Research Article

International Journal of Engineering

Business Management
Volume 13: 1–14
The contribution of Industry 4.0 ª The Author(s) 2021
DOI: 10.1177/18479790211024131
technologies to facility management journals.sagepub.com/home/enb

G Nota1 , D Peluso2, and A Toro Lazo3

Abstract
Facility management is an evolving discipline that has received attention from both professionals and researchers in recent
years. Modern facility management considers various interests related to material resources, and among others, social and
environmental interests. An important opportunity for the improvement of this discipline derives from the introduction of
Industry 4.0 technologies for the management of material resources. In this paper, we shall study the problem of industrial
facility management, an area with important economic implications. Starting from a facility management model for the
maintenance of industrial assets, we develop a general approach to maintenance based on the Internet of Things and
Cyber-Physical Systems, which allows us to reason about the implementation of an effective Organisational Facility
Management Unit. The objective is the continuous improvement of maintenance activities, from which also derives the
improvement of the production process performance.

Keywords
Facility management, Industry 4.0, Cyber-physical production system, Internet of Things, preventive maintenance

Date received: 30 March 2021; accepted: 18 May 2021

Atkin and Brooks3 argues that the significance of facility

Introduction management is nowadays far more recognized embracing a
Effective management of non-essential business activities wide range of interests.
is necessary for an organization to function more effi- As presented by Hodge et al.4 those single-source out-
ciently. Facility management (FM) is a form of business sourcing services, which started out as soft FM services
management that aims to provide relevant, cost-effective (cleaning, catering, etc.5), saw a change in the late 1980s
services to support the core business activities and allows to to hard FM services (mechanical, electrical, etc.). In the
optimize them.1 1990s, there was a move toward service integration, sup-
With the aim of continuous improvement of the FM, ported by FM automation through Computer-Aided Facil-
also pursuing the improvement of core activities, this doc- ity Management (CAFM) 4 and Computer-Aided
ument proposes a model and a top-down methodology that Maintenance Management (CAMM).6
can be used to implement the coordinated management of
industrial assets. 1
Department of Business Sciences—Management & Innovation Systems
The effort for coordinated management of company
(DISA-MIS), University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy
support services as a corporate practice has not always been 2
CMS spa, Italy
understood in this way, as it is often closely associated with 3
Faculty of Basic Sciences and Engineering, Catholic University of Pereira,
the building management, construction, and real estate dis- Pereira, Colombia
ciplines. According to Potkany et al.,2 FM should not only
Corresponding author:
be understood as general building management connected G Nota, Department of Business Sciences—Management & Innovation
with everyday building operation, but it should also include Systems (DISA-MIS), University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy.
long-term planning and focus on its users. In the same way, Email: nota@unisa.it

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open-access-at-sage).
2 International Journal of Engineering Business Management

In the early 2000s, the concept evolved to Total FM by section discussing the management of a variety of indus-
including waste management, human resources, finance, trial assets.
and other internal or outsourcing services.4 Throughout Recent developments in facility management methods
the 2000s and 2010s, sustainability management, with are based on the use of new technologies such as IoT, IIoT,
concepts as value-driven design, customer performance, CPS, and CPPS. For what concerns the building facilities,
and regional and global contracts started to become more one study by Chen has proposed models that show the use
common.7 Finally, workplace management, sustainable of IoT for automatic scheduling of maintenance work
workspace, environmental performance, intelligent build- orders and predictive maintenance strategy for building
ing management,8,9 risk mitigation, among other strategic facilities.23 Cheng et al.24 discuss how Building Informa-
initiatives, 10 as a way to increase the business value tion Modelling and IoT have the potential to improve the
using new technologies and tools to enhance services efficiency of facility maintenance management (FMM).
delivered and client’s satisfaction,11 are part of FM disci- The literature review published by Wong et al.25 in the field
pline in the 2020s. of intelligent building research, indicates that research
Nowadays, facilities management can cover a wide efforts have dealt mainly with three research aspects
range of services.3,12 However, the literature does not pro- including advanced and innovative technologies, perfor-
vide sufficient coverage of facility management in the mance evaluation, and investment evaluation analysis.
industrial scenario, an application domain that requires spe- It is important to distinguish between IoT and IIoT.
cialized methods and techniques for the management of Even if they are closely related concepts, they cannot be
industrial assets. used interchangeably.26 A frequently adopted definition of
Several definitions of Facility Management have been IoT27 states that IoT is a network of physical objects—
proposed in the literature, each one trying to put into evi- vehicles, machines, home appliances, and more—that use
dence one or more characteristics of this discipline.13,14 sensors and APIs to connect and exchange data over the
One that is suitable for the FM in an Industrial context is15: Internet. This definition is suitable for the building facili-
ties as discussed in the previously mentioned papers and
many other application fields. However, a more specialized
Facility Management is an integrated approach to operating,
definition is necessary to reason about its application in the
maintaining, improving and adapting the buildings and infra-
manufacturing field. Essentially, IIoT can be seen as a
structure of an organisation in order to create an environment
specialization of IoT to manufacturing; indeed, the IIoT
that strongly supports the primary objectives of that
is about connecting all the industrial assets, including
organisation.
machines and control systems, with the information sys-
tems and business processes.26 These definitions, together
In the scenario of Industry 4.0, FM is evolving as a with that of CPPS will be used in the model presented in the
consequence of the introduction of new technologies that “Cyber-physical production systems” section, which also
can enhance the capabilities of roles devoted to the man- includes a part that describes the essential characteristics of
agement of structures. The technologies of Digital Twin a Cyber-physical system that contributes to FM.
(DT), Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems In this paper, we adopt a systemic investigation of the
(CPS) and their respective specialization to industry, Indus- asset’s maintenance in Industry 4.0. We first propose a
trial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Cyber-Physical Produc- meta-model that considers the general patterns of plan-
tion System (CPPS), are considered in this paper to increase ning, monitoring, and control for the maintenance of
the effectiveness of FM. industrial assets. Since a production system is a complex
A simple definition of DT is “Digital representation of a system made of several parts and relationships, the meta-
real-world object with focus on the object itself.”16 This is a model needs to be instantiated according to the properties
general definition that outlines the essential characteristics of the good to be maintained. For example, the mainte-
of this concept. Many definitions highlight the purpose of nance of machine tools, material handling equipment, and
DT. For example, Bolton et al.17 define a DT as: “a industrial plants can be addressed by referring to the
dynamic virtual representation of a physical object or sys- model discussed in detail in the “Facility maintenance
tem across its lifecycle, using real-time data to enable management” section. On the other hand, in the case of
understanding, learning, and reasoning.” A comprehensive building maintenance, even if the pattern “planning/mon-
review of the concept of DT can be found in the work of itoring/control” can be reused, it is necessary to adopt
Negri et al.18 intervention methods and technical procedures appropri-
DT has been used in manufacturing industries focusing ate for the object under maintenance. The paper shows
the attention either on the object to produce19,20 or on the how views at different levels can increase the understand-
manufacturing systems.21,22 For what concerns the appli- ing of how hardware/software systems must be integrated
cation of DT for facility management in the industrial con- to provide support to facility managers during operations.
text, the literature does not offer sufficient references. This The proposed methodology can be used as a guideline for
point will be addressed by the model proposed in the next the implementation of a facility maintenance office that
Nota et al. 3

Figure 1. Facility maintenance management top-level model.

pursues continuous improvement in the management pro- manufacturing system robustness.29 The top-level model
cesses of industrial assets. and related views can be used to reason about the assets
The paper is structured as follows. In the “A model of under maintenance. We also discuss the CPPS view that
asset maintenance in Industry 4.0” section a top-level represents a technological system supporting the manage-
model that comprises several views for FMM is introduced. ment of production assets with particular reference to
The facility management view within an industry scenario machinery used for production, which in turn contributes
is shown in detail. The steps of a methodology for FMM to the system’s resilience improvement.
and a CPPS model for the management of production assets
are also discussed. Based on this methodology, the pro-
Facility maintenance management
cesses of planning and execution of maintenance opera-
tions are shown in the “The processes of planning and As mentioned before, FM has been being successfully
execution of maintenance operations” section. The valida- applied to maintaining and operating diverse types of
tion of this research, discussed in the “Case study” section, industrial facilities, including those for logistics and ware-
has been pursued through the STAMEC case study, an housing. In this context, maintenance plays a significant
automotive industry in the south of Italy. The conclusions role. In fact, it assures the full service of the warehousing
summarize the research results discussing benefits, limita- system, which includes both, building utilities, and material
tions, and future developments. handling equipment as mentioned by Mangano et. al.30
Despite the increasingly recognized importance of FM
as an integrated component of business operations, most
companies still complain about the rising cost of mainte-
A model of asset maintenance in
nance of industrial and logistic facilities. Managers often
Industry 4.0 seek to cut FM spending by reducing repair interventions to
A production system is a complex system whose facilities a minimum and by delaying preventive maintenance
consist of the factory, production machines and tooling, actions, leading to a cascade of extra costs in the medium
material handling equipment, inspection equipment, and and long term.31
computer systems that control the manufacturing opera- We propose here a model, drawn in ArchiMate notation,
tions.28 As a complex system, it is made of a large number that takes into consideration a systemic approach to the
of components and relationships where a great variety of maintenance of industrial facilities. Assuming that the gen-
them can be identified. This class of systems is not mod- eric industry has an Organizational Unit (OU) that deals
ellable and understandable in a unique and detailed way. with FM, we introduce the top-level model of Figure 1. It
Starting from this observation, we propose here a model represents the Facility Management OU and several offices
that comprises several views and a methodology to pursue hierarchically organized (Building Maintenance, Machin-
continuous improvement in the FMM and contribute to the ery Maintenance, etc.). The model takes into consideration
4 International Journal of Engineering Business Management

Figure 2. The machinery maintenance management view.

the general aspects concerning both the decision-making and deal with failure or breakdown of parts, components,
process and the approaches to maintenance. For what con- systems, and other elements.12 Consequently, some funda-
cerns the decisional process, the “Executive Director” role mental concepts related to maintenance approaches in an
acts with the collaboration of technical support roles to industrial context are presented below.
make informed decisions. The involved decisional pro- In the manufacturing industry, maintenance consists of
cesses have the duty to establish: a) the FM program to carrying out all the necessary actions to restore the durable
implement in a given time period; b) which maintenance equipment or keep it in specific operating conditions,32
services must be implemented internally, and which must since the equipment is intended to last a long time and
be requested from service providers (make or buy choice); must, therefore, be maintained. In this sense, the purpose
c) identify the technology that must support the mainte- of maintenance is to maximize the effectiveness of the
nance activities (that may depend on the asset under main- machines.
tenance); d) allocate the resources for the maintenance As shown in Figure 2, there are different approaches to
operations. maintenance that can be performed based on certain con-
The second aspect concerns the maintenance functions. ditions or characteristics, but they are mainly classified into
The model states that there are two valid general two categories: planned and unplanned as stated by the top-
approaches: planned maintenance and unplanned mainte- level model of Figure 1. The planned approach to mainte-
nance. According to the good characteristics, one or both nance provides that maintenance strategies can be broadly
can be considered appropriate. For example, planned and classified into preventive maintenance (PM) and corrective
unplanned maintenance are normally required for complex maintenance (CM) strategies.33
machinery, while for the power grid, the unplanned PM strategies34 involve carrying out maintenance activ-
approach usually works well to save on maintenance costs. ities before equipment failure, contributing to minimizing
The bottom part of the model states that the Facility Man- the costs of breakdown and downtime (loss of produc-
agement OU is assigned to the Maintenance functions tion)35 and the increase in product quality.36 This type of
which have access to an object or a system to perform a maintenance strategy also includes:
behavior.
To provide better clarity on the application of the pro- (a) Autonomous Maintenance (AM): It deals with
posed model for the management of facilities and its use- increasing the efficiency of the production line
fulness for the industry, a specialization in the machinery through the actions of the device operators,37 to
maintenance functions is presented in the view shown in reduce the number of device failures and eliminate
Figure 2. It is important to indicate that in the particular the anomalies connected to them (small faults,
case of machinery maintenance, the two general functions, abnormal operation of the device, minor errors
Planned and Unplanned maintenance reported in the top- related to the work of machines and devices).
level model must be detailed to assure adequate equipment (b) Time-Based Maintenance (TBM): is a traditional
operating conditions. maintenance technique in which maintenance deci-
Maintenance is an integral part of facility management sions (e.g., preventive repair times/intervals) are
and requires a clear definition of arrangements to prevent determined based on failure time analyses.38
Nota et al. 5

(c) Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM): It consists of  Planning time

diagnosing the state of resources based on monitored a) Focus on the area of intervention and identify
data, predicts the abnormality of resources, and per- the roles to be allocated;
forms appropriate maintenance actions such as repair b) Select the management methods for the area of
and replacement before serious problems occur.39 intervention;
(d) Predictive Maintenance (PdM): concerns the detec- c) Acquire detailed knowledge about the appropri-
tion of hidden and potential faults and the prediction ate technology for the object/system to be
of equipment conditions. On this basis, predictive maintained;
analytics can predict whether an event will happen, d) Plan the management activities for the object/
when it is about to happen as well as the reason why system.
it will happen.40 Can be dissociated into two specific  Operation time
subcategories41: a) predictive maintenance based on e) Implement management support hardware/
statistics; b) predictive condition-based maintenance software systems and big data technologies/
(CBPM). techniques;
f) Measure, monitor, and control the object/system;
In contrast, CM refers to the activities required to iden- g) Execute the maintenance activities;
tify and rectify the cause failures or reduce the severity, if h) Feedback the process.
an equipment/machine fails.42 As mentioned by Wang
et al.,43 CM focuses on bringing a failed equipment back As the models discussed in the “A model of asset main-
into production in the shortest possible time or other alter- tenance in Industry 4.0” section and methodology follow a
natives that minimize production losses while the machine top-down approach to FM, in the “The processes of plan-
is not productive. This strategy is carried out, either in a ning and execution of maintenance operations” section we
planned or an unplanned schedule. Planned corrective define two business processes, planning and execution, that
maintenance is a result of either a regular inspection or a show how the points d) and g) can be developed. An exam-
prognostic health management system.44 ple of how the step c), e) and f) can be used in an Industry
Regarding unplanned maintenance (also known as 4.0 scenario is presented in the “Case study” section. Points
“reactive maintenance,” “emergency maintenance” or a) and b) have been briefly considered by the models of
“breakdown maintenance—BdM”),45 refers to work per- Figures 1 and 2 and will be further elaborated in the case
formed promptly to repair a sudden failure to avoid serious study. Point h) comes from the feedback management
consequences on the resources and system PM perfor- approach,47 and enables a systematic integration48 between
mance, and/or to keep the system safe.34 It is completely planning and operation processes for better maintenance
reactive to machine errors, where repairs are done only decision-making processes.
after the breakdown. This means maintenance concerning
unexpected cases and leads to high maintenance costs.46 It
aims to put the broken machine back to regular operational Cyber-physical production systems
conditions.
In recent years, we are witnessing a new industrial revolution
The planning and execution of these strategies, how-
called Industry 4.0. The fourth industrial revolution aims to
ever, require well-defined guidelines according to the char-
introduce changes to improve the efficiency of production
acteristics of the facilities to be maintained and the FM OU
processes, to reduce costs, to increase services to customers
structure. For this reason, we propose below a methodology
and their quality.49 Apart from improving industrial value
designed to support the FMM programs.
chain processes, the introduction of Industry 4.0 technolo-
gies constitutes also an important opportunity for the
The methodology for facility maintenance improvement of this industrial facility management.
management To make more effective the management of mainte-
nance activities and consequently with the above, the view
Figure 1 shows how a top-level model for FMM while the introduced in this section describes some technologies of
top-down decomposition method allows us to dominate the Industry 4.0 necessary for the creation of an integrated
problematic complexity inherent to the management of system consisting of CPPS, IIoT, digital twin, and Produc-
industrial assets. tion Planning and Control (PPC) software. First, it is useful
Although the decisional process outlined in Figure 1 to consider the following definition of CPPS:
provides a guideline on how to set up an FM program, more
detailed information is necessary to indicate the essential Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) comprise smart
actions to perform for effective facility maintenance. For machines, warehousing systems, and production facilities that
this reason, we propose a step-by-step methodology for have been developed digitally and feature end-to-end
FMM based on two main phases: planning time, and oper- ICT-based integration, from inbound logistics to production,
ation time. marketing, outbound logistics, and service.49
6 International Journal of Engineering Business Management

Figure 3. A model for the design and implementation of a Cyber-physical production system for machine tool maintenance.

Having focused our attention on the maintenance of Similarly, the Maintenance planning & control (MPC)
machine tools, we consider the part of CPPS that concerns module uses the data to define the techniques and methods
the manufacturing process as shown in Figure 3. This that can be employed for maintenance in the area of inter-
model can be used when the plant layout is of type “process vention, as well as to manage their execution.
layout” (where the machines are arranged in departments of In this way, the CPPS in conjunction with the MPC
homogeneous machines) or “production line.” software contribute to improving the resilience53 and per-
A previous version of our model has been introduced for formance of the maintenance support system and factory
the problem of real-time production planning and control control system. Furthermore, the software modules DT,
(PPC)50; the variant illustrated here appears instead in Nota PPC, and MPC, enriched with the functionality of facility
et al.51 that proposes a contribution to the topic of energy management discussed so far, provide support to the appli-
saving during the execution of batch processes.52 We fur- cation of the methodology that is described in the next
ther contribute to the semantics of the CPPS model by section.
considering an extension of DT that comprises non only
the digital representation of structures but also technical
parameters necessary for the maintenance. On the other The processes of planning and execution of
side, the PPC, originally designed to drive the production maintenance operations
process, is enriched with functionalities described in the
As shown in the “Facility maintenance management” sec-
model of Figures 1 and 2 for both the decision process and
tion, several techniques can be successfully applied to the
the maintenance functions.
maintenance process. However, the maintenance strategies
In the CPPS presented, the IoT devices such as smart
to be implemented generally depend on the specific way in
(embedded) sensors and actuators installed in the machines
which the company plans and executes the maintenance
and connected to the communication network provide
activities of its assets.
important information for the planning of CBM strategies,
and to support BdM activities since they send data on
anomalous behaviors in the production process through the Machine maintenance planning flow
DT. This permits operators, through intelligent scheduling During the development of this research, we observed the
systems as the PPC software, to monitor the machinery planning and execution processes for machine maintenance
conditions instead of their faults and generate early alerts managed by several factories. The model in Figure 4
or stop production in case of breakdown, hence anticipating describes the planning processes that the observed factories
possible failures by self-adjusting their operations at differ- usually adopt to cope with the problem of machine tool
ent levels and optimizing the assets utilization. maintenance using the planned and unplanned approaches.
Nota et al. 7

Figure 4. The machinery maintenance management flow for planning.

It is representative of many manufacturing scenarios where activity and assigns the weekly maintenance activities (sec-
machine tools and equipment of various kinds must be main- ond phase, once a week) on a specific date and time, also
tained in good health condition to reduce the amount of time indicating the estimated time for the intervention. This
in which the manufacturing system does not produce. assignment is stored in a database and communicated to
As the model shows, preventive and corrective mainte- the corresponding maintainer.
nance activities are planned on a biannual and weekly On the other hand, the management of unplanned activ-
basis; unplanned activities, as well as those related to ities (third phase, one or more times a day) is carried out by
Emergency Work Orders (EWO) that correspond to fail- the Maintenance planner, who is in charge of receiving the
ures or anomalies, are performed during daily operation. In intervention requests that may be submitted during the day
the three processes in Figure 4, the involved roles (ticket) and opening an EWO. To carry out their assign-
“Equipment responsible” and “Maintenance planner,” are ment, the availability of the maintainers is verified as well
particular cases of a more generic planner role. as the fulfillment of the competencies required to make the
The tasks related to the biannual planning process, carried maintenance activity and the assignment is done. As soon
out by the Equipment responsible, consist of identifing the as the activity is assigned, the maintainer is notified.
maintenance activities that must be performed each semester Once the planning phase is complete, the proposed
and planning the execution of the activities on a weekly basis. activities are executed in the Operation time phase, as pre-
This planning is stored in a Machine Ledger, a graphical sented below.
visualization tool that allows maintenance teams to better
understand maintenance/breakdown trends and patterns at the
machines, assemblies, and components levels, so they can Execution of maintenance operations
more effectively predict failures and plan preventive actions. As related in the previous section, planner roles are respon-
Based on the previous planning, the Maintenance plan- sible for the maintenance planning and assignment of
ner responsible verifies the availability of the technician biannual and weekly maintenance activities to maintainer
through an attendance calendar as well as the fulfillment of roles. From these processes, several planned maintenance
the employee’s competencies to perform the required orders are sent to each maintainer during the day. A second
8 International Journal of Engineering Business Management

Figure 5. Maintenance activities execution process.

assignment modality is executed when emergencies arise the management of maintenance activities, which, together
during the working day that must be attended, which are with the application of the methodology, is introduced in
handled as unplanned activities for which the correspond- the case study in the following section.
ing EWO is generated and assigned.
Once the maintenance activity has been assigned to a Case study
particular Maintainer, he receives a notification of the cor-
responding assigned maintenance order. Before starting The application of the FMM and the proposed methodology
with the execution of the activity, all the information to a mechanical company in the manufacturing industry is
related to the intervention (area of intervention, typology, illustrated in this section, which attempts to improve the
estimated intervention time, required materials, procedure facility management activities through the implementation
of CPPS and IIoT technologies. The AS-IS scenario is
description, among others) must be verified by the mainte-
shown first, followed by the TO-BE scenario where the
nance technician. This allows the intervention to be carried
implementation of the CPPS and the application of the
out efficiently and avoiding delays due to ignorance of the
methodology steps are described.
procedure or lack of supplies.
The lower part of Figure 5 shows a brief representation
of the process executed by a Maintainer to perform the The AS-IS scenario
assigned maintenance activities. The organizational structure of the production company in
For each assigned planned activity, an activity sheet question, which produces molds for automotive, electro-
must be opened in which the Maintainer, once positioned sanitary, and household appliances, is divided into admin-
in the workstation (machine), can start the maintenance istrative and production functions, as shown in Figure 6.
activity and report information as the description of the Accounting and financial, staff, sales, safety and quality
performed activity, start date/time and stop date/time. areas are staffed by the Company Management and are
Similarly, when an unplanned maintenance activity is structured into administrative organizational units. Design,
completed and the first part processed after maintenance manufacturing, warehouse and maintenance are managed
is verified, the Maintainer must indicate the completion of by the Production department. The company has two pro-
the activity and register it in an EWO sheet, to be subse- duction plants: one located in the main office, which deals
quently closed. with the production of small and medium-sized mechanical
To support both, planning and operation processes, a molds, and the other, decentralized, dedicated to the pro-
software application based on Figure 2 was developed for duction of large molds.
Nota et al. 9

Figure 6. The organizational structure of the production company in question.

The analysis of the AS-IS scenario highlighted that the  Planning time
company had very simple maintenance procedures, such as a) Focus on the area of intervention and identify the
autonomous and breakdown maintenance directly managed roles to be allocated: the application developed
by the production department, together with a low level of for the management of maintenance activities
computerization. emphasizes the area of intervention (organiza-
tional unit, work center, work unit) and the type
of intervention (electrical, electronic, hydraulic,
mechanical) according to the type of machine or
TO BE scenario asset to maintain. Likewise, the access levels to
During the implementation of the SMART Industry 4.0 activities are determined according to specific
project, STAMEC decided to change the organizational planning (Planner) or execution (Maintainer)
structure, inserting a new Facility Management OU in the roles. As well, for the execution of maintenance
administrative department compliant with the one shown in activities, specific skills are required according to
Figure 1. the type of intervention, which is why the appli-
At the same time, a CPS based on the model in the cation is capable of selecting only maintainers
“Cyber-physical production systems” section was imple- who have the appropriate skills to perform it, as
mented for the improvement of production performance. shown in Figure 7. When these skills are not
This provided the opportunity to use the technological sub- available, or they are highly specialized activities
strate to implement ad hoc software for the preventive that are not typical of the organization’s internal
maintenance of two pilot machines. maintenance team, outsourcing should be done.
b) Select the management methods for the area of
intervention: the machine considered in this case
Planning and executing maintenance operations. The step-by- study was maintained periodically, and, there-
step methodology for FMM presented in the “The meth- fore, was following a time-based maintenance
odology for facility maintenance management” section approach. However, the necessity of preventing
was implemented based on two main phases: planning production stops when the machine presented
time, and operation time. The development of the meth- considerable problems required the management
odological steps required the creation of a specific soft- to shift to a preventive maintenance method.
ware application described below (“make or buy” choice c) Acquire detailed knowledge about the appropriate
of the model in Figure 1). The main activities carried technology for the object/system to be main-
out in each of the points of the methodology are sum- tained: on the machine, two sensors measuring
marized below. the temperature and the vibrations have been
10 International Journal of Engineering Business Management

Figure 7. Software application example to support the weekly maintenance planning processes.

installed. The data has been used by an anomaly

detection algorithm that identified anomalous
temperatures and vibration rates, allowing to
know the state of health of the machine.
d) Plan the management activities for the object/sys-
tem: planning preventive maintenance activities
based on the planning process shown in Figure 4
and the implemented tool shown in Figure 7 is
performed at this point. The information obtained
facilitates decision-making processes aimed at
avoiding future problems, such as the possibility
of carrying out pre or post-production mainte-
nance to reduce the need to stop production for
longer due to faults that could be avoided. In this Figure 8. Maintenance activity time register.
way, CBM strategies were planned based on the
condition of the machines, and PdM strategies
could be implemented in the future.
 Operation time
e) Implement management support hardware/soft-
ware systems and big data technologies/tech-
niques: a software application as presented in
Figures 8 and 9 was developed that supports the
management, planning, and recording of the exe-
cution of preventive and corrective maintenance
activities of the machines, considering aspects a)
and b) related in the planning time phase. An
example of the time recording of a performed
maintenance activity is shown in Figure 8, while
Figure 9 is related to the selection of one of the
following root causes for closing EWO when a
BdM strategy is applied: RC1: External factors, Figure 9. Root cause selection for closing EWO.
Nota et al. 11

RC2: Human error, RC3: Design defect, RC4: Table 1. Summary of the main results evidenced after the
Insufficient maintenance, RC5: Wrong operating introduction of the new maintenance system, in comparison
conditions, RC6: Lack of basic conditions. Both with the previous year.
examples are performed by a user with the Main- Before the After the Percentage of
tainer role. intervention intervention improvement
Downtime (number) 29 21 27%
Similarly, based on the CPPS proposed in Figure 3, sen-
Breakdown (hours) 87 48 45%
sors were installed in the machines to capture and analyze Production capacity 1865 1912 2,5%
in real-time the information related to the machine health (hours)
condition and plan the corresponding preventive mainte- Production output 35 39 12%
nance strategies, as mentioned in points c) and d) of the (no molds)
methodology. Maintenance costs (€) 21.750,00 € 17.400,00 € 20%

f) Measure, monitor, and control the object/system:

the integration of hardware and software systems of the machines. An example of this is the so-called
for monitoring the health conditions of the “opportunistic strategies,” where on a line that stops, sim-
machine, through IoT devices as smart sensors, ple preventive maintenance operations are carried out even
as well as the control of the data obtained, allow on machines other than the one that caused stopped and
the generation of early emergency alerts in the have shown a degradation through the sensors.
event of data indicating a problem, for example, From the changes made in the management of mainte-
spindle temperature too high, machine downtime nance activities and the implemented systems, the following
detected by a sensor while the machine was run- results can be summarized that demonstrate the usefulness of
ning, or even the deterioration of the performance the approach presented in the previous sections.
of the machine detected by an accelerometer and About the organization of the company, the fact of
an energy sensor. This facilitates the early detec- including the management of the facilities in the adminis-
tion of anomalies and the prevention of failures trative division has allowed improving the planning and
through the execution of preventive maintenance programming of the maintenance activities, initially of
activities, as CBM. machinery and software applications, thanks to a program
g) Execute the maintenance activities. of effective preventive maintenance based on the analysis
h) Feedback the process: once the maintenance of the data obtained through the technologies implemented
activity is performed, the Maintainer must carry starting from the model shown in Figure 3 and the metho-
out a feedback process through the same system
dology presented in the “The methodology for facility
that allows continuous improvement of the
maintenance management” section.
maintenance planning and operation processes,
Related to the two pilot machines object of the experi-
which directly reaches the Planner role. In this
mentation, significant results have been evidenced regard-
way, the systematic integration between plan-
ing the efficiency of the production process, as shown
ning and operational processes can be further
in Table 1.
improved.
By comparison with maintenance data taken in the year
before the introduction of the new maintenance system,
It is worthwhile to observe that thanks to the CPPS, the
we have observed a reduction in downtime occurrences of
information related for example to machine stops due to
27% and a 45% reduction in breakdown, which has
failure or deterioration of the functioning of the machine,
reaches the planner directly coming from the sensors. This allowed an increase in production capacity of 2.5%, which
signal immediately activates the process of assigning the represents a 12% increase in production output. These
EWO to the maintenance technician through the maintenance improvements have been achieved in the same operating
management software developed, significantly reducing the conditions (two 8-hour shifts, 5 days/week, 50 weeks/year
time of assigning the maintenance order for the machine out and a similar quantity of production orders). In the same
of production. On his part, the technician receives the infor- way, the improvement of maintenance planning and the
mation detected by the sensors together with the maintenance implemented actions from the new model have allowed a
order on his tablet/mobile device, also making it possible to reduction in maintenance costs of 20%. These results rely
decrease the delay by intervening more quickly. In this way, on the early diagnosis of anomalies and failure patterns
it is possible to improve productivity by reducing the time through the real-time data analysis enabled by CPPS, pro-
and costs associated with repairs. viding planning and operational teams with effective
Similarly, in the case of degradation or deterioration of information on future downtime problems on machines
the machine’s operation, the most appropriate preventive with a higher risk of failure or that may result in more
maintenance times can be planned to extend the life cycle defective products.
12 International Journal of Engineering Business Management

Conclusions execution of preventive maintenance strategies mainly

oriented toward CBM and BdM. In this way, the CPPS
Traditionally FM has been understood as a discipline that
together with the MPC software developed contribute to
tends to preserve value (safety, comfort, etc.).54 Its evolu-
improving the performance of the maintenance support
tion leads us today to see a different aspect of FM as a
system by achieving zero signaling time of machine down-
discipline that creates value. In this sense, the combined
time or degradation in machine operation, allowing timely
approach (model þ methodology þ technology) presented
intervention to return the machine to normal operating con-
in this paper allows planning and control of industrial
ditions and plan preventive maintenance strategies at the
resources that can achieve maintenance cost reduction, most appropriate times, bringing benefits in reducing non-
increased machinery availability and better product quality. production times and repairment costs.
It is important to emphasize that the contribution of this The findings of this research are twofold. First, the
paper to facility management is strongly related to the use decision-making process is modeled and the methodology
of Industry 4.0 technologies such as IoT, CPS, Big Data, clearly states the necessary steps for FM; then the contin-
Digital Twin, and Cloud Computing. The positive implica- uous improvement takes advantage of the modernization of
tions are the generation of value and the contribution to the the processes related to the management of resources and
improvement of industrial facility management by deliver- facilities. Our approach to FM promotes the early identifi-
ing new strategies that facilitate the decision-making pro- cation and diagnosis of anomalies in real-time through the
cess for the management of resources and facilities. Our implementation of preventive strategies supported by IIoT
work also reflects the approach of systematic integration to devices, CPPS and, Big data technologies.
the improvement of some limitations of production man- Recent research outline the importance of system prop-
agement and process control, such as those mentioned by erties such as robustness, reliability, and resilience53,55;
Bao et al.47: (1) lack of the real-time interaction and closed- they are promising properties for today’s manufacturing
loop feedback mechanism between physical and virtual systems to achieve a sustainable success of the systems.
spaces; and (2) lack of a unified product model throughout The results discussed in the case study provide some
various phases in the discrete manufacturing environment evidence that FM systems, implemented with the support
for product data transmission and sharing. of Industry 4.0 technologies, can contribute to achieving
Initially, a general model that brings together the various better values of these properties.
assets that need to be supported by the FM organizational This work is not without limitations, particularly for
unit was presented, as well as the main maintenance func- what concerns the maintenance of industrial assets allo-
tions that can be applied to them to guarantee their operat- cated to production processes. In fact, in this scenario, the
ing conditions. In particular, the main advantage of the cost and time of FM programs can be high. However, CPPS
proposed model lies in the unifying approach to the main- are often implemented to improve the production process
tenance of the industrial assets present in the organization performance and are already there to be used with little
and this can lead to significant savings. This particularity additional cost for maintenance purposes.
allows the manager of the FM organizational unit to adopt a The lessons learned during the implementation of the
management pattern for planning, monitoring, and mainte- research project to improve the performances of FMM and
nance control of the industrial resources, customizing the the production process in the case study company, tell us
technical methods necessary for each type of resource. that the development of software systems, such as the pro-
The model is also accompanied by a step-by-step meth- fessional maintenance application presented in the “Case
odology for FMM that guides the planning and operation of study” section, requires additional effort to adapt machine
an effective facility maintenance program, facilitating the tools so that they became part of a CPPS and this is a
decision-making process through a top-down decomposi- process that requires a lot of time. This situation will
tion method. In particular, the methodology requires change in the future when machine tool manufacturers will
detailed knowledge acquisition about the appropriate tech- use Industry 4.0 technologies in their products.
nology for the object/system to be maintained; this led to Several future developments can be conducted from this
choice Industry 4.0 technologies such as IIoT, vertical/hor- work, such as the optimization and automation of mainte-
izontal integration, Cloud Computing, CPS, and Big Data nance management processes of other assets, the imple-
in the case study presented in the “Case study” section. The mentation of PdM strategies based on Big Data
description of the case study demonstrates the practical use techniques such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine
of the methodology for the maintenance of machine tools, Learning (ML), and resources allocation simulation,
but it is general enough to be applied in other scenarios. among others. Similarly, other research and development
A general approach to the maintenance of resources directions could be considered based on the integration of
through the implementation of a CPPS was also developed, the proposed CPPS and PPC software with different 4.0
which makes use of IIoT, Digital Twin, and PPC technol- technologies, such as virtual reality23 and various Big
ogies to maximize the effectiveness of the maintenance data56 techniques that allow transforming processes in var-
management activities, facilitating the planning and ious phases of the supply chain. The application of these
Nota et al. 13

technologies will help to break down the barriers to practi- communication workshop (ICCW), London, 8–12 June
cing increasingly sustainable FM and turn it into a tool to 2015, pp. 246–252.
enhance firms’ productivity and competitiveness, as pro- 10. Andersen MK and Ankerstjerne P. How ‘New Ways of
posed by Mari et al.54 Another future direction of the work Working’ affect our use of facilities. Australia: ISS group,
on this subject is how human factors affect the FM in a 2012.
Cyber-physical manufacturing context, as there is a grow- 11. Okoro C and Musonda I. The future role of facilities manag-
ing evidence that human factors play an important role in ers in an era of industry 4.0. In: Proceedings of the creative
determining the performance of a manufacturing system.57 construction conference 2019, Budapest, Hungary, 29 June–2
July 2019, pp. 446–453. Hungary: Budapest University of
Acknowledgments Technology and Economics.
The authors thank Eng. Michele Nastasia for providing the data 12. Atkin B and Adrian B. Total facilities management. 4th ed.
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Declaration of conflicting interests 14. Vetráková M, Potkány M and Hitka M. Outsourcing of facil-
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Funding
International conference on hardware/software codesign and
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support system synthesis (CODESþISSS), Pittsburgh, PA, 2–7 Octo-
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:
ber 2016, p. 29. Pittsburgh, PA, USA: IEEE.
MISE project “SMART INDUSTRY 4.0” n. F/050493/01-02/
17. Bolton RN, McColl-Kennedy JR, Cheung L, et al. Customer
X32, decreto MISE n.5195 del 19/12/2017.
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G Nota https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4829-9967
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A Toro Lazo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7593-8026
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