Industry 4.0 and maintenance and safety

Maintenance plays a significant role in the modern manufacturing system, it is to keep and preserve machines, equipment, and facilities in a normal condition. Good maintenance work can make the company have the ability to minimize downtime, improve product quality, and reduce production costs. Meanwhile, maintenance activity is a high risk work, because maintenance work always carried out in an environment that maintenance operator will face different kinds of hazards, and compare to other areas in the industry, maintenance doesn't a high automation level work, so safety is a critical issue during maintenance work. This thesis analyzes the safety problems and risks during maintenance work. And then, thanks to Industry 4.0 bring some innovation technologies, Industry Internet of things, Big Data, Cloud computing, Augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence, Simulation, etc. Based on the background of Industry 4.0, predictive maintenance provides a real-time condition monitoring method strongly that relies on the Internet of things and sensor technology. This method is to diagnose a machine and its components by monitoring parameters such as noise, speed, pressure, temperature, humidity, vibration, etc. The sensors are located in the critical part of the machine, in order to collect the values of these parameters, then these values will be taken to analyze the condition of different machine parts and finally to estimate the failure. Predictive maintenance is not only to predict machine breakdown but also can help maintenance workers quickly locate the broken components, reduce the risk of operators can not find the broken parts. Augmented Reality (Augmented Reality) technology has the ability that can combine virtual information with the real world. It can integrate some other technologies, such as three-dimensional modeling, real-time tracking, and sensor technology. Visualization the information, such as text or image, and then it is used in the real world, in order to realize the "Augmentation" of the real world. Augmented reality as one of the technologies in the frame of Industry 4.0, it can offer an effective method that can increase the efficiency of maintenance and enhance the safety of the maintenance operators when performing the troubleshot tasks. Maintenance now is becoming one of the most important areas for augmented reality (AR), because AR can provide computer generated information such as the state of the machine or assembling sequence to help operators during the maintenance process. Compare to other technologies, AR is an easy way for maintenance workers to understand and follow instructions. An adaptive maintenance support system based on a maintenance worker’s wrist position is introduced, in order to offer helpful feedback and necessary support to the maintenance worker when performing maintenance tasks. In this system, a maintenance worker can choose a suitable augmentation level to receive suitable augmented information, reducing the risk of getting unsuitable assistance. An image based detection module is used in the maintenance support system, in order to check if a maintenance operation was correctly performed or not. This can help a maintenance worker to finish the maintenance operation correctly and decrease the risk of forgetting to perform a maintenance step or perform a maintenance operation incorrectly, so increase the safety of a maintenance worker.