Explainable AI in Manufacturing: A Predictive Maintenance Case Study

Abstract

This paper describes an example of an explainable AI (Artificial Intelligence) (XAI) in a form of Predictive Maintenance (PdM) scenario for manufacturing. Predictive maintenance has the potential of saving a lot of money by reducing and predicting machine breakdown. In this case study we work with generalized data to show how this scenario could look like with real production data. For this purpose, we created and evaluated a machine learning model based on a highly efficient gradient boosting decision tree in order to predict machine errors or tool failures. Although the case study is strictly experimental, we can conclude that explainable AI in form of focused analytic and reliable prediction model can reasonably contribute to prediction of maintenance tasks.