IPMAI

Project Approach

European policy aims to drive the global leadership of European industry. AI plays a central role in this and holds enormous potential. Making the advantages of AI profitably accessible to SMEs is therefore IPMAI's motivation. The goal of IPMAI is to significantly simplify maintenance through explainable AI for all industrial production facilities with gearboxes. With IPMAI, it will be possible to use AI not only to determine maintenance, but also to optimise operations.  IPMAI's approach is of general applicability because of its AI-generated explanations innovative 1) in terms of user acceptance and 2) because of the use of the gearbox as a general wear indicator. 
To better understand this novelty: machines consist of a multitude of components operated by a gearbox. Until now, all these components had to be monitored separately. The innovation of IPMAI is that now only the gearbox needs to be looked at to identify any maintenance needs on other machine parts operated by that gearbox (such as high friction of a driven component due to poor lubrication). This reduces costly repairs and increases the product life cycle of machines. The novel maintenance system for production machines with gearboxes also provides explanations for their optimal use and thus facilitates the handling of the maintenance system by technicians and machine operators. This increases the acceptance of new types of AI systems and makes it possible for this work to be carried out by personnel with only average training.