State of Art
IoT-FM: an integrated approach inside maintenance management of service equipments
Abstract
Today innovation seems to be carried out through digitalization processes which tends to computerize every object. However innovation doesn’t find concretization in reality if in a process physical and economic transformation don’t occur. IoT, thanks to its demonstrated feasibility among FM sector, shows interesting development in industrial maintenance practices as well. Therefore here possible transplanted innovations seems to be applied in maintenance field of service equipments, through the convergence of three elements: FM, in maintenance declination, IoT platform, with its related IoT architecture, and service equipment knowledge. The synergy of these three elements allows to create a new service which enable the better support for facility assets of organizations, which aim to manage efficiently their infrastructure. The creation of this kind of service will have strong consequences among the reconfiguration of organization models, BIM oriented approach, energy management and related life cycle assessment.
KEYWORD
IoT, Platform, Proactive Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance, Service equipment, Facility Management
Introduction
As Facility Management (FM) concerns the management of integrated services, Internet of things (IoT), in its general connotations, looks as a technology of absolute innovation to support service provision. Actually IoT, through its components, allows to collect, storage and analyze data, which represent interesting steps of a methodology to be a source of strength for FM, as its data elaboration is foundamental into the integration of processes. The overall convergence between FM and IoT is currently proved on several applications. These are possible thanks a "facilitator", represented by a common platform, which makes feasible their linking in a broader perspective. Then IoT results a valid instrument thanks to its features, which best-fit FM inclination: openess, complexity, interoperability, scalability and dynamicity.
In particular, Facility Management is a “corporate discipline”, according IFMA (International facility management association) which coordinates the “integration of processes within an organisation to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities” by addressing to “Space and Infrastructure” and “People and Organization” (EN 15221-1:2006). So far objectives of FM concern costs optimization and budget management, whereas IoT offers a wide range of procedures to achieve strategic, analitic and operative purpose, in different time-frame.
As research methodology, a systematic literature review of principles and theoretical frameworks of IoT paradigm has been conducted. This involves critical evaluation of IoT definitions, current technologies developed and manufacturing applications. In this operation many keywords have been used in the search process, like IoT, Platform, Proactive Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance, Service equipment, Facility Management. Google Scholar, Web of Knowledge, Elsevier, and Scopus have been precious search engines for connected papers.Second, given to the transverse nature of my investigation, a qualitative research approach based on service provider's most innovative products has been carried out. The information collected included which technology have been installed and which practices have been adopted after collecting and analyzing energy data.
This State of art aims to highlight which innovations are possible in maintenance practice with IoT application, by listing some current best cases. The paper here proposed is organized by presenting a general IoT architecture, usefull in company’s purposes. Then few examples of IoT applications inside FM are presented, by proving the effectiveness of IoT sinergy. Last, scaling down inside FM discilipline, proactive maintenance practices strengthened by IoT deployment and energy management hints are described throught their prevailing implementations.