Creating the Digital Thread to Connect OEMs and End Users

The relationship between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and manufacturing end-users is undergoing a sea change in terms of how equipment is purchased and maintained. Numerous forces are responsible for this shift. Most prominent among these reasons is the availability of fewer onsite engineers. This operating reality has led manufacturers to outsource much of their maintenance operations, requiring them to rely more heavily on remote condition monitoring and predictive maintenance techniques provided by OEMs themselves. As a result, new business models, bolstered by digital transformation, have begun to spring up among OEMs. For instance, performance-based costing, which bills end-users based on the amount of throughput a machine achieves, has started to usurp the flat-fee model. This not only reduces upfront capital expenditures for manufacturers, but incentivizes OEMs to continuously improve the performance of their equipment, making them more competitive and delivering better results for end-users.