1. Strategic and technical issues

With automation (sometimes to excess!), machines and production lines have become more and more complex technical systems, and sometimes more and more fragile due to the interdependence of machines. We tend to underestimate the daily micro breakdowns which, because of their frequency, lead to unfortunate economic consequences. At the same time, the processes involved have also evolved considerably, and sometimes do not offer the degree of stability we would be entitled to expect, themselves generating malfunctions in the system that implements them.

This cultural revolution introduced into plants is leading to a profound change in maintenance strategies, the main points of which can be summarized as follows:

• the material investment is such that even minor downtime generates unacceptable indirect costs;

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