Successfully persuading your management team about the importance of predictive maintenance requires a certain mindset, one that embraces the ideology that any failure in selling predictive maintenance lies within your selling techniques and not the management team. Success will simply depend on developing the proper selling methods. You are more likely to have success if you show management why they, not you, need predictive maintenance in the company. We have always heard that managers speak the language of dollars. This is true.

Attempt to avoid all technical reasons for justifying PDM and make good arguments based on savings and profitability. Reduced energy consumption, increased uptime, longer machine life, increased machine reliability, and improved products are just a few in a long list of items that will result from good PDM. However, just stating these items will not be very persuasive in your selling attempts. You must show how these benefits relate specifically to applications in your company and present dollar figures calculating the value added by the implementation of PDM technologies. Any data included with the dollar figures should be simple and easy to understand for a non-technical person. Trend plots, bar graphs, or pie charts are effective visual displays of such information. Your report should be concise but lengthy enough to convey relevant information.  Brevity usually works best. If you don’t succeed on the first try, be persistent and improve your selling techniques. Remember, the fault lies in your methods and not with the management team. Luck is not a requirement for success. Only the proper arguments are required. Once the correct selling strategy is found, success is sure to follow.