Long before the term IoT was coined, Siveco’s maintenance management systems were already making use of data from sensors, supervisions and control systems, to enable predictive maintenance and better management decisions. The technologies developed by Siveco have proven particularly agile to benefit from today’s IoT advances, increasingly connected machines and new cloud-based services. Today, the bluebee® lab, located in Shanghai, is at the forefront of IoT applications for Maintenance 4.0.

For us at Siveco, the second quarter of the year is always the time to share experience with other Siveco companies worldwide. Thanks to the network structure of our group, experience flows from everywhere, not only top-down. China’s very dynamic market allows Siveco China to be at the forefront of Maintenance 4.0 innovation, while drawing on decades of best practices in mature markets, which in turn benefit from our innovations.

The term “Made in China” makes one think of increasing local competition. As far as our business is concerned, it more likely means potential partners. Moreover, I would say we welcome more competitors in this high-potential market… where we sometimes feel a bit lonely! At the same time, our local content is very high, which is one of our strengths: our Shanghai R&D center, dedicated to mobility and “4.0” solutions, was setup in 2008.

After the factory was setup, the priority was naturally to ramp up production, not to optimize maintenance. The company’s management team was however well aware of the importance of maintenance and initiated discussions with Siveco as early as 2014 during the startup phase. The topic gradually gained traction and became a priority at the end of 2015, with a clear need to improve maintenance efficiency and to keep costs under control.

Using BIM (Building Information Modelling) for Operation & Maintenance has become a hot topic in the last few years, but it is never implemented in practice. One reason is a lack of understanding of maintenance by engineering companies, BIM vendors and related companies. Another is the lack of suitable technological tools.

On May 12th, Siveco China organized a free training for customers under enhanced maintenance support. Customer Service Manager Sunny Wang conducted this session, which three companies attended.