Maintenance activities as a support of sustainability

The factory of the future requires the development of a sustainable industry that places people at its center, and relies on increasingly connected technologies to support this transformation. Today's technological advances open up the possibilities of communication, interconnection and flexibility needed to achieve the objectives of the factory of the future, but the organizational and managerial dimensions also need to be transformed and adapted. The maintenance function is one of the key functions of the factory of the future, and can be considered a vital function, even a driving force, for industrial development.

The issue of preventive maintenance is once again among the challenges targeted by the European Community, and is the subject of calls for FOF (Factories of the Future) projects such as "Novel design and predictive maintenance technologies for increased operating life of production systems (FOF-09-2017)". The development of responsible maintenance is one of the objectives targeted by the European research and innovation funding program Horizon 2020.

Last but not least, the challenges of sustainable development are linked to the notion of risk, whether human, environmental or financial. To achieve sustainable development objectives, it is therefore natural to rely on risk analysis and control of the actions implemented and their consequences on these risks. The activities of the maintenance function are at the heart of risk management, since the aim of maintenance is to control the technical system and make the best decisions for the company, in order to avoid the occurrence of initiating events in the risk propagation chain. Past industrial accidents are a reminder of the vital role played by the maintenance function during system operation. The maintenance function also plays a key role in decisions taken at the end of a system's life cycle, and is therefore directly involved in the need to recycle and upgrade obsolete equipment.

To meet the need to integrate sustainable development into companies, the maintenance function relies on tools adapted to the development of a sustainable industry. This article presents the evolution of maintenance, the challenges of responsible maintenance and the tools contributing to the implementation of responsible maintenance at the service of corporate development.