Intelligent Integrated Model for Improving Performance in Power Plants

Industry 4.0 is expected to play a crucial role in improving energy management and personnel performance in power plants. Poor performance problem in maintaining power plants is the result of both human errors, human factors and the poor implementation of automation in energy management. This problem can potentially be solved using artificial intelligence (AI) and an integrated management system (IMS). This article investigates the current challenges to improving personnel and energy management performance in power plants, identifies the critical success factors (CSFs) for an integrated intelligent framework, and develops an intelligent framework that enables power plants to improve performance. The theoretical basis is founded on a systematic literature review to locate 110 out of 3108 papers studied carefully to examine the performance architecture that best enables effective maintenance. The findings from this literature review are combined with expert judgment and the big data advantages of AI applications to develop an intelligent model. Data are collected from a power plant in Iraq. To ensure the reliability of the proposed model, various hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling. The results confirm that the measurement model is acceptable, and that the hypotheses are supported and significant. A case study demonstrates the strong relationship and significance between big data of performance and the CSFs. It is hoped that this model will be adopted to enable performance improvement in power plants.