Users don’t always recognize the need for regular, planned maintenance as long as their equipment is working. Yet as soon as something goes wrong, there is a rush to get it fixed as quickly as possible so as to minimize disruptions to workflow and productivity. A regime like this keeps you operational - but at a very high cost. Unplanned stoppages frequently go hand-in-hand with time lost in obtaining the necessary spare parts. And because these stoppages are unexpected, they generally occur at a time when you really need your equipment to be up and running. The unpredictable and random nature of breakdowns does not allow work to be planned, and pays no heed to the business drivers or to the needs of your departments or patients. As part of our ‘aiming for zero’ initiative, we introduce a radically different approach to services. By remotely collecting data and then analyzing it using smart algorithms and historical patterns, equipment issues can be addressed before they impact workflow or availability. This, in a nutshell, is proactive maintenance. It essentially means that, rather than servicing a machine when issues arise or parts need replacing, maintenance and/or replacement takes place when data indicates that degradable parts are coming close to the end of their natural life, or that a problem could be just around the corner. The work is then scheduled for a time which best matches your workflow (e.g. at night) to further minimize disruption. There’s a glimpse of how this approach is already working at the Marienhospital in Stuttgart, Germany. There they have implemented our MR e-alert solution to continuously monitor a vital element in the system - the helium compressor - and to generate an automated alert whenever parameters like temperature and pressure fall outside acceptable levels. As Peter Heidi, Head of Hospital Technology at Marienhospital explains, “in the past, we were aware that something was wrong but didn’t know exactly what and where until much later. Now, we have targeted information and can respond faster, which saves valuable time.”
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