Michael UngarCEO of the Industry 4.0 Club

Equipment as a Service: Risk-Free Machine Maintenance

14 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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1:07

In this excerpt, the speaker outlines an Equipment-as-a-Service (EaaS) business model that hinges on taking full risk for customers through long‑term service agreements, including the replacement of failed machines. The model applies to both new and legacy equipment. For older machines with existing digital interfaces, such as Modbus controllers, the service can connect directly to gather operational data. For very old, non‑connected machines, the approach involves retrofitting vibration, temperature, and pressure sensors to collect enough diagnostic information to pinpoint problem areas, enabling efficient onsite repairs. While this risk‑transfer strategy is presented as a major value proposition, the speaker acknowledges that diagnostic uncertainty remains a challenge.

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But then we add a service agreement on top of it where we take the entire risk, including if something breaks to the point where the machine has to be replaced, we will replace it. But we take over like a, you know, 5, 10-year contract, whatever it is that the customer is interested in. And then we service, and we service, you know, both new and old. And that's what we're looking at sometimes is that some of the older machines, they might have a controller with Modbus connectivity or something like that, and we can still connect to it and still get some benefits. And And then we have some, some really old machines that, that we would have to come up with something completely different. So for example, like installing vibration sensors and temperature sensors and pressure sensors. Got it. And, and that gives us not exactly enough information to fully diagnose the issue with the machine, but it gives us enough information to understand in what area might the issue be. So when we come on site, we have what we need to, to fix the machine. So the risk part, I think, is That's huge, all the way to equipment as a service. And, and I mean, you hit a new point that I didn't think about too, is that the uncertainty.