San Francisco, Dec 2 (IANS): Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced a new machine learning (ML) service to detect abnormal behaviour in industrial machinery, enabling its industrial customers to implement predictive maintenance and reduce unplanned downtime.

The system includes IoT (Internet of Things) sensors to capture vibration and temperature data, a gateway to aggregate and transfer data to AWS, and a machine learning cloud service that can detect abnormal equipment patterns and deliver results in minutes, the company said on Tuesday at its "AWS re:Invent" conference.

Amazon Monitron can monitor and detect potential failures in a broad range of rotating equipment such as motors, gearboxes, pumps, fans, bearings, and compressors.

The system works based on abnormal fluctuations in vibration or temperature, and notifies customers when to examine machinery in order to determine if preventative maintenance is needed.

Historically, most equipment maintenance is either reactive (after a machine breaks) or preventive (performed at regular intervals to ensure a machine doesn't break).

Reactive maintenance can result in significant costs and downtime, while preventive maintenance can be costly, result in over-maintenance, or fail to prevent breakdown if not performed often enough.

Predictive maintenance -- the ability to foresee when equipment is likely to need maintenance -- is a more promising solution, AWS said.

"Industrial and manufacturing customers are constantly under pressure from their shareholders, customers, governments, and competitors to reduce costs, improve quality, and maintain compliance," said Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Amazon Machine Learning for AWS.

"These organisations would like to use the cloud and machine learning to help them automate processes and augment human capabilities across their operations, but building these systems can be error prone, complex, time consuming, and expensive."

Apart from Amazon Monitron, AWS also introduced four other industrial machine learning services -- Amazon Lookout for Equipment, the AWS Panorama Appliance, the AWS Panorama SDK, and Amazon Lookout for Vision.

Together, these five new machine learning services help industrial and manufacturing customers embed intelligence in their production processes in order to improve operational efficiency, quality control, security, and workplace safety.