Predictive & Targeted Maintenance AI – and Early Detection of Catastrophic Failures – for Industrial Equipment
Publicly-traded US Oil & Gas Company
The Challenge
High-pressure fracking pumps used in onshore oil & gas are subject to sudden catastrophic failures causing production shutdowns, unplanned downtime and costly repairs for onshore oilfield service companies. Threshold based alarms generate alert fatigue and limit operational trust. Traditional maintenance schedules tend to be either too frequent, reactive, wasteful or sometimes infrequent and risky.
Our Solution
Developed a Machine Learning ML-based system to predict failures days in advance, enabling proactive maintenance. Engineered features from streaming high-frequency sensor telemetry analyzed (in real-time) by bespoke Machine Learning (ML) model ensemble trained on normal operating patterns, while incorporating domain expertise. Retroactively backtested for validation. Explainable alerts (labeled by severity, persistence and anomaly frequency) with contributing factors, trend visualization and root-cause insights. End-to-end custom designed, developed and production-deployed on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Results Delivered
- 2-4 days advance warning before failures
- 30-40% reduction in unplanned downtime, with attractive ROI and improved safety
- 89% of failures detected (recall), acceptable alert volume (precision) - tuned thresholds
- Severity-based tiered alert generation with actionable precision
- Proactive and optimized maintenance scheduling
- Explainable AI, root cause analysis