The Internet of Things is all about increased efficiencies.

Sensors in cars—many of which already exist—may now communicate wirelessly to your household maintenance suite. Predictive models use the collected data to help provide recommended maintenance beyond simply changing your oil. Condition-based maintenance has a real business case sweet spot once the sensors and wireless service become cheap enough. With RPMA, they are. RPMA-enabled condition-based maintenance systems allow for a significantly reduced number of surprise break downs while riding down the highway. Not only will your car and the associated software provide warnings for upcoming repairs and maintenance but also have built-in risk profiles. Can’t risk a break down ever? You will be given more aggressive maintenance. Prefer to stretch the dollar as far as you can? Only acute recommendations will be alerted.
Imagine that technology applied across entire fleets of vehicles: rental fleets, delivery fleets, garbage fleets, taxis, freight, municipal fleets. Cargo ships have had such sensors for this kind of condition-based maintenance years now, but the affordable nature of modern wireless sensors and connectivity will allow these savings to spread to all kinds of transportation. The benefits are numerous and provide a real business case.

Predictive maintenance can be planned both in terms of time and finances. This allows for more efficient cash-flow and reduces out-of-service time as well. Now spread these savings beyond mobile machines to factories with millions of machines and parts that require upkeep or replacement periodically. This is how the IoT will gain the efficiencies so often touted. At this scale, even a marginal amount of savings accumulated over millions of vehicles, machines and systems could easily provide billions of dollars in savings.

Those savings will allow early adopter companies to be more profitable than others, but as adoption spreads and levels the playing field, those savings will be passed on to consumers who will get higher-quality service and lower-cost goods. Condition-based maintenance is just a small slice of the grand vision of the Internet of Things. It is easy to see that even with a few simple use cases like this — those with easily scalable business cases — the efficiencies promised by the IoT can easily be realized. The Machine Network, powered by RPMA, provides the kind of robust and affordable connectivity suited to condition-based maintenance applications.

Find out how you can use RPMA to connect your condition-based maintenance applications today by attending our webinar, How RPMA Works.