Industry 5.0: Rethinking asset management in the next industrial revolution

Global industries are transitioning to the next phase of the industrial revolution, Industry 5.0, with maintenance and asset managers playing crucial roles in helping to create stronger connections between people, technology and the environment. As with any significant transition, this shift is prompting industries to assess their current states and determine the changes required to fully realize the benefits of Industry 5.0—beginning with their physical assets. From the perspective of asset management, Industry 5.0 provides a new way of thinking about how machinery is procured, maintained and managed throughout its lifecycle. “As Industry 5.0 reshapes the industrial landscape, maintenance processes must evolve to meet the demands of a more complex, interconnected and dynamic world,” writes Jan Stoker, an asset maintenance management expert, in an article published by the Sustainable Asset and Maintenance Management Academy. Stoker, a professional engineer based in The Netherlands, frequently talks about the implications of Industry 5.0 in asset maintenance and management and was a speaker at the Asset Performance International Conference held in Belgium in November 2024. “Industry 5.0 will be defined by a re-found and widened purposefulness, going beyond producing goods and services for profit,” he adds. The question for asset and maintenance managers, then, is no longer just about maintaining machinery and equipment, but about rethinking the entire lifecycle of assets to align with broader, more sustainable goals. So, how do they shift their strategies to stay ahead? The current landscape Still an emerging concept, Industry 5.0 follows the Internet of Things (IoT) regime of Industry 4.0. It envisages humanity-driven innovation, where technology development works toward the goal of achieving sustainable, human-centric and resilient industries. In its Industry 5.0 framework, the European Union puts it plainly as placing the “wellbeing of the worker at the centre of the production process and uses new technologies to provide prosperity beyond jobs and growth while respecting the production limits of the planet.” This new paradigm highlights the shifting role of industries, helping provide solutions to the world’s biggest challenges and ensuring a more resilient and sustainable society. According to the EU, this “industry of the future” approach benefits industry, workers and society, in general. While talks about Industry 5.0 are starting to creep into the asset maintenance world, it’s prudent to first explore how pervasive its Industry 4.0 predecessor has become. Can industry truly make a leap to 5.0 without fully embracing big data, automation, AI and other innovations that create interconnected systems and processes? “This technology is growing so fast (and has become) far more accessible for people. But I find in maintenance, I’d focus on fixing the fundamentals first, because so many people love the idea of technology… but I don’t think they’re utilizing it enough,” says Matthew Laskaj, director of Project Engineering Management, a Scotland, UK-based engineering consultancy providing maintenance training, asset and project management. While advanced technologies, such as vibration analysis systems or predictive maintenance tools, have become more pervasive and, in many cases, more cost-effective, the missing link lies in the way they are being utilized—or underutilized—in maintenance and asset management. The integration of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies into processes and management requires more than just purchasing the equipment, says Laskaj. It needs buy-in from the folks for whom these machines are intended to improve efficiency and performance. “I think the businesses, as a whole, would love all of this to be there right now, and they’re probably pushing it more with their strategies and five-year plans. But if you look at the ‘shop floor’ people, the ones who are actually doing the work, the technicians, the engineers, the supervisors and that level of management, they just want to (know) how they can do their job easier and better,” Laskaj says. Bridging that disconnect between the technology that’s being driven from the top down and the speed and efficiency by which these are adopted from the bottom up are key.

The transition When it comes to technology adoption, companies are at varying levels, according to Bailey Brandel, a solutions engineer at Prometheus Group, an asset management and maintenance solutions provider based in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Some people are still getting into digitizing their process. Some people are still on paper. Some people’s information might be on Excel spreadsheets or in their ERP systems, but they’re not using the kind of machine learning or AI to work with that data yet and take advantage of all the results that they could get from that data,” she explains. Prometheus’s asset management platform leverages machine learning and AI, and integrates with an organization’s enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems helping them gain better visibility on the health of their assets. “A lot of the companies we talk to have initiatives to move more towards Industry 4.0. I wouldn’t say we have any customers who are done with all their industry 4.0 initiatives. They are either thinking about it, just getting started or in the middle of those initiatives,” Brandel says. The transition to Industry 5.0, or even the adoption of 4.0 technologies, are not without challenges. But Brandel believes this new framework will benefit the maintenance field overall. “The maintenance and asset management industry will always have humans… We can’t replace them with AI, because they know so much about these different assets, and they’re actually carrying the wrenches on these specific assets, doing the fixes and things like that. So I think the handshake between AI, advanced technologies and maintenance is going to be really beneficial for the asset management space,” Brandel says. The challenge, she notes, will be in keeping people up to date on the new technologies and in successfully integrating these technologies with maintenance processes. But as new, younger and more technically proficient workers enter the workplace this integration can become much faster, Brandel adds. This is where digitization comes into play. Decades of machine and maintenance knowledge accumulated by senior staffers remain in analog form, on paper or stored in their brains. These data need to be digitized for continuity so the knowledge can be transferred to the next generation of workers. “It’s going to be really important to take advantage of all the work we did in the digitization stage in Industry 4.0, like having different task lists or how to do certain things, or what are the potential things that can go wrong with an asset. (These data) right now might be living just in people’s heads,” Brandel says. “There’s going be a lot of challenges, but I think we’re set up really well to embrace Industry 5.0—at least a lot of the main concepts of it in the asset management space.” Sustainability and resilience Industry 5.0 notwithstanding, recent global phenomena such as the ongoing effects of climate change and the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic have caused authorities and industry to rethink existing methods and reshape systems and policies to a future that is responsive to these global challenges. The most recent update to the ISO Asset Management Standard, ISO 55001, for example, now aims to demonstrate how an organization’s asset management system contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. “(The standard) is now tending more towards the people side,” says Laskaj. “But also, one of the clauses (pertains to) sustainability, and it says climate change is an issue. So it’s actually got specific parts within asset management strategies that think about climate change.” ISO 55001 provides a framework for organizations to systematically and sustainably manage their assets throughout their lifecycle. ISO 55001:2024, which contains the latest updates to the standard, contains several new clauses that demonstrate a clearer focus on people and sustainability. “I think maintenance is going to play a huge part in the sustainability side of Industry 5.0 because we drive a lot of the decisions for either refurbishment or disposal,” Laskaj says. Through better maintenance, organizations can make their equipment last longer, reduce waste disposal and save on purchasing cost. Sustainable maintenance also means using materials that are more eco-friendly, such as biodegradable grease. “If we can get involved with purchasing, are we buying parts that can be re-used? Are we maintaining it to the best of our ability to prolong life rather than just buy a new one, because it’s not working? Are we buying refurbished parts, or refurbished kit even, rather than brand new?” Laskaj says. Machines and software can also play a role in sustainable and resilient asset and maintenance management, says Brandel. Developing software and AI tools that enable preventative and predictive maintenance can help asset managers prolong the life of an asset. “Just by taking care of our equipment using a predictive, AI-centric asset management program, we can make sure to make those repairs early enough so that we won’t be having to replace parts or order new things,” she says. Keys to success It’s clear that asset and maintenance management will inevitably be riding the Industry 5.0 wave. The question is not when, but how? Transforming maintenance to align with the key pillars of human-centricity, resilience and sustainability will allow organizations to adopt quickly and effectively. Laskaj offers up some best practices for organizations: “One is knowing what is available… because the technology is evolving and changing so quickly, and the cost price is coming down,” he says. Understanding how these technologies are used and how they can apply to your organization are also important. It is also vital to work with the right partners that can provide those technologies and guide users through the process of implementation. “But then there’s the other side of this, which I focus more on: It’s when should you be using it and why,” Laskaj says. “If you have a process that requires some kind of monitoring or some kind of future prediction, could you do it manually or could you use technology to do it even better than what you could already do to give you more accurate information faster?”