Digital systems are transforming industry and also maintenance. Companies are looking for ways to minimize the cost factor of maintenance and are networking individual applications to create integrated communication and platforms for the
Workflow Management
.
While scheduling is still coordinated via Excel spreadsheets in some companies, more and more businesses are moving to cloud platforms that can be accessed from any device and offer more functionality than simple spreadsheets.
Maintenance plans as a central tool for work organization are less and less often kept on paper and are increasingly replaced by digital documents. In many companies, technicians still document their on-site inspection results on paper and later transfer them to digital applications. But here, too, the industry is in a state of flux: with the rapid spread of tablets and
Smart Glasses
more and more companies are digitally capturing results directly from the customer.
The majority of companies require a handful of different applications for the process organization of maintenance. However, the trend is toward centralization. Where previously many different generic applications were used, integrated
Maintenance software
that bundles communication, planning, execution, documentation and analysis.