Predictive Maintenance Technology:  5 Steps to Increase User Buy-in

Predictive maintenance is a fantastic tool for increasing production recovery while reducing operations and maintenance costs.

However, you won’t see the benefits if your users don’t trust the technology.

To increase user buy-in, we have converted lessons learned from working in the Energy sector into 5 steps to increase trust and engagement across your organisation.

This blog is a preview of a presentation from our CFO John Glen as part of the Future Digital Twin web conference on the 27th of May 2021. He will also appear in the ‘Predictive Maintenance and Digital Twin – Creating a Predictive Maintenance Model’ panel right after.

5 steps to increase user buy-in 

1. Communication 

An obvious but often overlooked step in the process, communication (preferably to the extent of overcommunicating), is an essential start to convincing your team of the benefits of predictive maintenance. We will present a simple framework for effectively communicating before, during, and after implementing Predictive Maintenance. 

2. Pilot the Technology 

For your team to build trust and confidence in the new technology, they need to have a chance to pilot the solution before it gets implemented throughout the organisation. Our presentation will explain how to run a short, focused low (zero?) cost pilot. 

3. Educate your team in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning 

To get the most from your predictive maintenance solution, you need a team of well-informed Digital Citizens that understand enough of the mathematical principles behind Artificial Intelligence.  Users are more empowered once they understand what the software can and cannot do, and we discuss a short, sharp approach to AI training. 

4. Beware the ‘Black Box’ 

One of the main takeaways from our AI training course is that Machine Learning algorithms are often ‘black boxes’ that make decisions based on computer-generated algorithms no human can understand.  This lack of explainability can be a barrier to building trust with end–users.  We will discuss approaches to overcome this hurdle. 

5. Keep it Simple 

Predictive Maintenance users are skilled engineers working in high-pressure environments. The impact of a failure can be very high, potentially causing millions of dollars in lost production. We discuss the importance of interface design to increase user confidence and support rapid decision making. 

John’s presentation with a brief Q&A after can be viewed below.