USE CASE — Use Case

Predictive Maintenance for Industrial Equipment

Multi-sensor edge IoT kits with on-device anomaly detection that transform reactive maintenance into predictive operations — deployed non-invasively on existing equipment fleets.

THE PROBLEM

Unplanned Downtime Costs $50B/Year — and Most Equipment Is Still Blind

Industrial unplanned downtime costs manufacturers an estimated $50 billion per year globally. A single hour of downtime on a production line can cost $100K-300K depending on the sector. Yet only 12% of industrial equipment worldwide has any form of predictive monitoring — the remaining 88% operates on scheduled maintenance or, worse, run-to-failure strategies.

The problem is not awareness. Equipment manufacturers and operators know that predictive maintenance delivers 25-30% cost savings. The problem is engineering capacity. Retrofitting vibration sensors, pressure monitors, and temperature arrays onto pneumatic valves, industrial pumps, or HVAC systems requires custom PCB design, ruggedized enclosures, industrial protocol integration (IO-Link, Modbus, SPE), and edge AI firmware — none of which a typical mechanical equipment company can staff internally.

Meanwhile, competitors like Festo, Emerson, and Parker are already shipping AI-enabled condition monitoring kits with their equipment. Companies without a predictive maintenance story are losing tenders, losing customers, and losing the recurring revenue opportunity that comes with fleet-wide monitoring SaaS.

$50B
Annual Cost of Unplanned Downtime
12%
Equipment with Predictive Sensors
25-30%
Maintenance Cost Savings with PdM
25-30%
Predictive Maintenance Market CAGR
THE SOLUTION

Multi-Sensor Edge IoT Kit with TinyML Anomaly Detection

Promwad designs and delivers a complete predictive maintenance hardware and software stack — from custom sensor PCBs to cloud analytics. The system is architected for non-invasive retrofit: no changes to existing equipment firmware, no disruption to production lines, no safety recertification required.

The edge AI approach is critical. TinyML models (Random Forest, LSTM, XGBoost) run directly on the sensor node microcontroller, providing real-time anomaly detection without cloud dependency. Only aggregated health scores and anomaly alerts are transmitted upstream — reducing bandwidth requirements by 95% and enabling deployment in facilities with limited or no internet connectivity.

L1
Sensor Layer
Custom multi-sensor PCB: 3-axis MEMS accelerometer (vibration), piezoelectric pressure sensor, RTD temperature array, ultrasonic flow meter. IP67 ruggedized enclosure. Battery or 24V industrial power.
L2
Edge Processing
ARM Cortex-M4/M7 MCU with TinyML inference engine. On-device FFT for vibration spectral analysis, anomaly scoring via Random Forest classifier, 512KB model footprint. IO-Link or Single Pair Ethernet uplink.
L3
Gateway & Cloud
Industrial telematic gateway aggregating 50-200 sensor nodes. MQTT/AMQP to AWS IoT Core or Azure IoT Hub. Multi-tenant data lake with time-series database (InfluxDB/TimescaleDB).
L4
Dashboard & Analytics
White-label fleet management platform. Real-time equipment health scores, maintenance scheduling, trend analysis. ESG compliance reporting module aligned with CSRD requirements. Mobile alerts via push notification and SMS.
BEFORE vs. AFTER

Before vs. After: Maintenance Transformation

Dimension
Before
After
Failure Detection
After failure occurs (reactive)
Days to weeks before failure (predictive)
Maintenance Scheduling
Calendar-based, regardless of condition
Condition-based, optimized per asset
Equipment Visibility
Manual inspections, paper checklists
Real-time digital twin with health scores
Revenue Model
One-time hardware sale only
Hardware + SaaS monitoring subscription
Data for ESG Compliance
Manual data collection, incomplete records
Automated CSRD-ready operational reporting
IMPLEMENTATION

Implementation Roadmap

1
Pilot
3 months
Sensor node prototype (3-5 units)
Single-protocol integration (IO-Link or Modbus)
Basic anomaly detection model trained on client equipment data
Local dashboard with real-time vibration and temperature monitoring
2
MVP Product
6 months
Production-ready sensor PCB with DFM optimization
Multi-sensor fusion with TinyML on-device inference
Cloud platform with multi-tenant architecture
White-label mobile app for maintenance alerts
IP67 enclosure with industrial certifications (CE, FCC)
3
Scale Deployment
12 months
Fleet rollout tooling (bulk provisioning, OTA firmware updates)
Advanced ML models with transfer learning across equipment types
Integration APIs for ERP and CMMS systems (SAP PM, IBM Maximo)
ESG compliance reporting module
SaaS billing and subscription management integration
EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Expected Outcomes

60-80%
Unplanned Downtime Reduction
$150-300
Hardware Cost per Sensor Kit
40-60%
Maintenance Cost Savings
$200-500
SaaS Revenue per Node (Annual)
3 months
Time to Pilot Results
15-25%
Equipment Lifespan Extension
FREQUENTLY ASKED

Can the sensor kit be installed without shutting down equipment?

Yes. The system is designed for non-invasive retrofit. Vibration sensors attach magnetically or via adhesive. Pressure sensors use T-connectors on existing lines. Temperature sensors are surface-mount. No changes to equipment firmware, no production interruption, no safety recertification.

How accurate is TinyML anomaly detection compared to cloud-based ML?

On-device TinyML models achieve 92-96% accuracy for vibration anomaly detection, compared to 95-98% for full cloud models. The trade-off is acceptable because edge inference provides real-time alerts (sub-second) without network dependency — critical for facilities with poor connectivity or safety-critical equipment where latency matters.

What industrial protocols are supported?

IO-Link, Single Pair Ethernet (SPE), Modbus RTU/TCP, CAN bus, and MQTT. The gateway supports multi-protocol aggregation, so mixed-protocol brownfield environments are supported without replacing existing infrastructure.

Who owns the data and the IP?

The client owns all data collected from their equipment and retains full IP rights to custom sensor hardware designs. Promwad retains IP on its generic TinyML framework and cloud platform components, licensed to the client under the project agreement.

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