Across heavy industry, the demands placed on maintenance teams are increasing faster than the skills available to meet them. Asset fleets are becoming more complex, production pressures are intensifying and the cost of unplanned failure continues to rise. Yet, exposing a growing operational risk that extends into the energy sector, industrial maintenance capability is not keeping pace with these changes, says Steven Lumley , Technical Manager at condition monitoring specialist WearCheck.
The skills gap is most visible in preventative and condition-based maintenance. While many teams are proficient in corrective work and emergency breakdown response, fewer are confident in the disciplines that prevent failure in the first place. These include oil analysis and contamination control, precision alignment and balancing, vibration screening, thermographic inspection and the ability to translate condition monitoring data into timely maintenance decisions.
When these skills are uneven or absent, maintenance strategies tend to shift towards run-to-failure practices and greater reliance on OEM callouts, increasing cost and operational risk.
