Predictive Maintenance in Practice – Using Drive Data to Prevent Failures

05.05.2025

Maintenance is often associated with emergencies: unexpected downtime that requires immediate reaction because something suddenly stopped working—along with time pressure and costs. For many years, this reactive approach—although suboptimal—was the norm in many manufacturing plants. Maintenance departments operated in a “failure-to-failure” rhythm, and preventive actions were mainly based on employee experience and general service schedules.

Today, maintenance is no longer just reactive. It is increasingly becoming a crucial element of production management—supported by data, analytics, and technology that enables problem prediction before they affect process continuity. Especially in high-intensity industrial environments, such as the chemical or food industries, shifting from reactive to predictive maintenance is not just innovation—it’s a necessity.

A Drive Is More Than Just a Motor Controller

Frequency converters play a key role in this transformation—devices that have been present on production floors for years, yet their diagnostic potential remains underutilized. Modern Danfoss drives are, in practice, advanced condition monitoring sensors. They track temperature, vibration, overloads, electrical load (current, voltage, power), output frequency, and even parameters related to noise or microvibrations—in real time. This data, analyzed continuously, enables detection of subtle symptoms such as temperature fluctuations indicating bearing wear or cooling system inefficiency, or changes in current characteristics pointing to an impending IGBT module failure..

In essence, drives are now gathering data that used to be just operational parameters, but today becomes fuel for predictive algorithms.

At Control-Service, we see the potential of predictive maintenance strategies, and as a certified Danfoss partner, we support clients in implementing this approach through DrivePro® technology. A particularly valuable service for production facilities in this context is Condition Monitoring, which allows for systematic collection and analysis of operational data from drives. This enables the early detection of troubling trends—before they develop into serious failures.

Condition Monitoring – A Path to Operational Excellence

The biggest losses are incurred by those who only service when something breaks. With remote and local monitoring of drive operating parameters, maintenance activities can now be planned in advance. This not only saves time and resources, but also supports a culture of continuous improvement.

DrivePro® Condition Monitoring is a tool that analyzes and interprets data in the context of risk and condition under specific usage scenarios. In more advanced applications, this data can be integrated with MES or EMS systems, where it is analyzed using machine learning algorithms. Such integration enables not only the identification of performance-decreasing trends, but also automatic recommendations for optimal service windows—with a precision unattainable in traditional preventive models.

This approach proves especially beneficial in the chemical and food industries, where unplanned downtime results in financial losses and risks to quality or regulatory compliance. In these sectors, process continuity is a must, and maintaining it without predictive technologies poses an unnecessary challenge that hinders business operations.

It’s important to remember: today’s drives are no longer just “motor controllers.” They are intelligent units that gather data, analyze trends, and support informed maintenance decisions.

The data is within reach. Now it just needs to be properly interpreted and turned into actionable steps. And we know how to do that. At Control-Service, we deliver these solutions and help integrate them into your daily maintenance processes. By working with us, you gain not only the devices, but the complete know-how on how to use them—both technically and strategically. Contact us.