REAL-WORLD SUCCESS

Enhancing Fleet Maintenance with Predictive AI: A Case Study on Data Integration and Operational Readiness

Introduction

The client, a government-operated service branch, was tasked with optimizing the maintenance schedules of its large fleet of vehicles. To solve this issue, the client’s transportation contractor sought assistance to enable accurate predictive maintenance.

Problem/Goal

Faced with the challenge of integrating two key datasets—parts eligible for maintenance and their maintenance time estimates—the absence of a direct link between the datasets meant the client could not automatically project time estimates for maintenance identified at the part level, posing a significant obstacle in forming schedule optimizations. While this task could have been done manually, it would have taken a significant number of staff hours per vehicle.

StandardData was tasked with unifying these datasets to enhance operational efficiency and accuracy from one data source.

  • Link parts to maintenance time estimates
  • Enhance maintenance scheduling
  • Implement promptly to unblock development

Solution

StandardData’s innovative approach to data integration challenges and a desire for a scalable solution resulted in leveraging open-source technology.

StandardData employed a HuggingFace sentence transformer model to link part names with maintenance task titles semantically. The joins now take two computer hours to complete.

  • Implemented weighted joins on datasets with open-source AI
  • Formed predictions overnight in a repeatable process
  • Validated the new joins against historical data

Results

Operational Efficiency:
Accurately predicting meantime to failure at the component level.
Organizational Improvement:
Saving significant hours in staff time, reducing costs, driving efficiency, and enabling more accuracy.
Future Proof:
Ensuring the adaptability for future part and maintenance categories.