degradation, through a wireless device or over the Internet.

Along with prognostics, the Center is developing Web-enabled agents to track status information and maintenance history of equipment and then store it in an e-service data warehouse. The Center also is generating "data mining" models that, using the stored data, will proactively predict customer service solutions. Also in the works is a Web-enabled platform that makes monitoring equipment possible from anywhere in the world. Information related to degradation is accessible in real time online and, if a problem becomes apparent, the self-diagnosing system will even be able to contact a service provider directly.

The collaborative research is being integrated into a test bed at the Citation Custom Products plant in Milwaukee, a major supplier to Ford Motor Company.

Intelligent maintenance has a variety of applications and is already used in the transportation industry, says Lee, who is a Wisconsin Distinguished and Rockwell Automation Professor at UWM.

According to Lee, two significant business and industrial trends make research into such systems critical.

"The growth of e-commerce and use of the Internet has injected a velocity into industry and societal interactions that allows little room for downtime," he said. "So much is being done at the last minute, and being done quickly, that any breakdown in the chain will have a major impact."

He also cited the aging of many existing products and facilities (40-year-old aircraft, 50-year-old public facilities and infrastructures), along with the aging and retirement of the senior and most experienced members of the work force, as driving new approaches to maintenance and upkeep.

For more information, visit www.imscenter.net. For a two-page fact sheet, contact Dan Guido at guidocsd@uwm.edu or call the Center at 414-229-3106.