The 10th annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report from Rockwell Automation recently dropped, and one thing is clear: Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t the future—it’s the present. Manufacturers are doubling down on digital transformation (DX), and smart maintenance is front and center.
From quality control to cybersecurity, manufacturers are turning to AI and SaaS tools (like a CMMS(opens in new tab)) to help navigate uncertainty, close skills gaps, and build operational resilience. In this blog, we’ll cover what maintenance professionals need to know from the report and how Fiix CMMS is helping teams get ahead.
Smart manufacturing is here to stay and will continue to grow
According to Rockwell Automation’s global survey of 1,560 manufacturing leaders:
95% have invested in or plan to invest in AI/ML, GenAI or Causal AI within five years.
41% are introducing AI and automation to address labor shortages and skills gaps.
50% plan to use AI/ML for quality control this year.
Yet, for all of this vested interest in AI tools, only 44% of collected data is used effectively, showing room to improve how we operationalize insights.
Smart manufacturing is no longer optional. With labor and quality pressures on the rise, tools like Fiix Asset Risk Predictor and Fiix Foresight analytics engine help manufacturers turn underused data into actionable intelligence—fast.
The report also highlights five top use cases for AI and machine learning (ML) in 2025:
Quality control (50%)
Cybersecurity (49%)
Process optimization (42%)
Robotics (37%)
Logistics (36%)
Each of these directly impacts how maintenance is planned, scheduled, and executed. The good news is that AI-powered CMMS tools can help flag anomalies, prevent downtime, optimize resources, and protect plant-floor systems. Fiix CMMS for example, helps maintenance planning by surfacing inefficiencies and organizing team workflows and assets.
Tools like Fiix Foresight leverage AI to track equipment failure patterns, suggest optimizations, predict stockouts, and boost asset reliability—all without complex configurations or data science teams.
Smart maintenance still needs smart people
Despite all the AI excitement, Rockwell Automation’s report reveals a critical truth: technology doesn’t replace people—it empowers them.
83% say analytical thinking, communication, and teamwork are top skills when hiring.
Nearly half of manufacturers plan to repurpose or hire more workers in response to digital transformation.
AI upskilling jumped 10% year over year as a critical organizational capability.
Don’t forget: AI removes tedious, manual day-to-day tasks, surfaces useful insights anyone can act on, and expands workers’ capacity to focus on higher-value work, helping them achieve their goals.
Fiix CMMS focuses on user-friendly AI for fast onboarding. With templates, training tools(opens in new tab), and no-code customization, maintenance teams can adopt AI without the steep learning curve.
Cybersecurity is a growing concern
Cybersecurity rose to become the #2 external risk in 2025. The integration of connected systems (IT/OT) and smart devices increases exposure and therefore, increases the importance of AI for threat detection and prevention.
38% are already using operational data for cybersecurity protection.
Ransomware attacks in manufacturing are 3x higher than in other industries.
Fiix CMMS in action
As a cloud-based software, Fiix CMMS adds layers of protection through secure data hosting, top security certifications, permission controls, and integrations that align with your IT/OT architecture.
Data is everywhere we look, but it still needs context
One of the most telling stats from this year’s report? Less than half of the data collected by manufacturers is used effectively. The gap between collection and action can cost manufacturers lost insights, reactive repairs, and inefficient processes.
Fiix CMMS in action
With real-time dashboards, custom reports, and API integrations, Fiix CMMS helps you capture, contextualize, and act on your data.
In summary, maintenance remains at the heart of smart manufacturing
Rockwell Automation’s 2025 report highlights a global push toward smarter, faster, and more resilient operations. But it’s the intersection of technology and people, like AI-enhanced maintenance teams, that will define true success.
With Fiix CMMS, you’re not just adopting technology. You’re building a maintenance program that is:
This paradox often arises because either work is done incorrectly, or too much maintenance is performed in the first place. Surprisingly, what’s labeled as preventive maintenance can sometimes have the opposite effect, contributing to equipment failures instead of preventing them.
Why is maintenance strategy optimization crucial?
Planned maintenance optimization (PMO) strategies is essential for maximizing equipment reliability, reducing downtime, and minimizing operational costs. A well-optimized strategy(opens in new tab) ensures that resources are being used efficiently, focusing on the most critical assets and maintenance tasks that have the highest impact on performance. Not only does it save money, but it also improves the lifespan of machinery(opens in new tab) and ensures smoother operations. With organizations increasingly facing the challenge of balancing maintenance costs with the need for high uptime, strategy optimization becomes crucial for long-term success.
Key elements of an effective maintenance strategy
A successful maintenance strategy should include a mix of reactive(opens in new tab), preventive(opens in new tab), and predictive(opens in new tab) approaches, tailored to the needs of specific equipment. Reactive maintenance is often necessary for unforeseen breakdowns, but relying solely on this approach can lead to high costs and equipment downtime. Preventive maintenance (PM) involves scheduled checks to avoid potential failures, but it’s only effective when optimized. Predictive maintenance leverages data to anticipate failures before they occur, allowing teams to act at the right time.
Combining these strategies, driven by data and continuous improvement, is key to an optimized approach. The goal is to strike a balance where the right tasks are completed at the right time, using the fewest resources while providing maximum value.
Minimizes downtime and reduces costsOptimizes maintenance schedules
Requires investment in technology and trainingCan be complex to implement
Automotive: IoT sensors in factory robots detecting early wearEnergy: Smart grid monitoring to prevent transformer failures
Steps to optimize your maintenance strategy
Optimizing a maintenance strategy starts with a detailed assessment of current processes. By analyzing existing maintenance schedules, failure data, and equipment performance, organizations can identify areas for improvement. Next, planning involves prioritizing maintenance tasks based on asset criticality and failure risk.
From there, organizations can implement preventive maintenance optimization techniques, including reliability centered maintenance (RCM) and failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). FMEA is a step-by-step risk management process and analysis tool for identifying where, when, how, and why a failure might occur in a design, manufacturing, or assembly process for a product or service. It determines the impact of different failures to identify the parts of the process that need to change.
These methods provide a systematic way to identify potential failure modes and optimize the maintenance schedule accordingly.
Continuous monitoring and adjustment ensure that the strategy stays relevant and effective over time. The process is iterative, ensuring that improvements are ongoing and aligned with operational goals.
Leveraging technology for maintenance strategy optimization
Modern technologies such as CMMS (computerized maintenance management systems), IoT sensors, and data analytics play a crucial role in optimizing maintenance strategies. A CMMS helps track maintenance activities, providing valuable insights into equipment performance, work order history, and failure trends. IoT sensors can provide real-time data on equipment conditions, enabling predictive maintenance to prevent failures before they occur. This integration of technology ensures that maintenance strategies are data-driven, proactive, and highly efficient.
Measuring success and continuous improvement
Once an optimized maintenance strategy is in place, measuring its success is crucial. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as equipment uptime, maintenance cost per asset, and mean time between failures (MTBF) provide insight into the effectiveness of the strategy. Regular assessments and continuous improvements ensure that the strategy remains effective, delivering long-term benefits in reliability, efficiency, and cost savings.
In summary, optimizing your maintenance strategy through a structured approach, leveraging technology, and continuously improving is the key to preventing equipment failures and enhancing operational efficiency. By embracing techniques like PM optimization and FMEA, organizations can ensure that their maintenance strategies are both effective and efficient, providing lasting value to the bottom line.
Creating an asset hierarchy is essential for efficient maintenance management in any manufacturing capacity. A well-structured hierarchy simplifies your maintenance and enhances asset tracking, asset management, asset performance monitoring, spare parts management, and ultimately, cost savings. In this blog we’ll explore the basics of asset hierarchy, provide examples, and offer some insights into setting it up for your maintenance team.
What is an asset hierarchy?
An asset hierarchy is an organized structure that breaks down assets within an organization into multiple levels, from high-level facilities to individual components. The hierarchy visualizes how assets are related and helps streamline asset management, maintenance, and troubleshooting processes.
Asset hierarchy example
In a manufacturing setting, for example, an asset hierarchy could start with the entire facility (plant level), go down to specific departments (e.g., production and packaging), then to systems within those departments (e.g., conveyor systems), individual equipment or machinery, and finally the components within each piece of equipment (e.g., motors or pumps).
How to set up an asset hierarchy
To build an asset hierarchy like in our example above, you need to start by mapping out your plants’ physical layout and identifying the functional relationships between the different assets. Here’s a simple step-by-step process to set it up:
Define the top level: The highest level represents the entire facility or plant.
Identify your departments: Break down the plant into key departments or functional areas, like production, quality control, or maintenance.
Organize your systems within each department: Identify the major systems within each department, such as the HVAC or conveyor system.
List all of the assets for each system: Drill down further to identify the equipment or assets in each system.
Pinpoint any components: Lastly, include individual components that may require separate maintenance (e.g., pumps, belts, motors).
Each layer of the hierarchy should be clearly defined, allowing maintenance teams to trace issues back to their source.
What is ISO 14224 and why is it important to asset hierarchy?
ISO 14224 is an international standard that provides guidelines for collecting and managing reliability and maintenance data for equipment within the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries. It was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and it’s important to asset hierarchy because it offers a framework for classifying equipment, setting up asset hierarchies, and capturing critical information such as failure modes, maintenance history, and reliability data. The ISO 14224 standard provides a hierarchical pyramid for taxonomic classification consisting of nine levels.
The example above illustrates the typical pyramid of taxonomic classification. Level 1, at the very top, represents the type of industry, while Level 9, at the bottom, represents a specific part of an individual asset. Assets sit at level 6, this can include any machines, IoT sensors, motors, pumps, etc.
With a clear asset hierarchy like this one, data collection is consistent across systems and equipment in a common format. ISO 14224 also specifies what data should be collected at each level of the hierarchy, this can include failure rates, repair times, and maintenance types. By defining and using standardized asset hierarchy with clear data, it allows teams to develop reliable benchmarking. Then organizations can track their asset performance and compare them against industry norms. It also makes it easier to predict and prevent failures, since the asset hierarchy simplifies the tracking and analysis of maintenance events.
Setting up an asset hierarchy in a CMMS begins by creating an underlying structure for assets. There are several different ways to set up a hierarchy in a CMMS. Within a CMMS top-down hierarchy might look like this:
Site or plant level: The highest level may include multiple plants if the company operates in different locations.
Department level: Different departments or function areas (e.g., production, quality control, maintenance).
System level: Major systems within each department (e.g., conveyor systems, HVAC).
Asset level: Individual pieces of equipment that comprise each system and their unique attributes (e.g., asset criticality, serial number, asset ID, etc.).
Component level: Specific parts of the asset, such as motors, pumps, belts, and control panels.
This structured setup helps maintenance teams drill down from broader plant-level maintenance needs to individual asset or component-level actions, ensuring each layer is maintained effectively. Some CMMSs’ also have set rules for setting up asset hierarchies.
CMMS asset hierarchy example
Let’s say a technician at a bottling plant receives a CMMS alert that there’s an issue with a bottling conveyor belt and it’s not running properly. By navigating the CMMS asset hierarchy:
The technician can start from the site or plant level and quickly drill down to the department level, which is the packaging area, and then to the system level, which in this example is the bottling line system, and locate the bottling conveyor belt which is the asset level.
Within the bottling conveyor belt, they can look at the component level and identify specific components, like the motor or rubber belt on the conveyor line that might be causing the issue. With systems like these, parts can wear down after prolonged use.
This structured hierarchy in a CMMS makes it easier for maintenance teams to navigate, isolate issues, and conduct repairs efficiently without downtime. It also supports historical data tracking, allowing maintenance teams to analyze past repairs at each level for optimized performance. Ensuring that your asset naming conventions are clear and consistent will help make things easier to find on your CMMS.
Best practices for naming conventions for your asset hierarchy
Naming conventions for your asset hierarchy are essential to maintain consistency, improve navigation, and streamline communication across your team. Here are some best practices for creating a clear and practical naming convention for asset hierarchy in a CMMS:
Standardize naming across all levels of the hierarchy
Use descriptive but concise names
Incorporate location codes
Utilize function-based codes
Include equipment type and ID numbering
Avoid special characters
Document naming conventions and train staff
Include manufacturer or model information if relevant
Prioritize unique identifiers for critical assets
Last but certainly not least, the final step, step 10, would focus on always including your full maintenance and operations team in the development of your asset naming conventions. This is important for two core reasons:
So that when a technician for example sees an asset code, they know exactly what that asset is.
So that communication between maintenance and operations can be streamlined, thus saving time for both teams when there is an issue.
Understanding the parent-child relationship in asset hierarchy
In asset management, the parent-child relationship refers to the hierarchal structure where a parent asset is a higher-level or more complex asset that includes one or more child assets.
The illustration above shows the relationship visually. The parent asset is always at the top and it can have multiple child assets, but any child asset is limited to a single parent. Below is a table to help you understand the difference between the two when it comes to asset hierarchy:
A higher-level asset that comprises of multiple components or sub-assemblies.
A component, sub-assembly, or part that belongs to and depends on a parent asset.
Examples
A production line in a factory.An HVAC system in a building.A server rack in IT infrastructure.
Motors, conveyors, and IoT sensors in a production line.Air handling units and compressors in an HVAC system.Individual servers and network switches on a server rack.
There are several benefits of parent-child asset relationships, the most obvious being improved asset tracking and maintenance planning. However, the relationship also offers a unique way to organize asset hierarchies. In this case, it provides a clear mapped-out view of asset dependencies and organization. This makes it a lot easier for maintenance planners to see their data and analyze it at both parent and child levels for better decision-making.
Standardize asset naming conventions: A consistent naming system for assets, systems, and components simplifies navigation and search.
Train maintenance teams on CMMS usage: Familiarize team members with the asset hierarchy structure and show them how to navigate it within the CMMS.
Conduct regular audits: Schedule periodic reviews of the asset hierarchy to ensure all equipment and components are accurately represented and updated as changes occur.
Integrate data across departments: Ensure the CMMS integrates with other department systems, such as procurement and finance, for a complete picture of asset performance and cost.
Utilize feedback from technicians:Maintenance personnel can provide valuable insights on what changes may be needed within the hierarchy for practical, on-the-job usage.
Setting up asset hierarchy is a key step for maintenance management
Asset hierarchy allows teams to understand their plant operations from the facility down to each part or component needing attention. Whether teams are using a CMMS software like Fiix or manually setting up their hierarchies, a clear, and concise structure lets maintenance and operations teams streamline their work and enhance their overall equipment efficiency.
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