A practical, expert-driven 12-step roadmap to help reliability leaders successfully implement and scale predictive maintenance at their site — from early data review to sustainable culture change.
Predictive maintenance (PdM) is no longer a futuristic concept reserved for high-tech plants or aerospace giants. Today, it's an essential strategy for any manufacturing site that wants to reduce unplanned downtime, cut costs, and improve reliability.
Yet, despite widespread interest in predictive maintenance, many reliability leaders remain unsure how to practically implement it on their site. Others have experimented with pilots but failed to scale. Sound familiar?
The good news: PdM doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive to get results. Drawing from decades of industry research and hands-on experience across our customers’ sites, this 12-step guide is designed to help you take meaningful action without getting stuck in analysis paralysis.
Whether you’re just starting your journey or looking to expand from a successful pilot, this article will help you bridge the gap between theory and execution.
We kicked off our recent presentation to reliability professionals with a short quiz. The answers weren’t just trivia — they tell a story about how data, experimentation, and predictive thinking create massive value in very different domains.
What do all of these have in common? They relied on:
That’s exactly what predictive maintenance offers to manufacturers — a chance to use data, AI, and continuous improvement to run more reliably.
As W. Edwards Deming said:
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion."
Despite the prevalence of time-based preventive maintenance schedules, most equipment doesn’t fail due to age. In fact:
This was proven by studies from:
This aligns with the six failure patterns outlined in research by Nowlan and Heap. Their studies revealed that most equipment does not follow the predictable "bathtub curve" many engineers were taught, but instead fail in seemingly random ways.
In other words: most failures won’t be prevented by your monthly PM schedule. Instead, they require a condition-based or predictive strategy.
According to Senseye’s “True Cost of Downtime” report:
At the same time, Deloitte found that predictive maintenance can:
The ROI is clear. The question is: how do you start?
Here’s our full roadmap, refined through dozens of real-world pilots across food, beverage, and industrial sites:
Before installing sensors or buying software, start with what you already have. In most cases, your current systems hold more insight than you realise.
Start by examining:
Also consider supporting data such as:
Your goal isn’t perfect data — it’s clarity. Identify which assets hurt most when they fail and where data gaps might be limiting insight.
🔍 Tip: Look for assets with frequent emergency work orders, repetitive failures, or high downtime costs.
Predictive maintenance should start with a hypothesis. Framing your initiative this way sets expectations and helps you gain buy-in.
Use a simple 2-page format:
Page 1: Executive Summary
Page 2: Business Case Detail
📊 Back it up with conservative assumptions — executives hate fluff, but they love clear ROI logic.
Connect with someone who’s already implemented PdM. Whether it’s another plant in your company, a peer in the industry, or a vendor partner, their guidance will help you:
Ask questions like:
Pro tip: Ask them to share what they wouldn’t do again. Those lessons are gold.
Choosing the right assets can make or break your pilot.
Use these criteria:
Focus on rotating equipment like motors, pumps, fans, compressors, gearboxes. These make up a significant portion of plant failures — and they're typically well-suited to PdM.
Don’t just pick the most critical assets — include some that fail frequently. They’ll give you faster validation and build confidence.
You don’t need a huge CapEx budget to start. One of the most common questions we hear is: “How much will it cost to try this?” Naturally, costs will vary depending on the hardware option you choose and the size of the pilot, but to offer transparency, we’ve shared below the actual cost one site paid for a 3-month pilot. While this won’t apply to every situation, it should give you a useful ballpark figure to start the conversation.
Here’s an example starter pack:
Total = $9,320 (GST incl.)
This gets you real-time data, automated insights, and a way to test your hypothesis.
💡 You’re solving a $100K+ problem with a $9K experiment. That’s a no-brainer ROI.
PdM is a team sport.
You’ll need a small, cross-functional crew to run and support the pilot:
Schedule quick weekly huddles. Keep the energy up. Celebrate progress early and often.
Don’t let alerts sit in dashboards. Make sure they trigger real action:
Technology doesn’t change outcomes — workflow does.
Track every alert:
Use this data to:
Also log missed detections or false positives. These teach you just as much.
Once you’ve had your first win, scale up smartly:
Scaling should feel like momentum, not overload.
Bring your site along for the ride:
Adoption grows when the team feels ownership.
You need to prove it’s working:
Use dashboards or simple graphs to make this visible. Pair numbers with real stories.
Make predictive maintenance part of "how we do maintenance":
Most reliability engineers live in a constant juggling act: battling reactive work, planning PMs, firefighting unplanned failures. PdM offers a way to flip that script.
But don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to “boil the ocean.” Start small. Start where it matters. Build trust. Prove it works. Then scale.
Predictive maintenance isn’t a technology problem. It’s a leadership opportunity.
If you’re ready to run your first PdM pilot — or if you’ve tried before and want to do it better — we’re here to help.
Book a time to chat with us here: https://calendar.app.google/7gU5kMmxTscgefC37
Here’s to fewer breakdowns, more predictability, and a happier maintenance team.