A Simulation-Based Approach to Assess Condition Monitoring-Enabled Maintenance in Manufacturing.

Industrial Condition Monitoring Systems (CMSs) collect and evaluate system and equipment operations to support control and decision-making. Despite their usefulness, under-standing the full implications of their impact presents unique and unexpected challenges, especially on new manufacturing systems. System configuration and operational procedures have significant impact on CMS capability and performance. Thus, evaluating a CMS in context of the application is essential both prior to and during deployment. We developed a discrete-event simulator to analyze scenarios with arbitrary manufacturing system configurations and typical operation policies to address this need. This paper describes the results of a study that uses our simulation model to assess the benefits and risks of a CMS selection. We evaluated CMSs with various manufacturing system configurations and maintenance policies to observe how the CMS affected manufacturing system performance. We also discuss the selection of metrics, focusing on the alignment between CMS performance metrics and manufacturing performance indicators.