Predictive maintenance has been one of important applications of data science technology that creates a predictive model by collecting numerous data related to management targeted equipment. It does not predict equipment failure with just one or two signs, but quantifies and models numerous symptoms and historical data of actual failure. Statistical methods were used a lot in the past as this predictive maintenance method, but recently, many machine learning-based methods have been proposed. Such proposed machine learning-based methods are preferable in that they show more accurate prediction performance. However, with the exception of some learning models such as decision tree-based models, it is very difficult to explicitly know the structure of learning models (Black-Box Model) and to explain to what extent certain attributes (features or variables) of the learning model affected the prediction results. To overcome this problem, a recently proposed study is an explainable artificial intelligence (AI). It is a methodology that makes it easy for users to understand and trust the results of machine learning-based learning models. In this paper, we propose an explainable AI method to further enhance the explanatory power of the existing learning model by targeting the previously proposedpredictive model [5] that learned data from a core facility (Hyper Compressor) of a domestic chemical plant that produces polyethylene. The ensemble prediction model, which is a black box model, wasconverted to a white box model using the Explainable AI. The proposed methodology explains the direction of control for the major features in the failure prediction results through the Explainable AI. Through this methodology, it is possible to flexibly replace the timing of maintenance of the machine and supply and demand of parts, and to improve the efficiency of the facility operation through proper pre-control.

There have been a lot of studies in the past for the method of predicting the failure of a machine, and recently, a lot of researches and applications have been generated to diagnose the physical condition of the machine and the parts and to calculate the remaining life through various methods. Survival models are also used to predict plant failures based on past anomaly cycles. In particular, special machine that reflect the fluid flow and process characteristics of chemical plants are connected to hundreds or thousands of sensors, so there are not many factors that need to be considered, such as process and material data as well as application of derivative variables. In this paper, the data were preprocessed through time series anomaly detection based on unsupervised learning to predict the abnormalities of these special machine. Next, clustering results reflecting clustering-based data characteristics were applied to produce additional variables, and a learning data set was created based on the history of past facility abnormalities. Finally, the prediction methodology based on the supervised learning algorithm was applied, and the model update was confirmed to improve the accuracy of the prediction of facility failure. Through this, it is expected to improve the efficiency of facility operation by flexibly replacing the maintenance time and parts supply and demand by predicting abnormalities of machine and extracting key factors.