Short and long forecast to implement predictive maintenance in a pulp industry

Predictive maintenance is very important for effective prevention of failures in an industry. The present paper describes a case study where a wood chip pump system was analyzed, and a predictive model was proposed. An Ishikawa diagram and FMECA are used to identify possible causes for system failure. The Chip Wood has several sensors installed to monitor the working conditions and system state. The authors propose a variation of exponential smoothing technique for short time forecasting and an artificial neural network for long time forecasting. The algorithms were integrated into a dashboard for online condition monitoring, where the users are alerted when a variable is determined or predicted to get out of the expected range. Experimental results show prediction errors in general less than 10 %. The proposed technique may be of help in monitoring and maintenance of the asset, aiming at greater availability.