Time Series Prediction Algorithm for Intelligent Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance aims to find out when the target device (TD) is in the sick state and almost entering the dead state before its actual occurrence to conduct just-in-time maintenance, so as to avoid unexpected TD down time. In this way, not only tool availability and manufacturing quality are improved, but the additional cost of excessive maintenance in preventive maintenance strategy can also be reduced. Among the predictive maintenance technologies proposed by many scholars, exponential model was commonly applied to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of TD. However, due to the algorithm limitations, when TD is about to die, whether the TD's aging feature suddenly rises or becomes smooth, the exponential model may not be able to keep up with the real-time prediction or even falsely predicts long RUL. To solve the problem of inaccurate RUL prediction, the authors propose the time series prediction (TSP) algorithm. TSP applies the time series analysis model built by information criterion to adapt to the complicated future trend of solving TD fault prediction. Also, the Pre-Alarm Module (PreAM) to make alert of immediate maintenance when a TD is likely to shut down shortly as well as the Death Correlation Index (DCI) to reveal the possibility of entering the dead state are proposed in this work. How to select the most effective predictors and adjust the predictor weights to construct high-performance prediction model are also illustrated in this letter with the tools in various industries (such as solar-cell manufacturing and machine tool industry) being the examples of the TSP algorithm.