Natural Language Processing Approaches in Industrial Maintenance: A Systematic Literature Review

Industrial maintenance plays a crucial role in manufacturing by significantly reducing machine failure time and minimizing costs, especially in the revolution of Industry 4.0. Consequently, researchers and industrial engineers have continuously focused on this area. Manufacturing companies possess extensive maintenance reports or logs containing valuable textual information, which offers a new avenue for exploring effective industrial maintenance methods. Natural Language Processing (NLP), a subfield of Artificial Intelligence, has demonstrated remarkable potential in analyzing maintenance reports and achieving promising results in various tasks. This paper presents a comprehensive systematic literature review that specifically concentrates on the applications of NLP approaches employed in the field of industrial maintenance. Additionally, this review analyzed the datasets utilized in previous studies and the evaluation measures adopted, which can serve as a valuable resource for other researchers seeking potential solutions in maintenance. Furthermore, the paper discusses the challenges encountered in applying NLP to industrial maintenance and outlines future research directions in this domain. By conducting this systematic literature review, we provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of NLP applications in industrial maintenance, identify gaps in the existing literature, and guide future research efforts in leveraging NLP techniques for enhanced maintenance practices.