How does maintenance management loop work?
Resource Needs, Defines people (training, competence, job descriptions, work processes), consumables,
spare parts, tools, and documentations required to carry out and manage maintenance
Goals and Requirements, Defines goals for risk, production, cost and related maintenance strategy
Maintenance Programme, Maintenance task selection includes maintenance interval and procedures for
maintaining, testing, inspecting, monitoring, predicting and preparing various components within the
plant to control or mitigate risks associated with degradation of a function.
Maintenance Planning, Structured set of activities that include the activities, frequencies, procedures,
resources and the time required to carry our maintenance tasks
Maintenance Execution, Preparations, work permits, carried work and reporting
Technical Conditions, results of operation and maintenance work done to the asset (Risk, Production,
Cost).
Reporting, collecting maintenance data, monitoring and following up Key Performance Indicators, and
comparing to established goals
Analysis, activity carried out to analyze historical maintenance data and unwanted incidents related to
maintenance, e.g. trend analysis, root cause analysis.
Improvement, activity carried out to identify improvement actions such as modifying or redesigning.
Management and Verification which management means (team, leaders, computerized systems) to
ensure that the maintenance work processes are followed.
How and to what extend NORSOK Z-008 considers maintenance engineering analysis?
Failure Mode analysis, Root cause analysis, Fault tree analysis, Event tree analysis, Reliability Prediction
(based on historical failure data, OREDA).
Maintenance task selection which needs to be implement what should be done based on consequence
classification and criticality.
Maintenance task design or Maintainability which is defined to design or modify facility and or lay out to
do maintenance in a faster or better way.
Supportive Maintenance tasks called Supportability that supportive equipment needs to be considered.
How does IEC 60706-2 consider maintenance design, and do you think it is necessary to do
maintenance analysis at the design phase?
In IEC 60706-2, the objectives of maintainability studies are: to guide design decisions, to predict the
quantitative maintainability characteristics of the item and to identify any changes to the item design or
the requirements are both which are necessary to meet operational requirements within the given
constrains.
Maintainability should be considered in detail as the integral part of the design of the product.
Maintainability studies, in conjunction with reliability studies, are undertaken to translate operational
requirements into detailed qualitative and quantitative maintainability requirements and design criteria
and their results should provide inputs to design decision making.
How do maintenance programmes differ from each other?
Preventive maintenance: this maintenance carried out at predetermined intervals or according to
prescribed criteria and intended to reduce the probability of failure or the degradation of the
functioning of an item. It includes Time based maintenance, Failure finding maintenance, Condition
based maintenance, Predictive maintenance and Risk base maintenance.
Corrective maintenance: it carried out after fault recognition and intended to put an item into a state in
which it can perform a required function. Also this category includes deferred maintenance and
Emergency maintenance.
Also it can be said that the different types of maintenance programs are: Reliability Centered
Maintenance (RCM), Risk based inspection (RBI), Condition based Maintenance (RCM), Predictive
Maintenance (PdM), Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). The difference between these programs is
maintenance triggers including Breakdown, Time based, Usage based, Event based, Historical data
based, Condition based, Prediction based
What is your opinion about maintenance programmes, shall we stick to one specific maintenance
programme or mix these programmes, please select a real case example and reflect on that?
To optimize time, total extend lifecycle of physical asset and assure safe working conditions, considering
different maintenance programs is highly beneficial as long as the system is complex. However, for
simple system a single maintenance policy is good enough to apply. For example, for non-critical
components with a relatively long life time no separate maintenance programs are scheduled;
maintenance happens if an opportunity arises due to a maintenance intervention for another
component of the machine. But in comparison with the past, today’s equipment is more complex since
automation installation became highly mechanized, so for such a system, in my opinion, a mixture of
maintenance policies is required.
N2 Diagram:
N2 diagram is used to show the divided subsystems of the main system, and also the connections
between the subsystems of the main system. It is really helpful when a technical problem happens in
the interface of the subsystems. The N2 diagram, also referred to as N2 chart, N-squared diagram or N-
squared chart, is a diagram in the shape of a matrix, representing functional or physical interfaces
between system elements.
For example if N equals 5, the five functions are placed on the diagonal. The arrows show the flow of
data between functions. So if function 1 sends data to function 2, the data elements would be placed in
the box to the right of function 1. If function 1 does not send data to any of the other functions, the rest
of the boxes to right of function 1 would be empty. If function 2 sends data to function 3 and function 5,
then the data elements would be placed in the first and third boxes to the right of function 2. If any
function sends data back to a previous function, then the associated box to the left of the function
would have the data elements placed in it. The squares on either side of the diagonal (not just adjacent
squares) are filled in with appropriate data to depict the flow between the functions. If there is no
interface between two functions, the square that represents the interface between the two functions is
left blank.
Analysis methods:
we need process map or P&ID to show a wide and overall scheme of the process. Next, we provide
system of system to break down system and considers the subsystems and external and internal
systems. Then N2 diagram is needed to illustrate the interfaces and the connection between the
external systems
We can use case scenarios to describe how the system is operating, managing and maintaining. There
are three methods to describe use case scenarios: 1. Use case scenarios diagram Use case scenarios
sequence diagram 3. Integration definition use case scenarios
We consider lifecycle process and stakeholders needs which describe the lifecycle processes chart. It
mostly helps to discover problems and causes.
We use Pugh-matrix for making solutions based on evaluating criteria.
1. It was about a bike which needed to be repaired and fortunately any part replacement was not
necessary, so the main steps were fault finding, disassembly, repair, paint and assembly.
I spent about 10 minutes on fault finding, as it was some how obvious. Disassembly lasted around an
hour. Repairing (and painting) was the most time consuming which took a whole day to be done.
Finally, assembling was done in about two or three hours.
In this particular case, fault finding was done before disassembly.
2. Of course yes, actually all of the faults and failures happened due to loss of preventing maintenance
task. So the faults could be completely avoided if a simple lubrication or cleaning was done regularly.
We have learned how to analyse failure modes, causes, and mechanisms, where we have also learned
several failure analysis methods like FMEA, FTA, and Cause-effect diagram. Moreover, we have
discussed how to analyse the historical maintenance data either from the case company or based on
OREDA.
Each student shall write a short reflection (at least 200 words) on:
1. How will you select the required failure analysis method (FMEA, FTA, and Cause-effect diagram), or
are you going to apply all of these methods? how will you decide?
2. Select one equipment within the OREDA handbook (Links to an external site.), and determine its
most critical failure mode, most critical maintainable item, and most critical failure descriptor (or
mechanism).
(1)
Although the three methods are useful for failure analysis, they have different functions:
FTA: analyses the mechanism of the failure
FMEA: analyses the failure mode and specific causes and consequences of the failure mode
Cause-effect diagram: analyses just the causes of the failure in details
So they are all needed to be applied for failure analysis, but the sequence may vary. In my opinion, the
first step should be FMEA to analysis the whole system in general and become aware about causes and
consequences of a potential failure mode. Next step is to use FTA and Cause-effect diagram to know
about all the failure causes in detail and also find information about exact mechanism of each failure.
(2)
Equipment: diesel engine
Most critical failure mode: fail to start in demand
Most critical maintainable item: instrument temperature
Most critical failure mechanism: leakage
We have learned several methods to forecast the preventive and corrective maintenance workload.
Each student shall write a short reflection (at least 200 words) on how to determine the required
spare parts (which parts, , how many (lot size), how frequent).
Which parts?
We should categories the requested spare part to capital, operational and consumables considering
consequence classification and also demand rate, for example, is the part repairable? Or is the part vital
to the function of the plant?
How many?
It depends on some important items like annual demand, ordering cost, holding cost, lead time, and
item cost, we should try to have lot size that minimizes the total inventory cost with respect to
elimination of shortages.
How frequent?
The decision is mostly based on preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, barrier analysis,
product reliability characteristics and operating environment. Also I think that this step strongly depends
on the two previous questions, so if we know the quantity and which part is required, we can decide
easier about the frequency.
We have learned how to build a good strategic maintenance plan.
Assume somebody has submitted a strategic maintenance plan, how will you decide if this strategic
plan is a good one or not?
Each student shall write a short reflection (at least 300 words) to answer this question and describe
what should be done to check any strategic maintenance plan.
As is defined, strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities,
focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are
working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and
adjust the organization’s direction in response to a changing environment. In another word, the set of
activities of the management that determine the maintenance objectives, strategies, and responsibilities
and implement them by means such as maintenance planning, maintenance control and supervision,
improvement of methods in the organization including economical aspects.
There are some items that must be considered while planning: the business goals of the
team/department, the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and challenges, O&M strategy,
O&M strategic plan, O&M vision and O&M mission.
A good strategic maintenance plan should consider Goal and Requirements. Also it should: 1. allow you
to determine your personal direction and stimulates forward thinking. 2. Coordinate efforts and
aspirations. 3. Guide you how to assess your progress with the help of tools and standards for measuring
progress. 4. Clarify your path, since it helps you to identify what you want to do and how to do it. 5.
Equip you with the required skills and knowledge to deal with even the unforeseen scenarios in life
(sudden changes, problems etc.). 6. Reveal the unclear situations and gives you a clear picture of how to
interact with tasks in long and short term. 7. Motivate you to act and sustain your energy in progress.
The main advice here is to keep things simple. Strategic Objectives should be easy to remember and
should be understandable by everyone within the organisation. That means no jargon (if possible), and
keeping them to one sentence long. You can add more detail of course, but you should be able to sum
up what you want to achieve quickly and simply. We suggest a structure as follows:
Action + Detail + Metric (indicator, KPIs) + Unit + Deadline
When you estimate the LCC for a specific maintenance programme, are you going to include the
equipment cost and its operating cost?
Yes, the Lifecycle Cost (LCC) Analysis has four main steps which are: a) Development cost. b)
Manufacturing, Procurement, construction, installation cost (Project cost). c) Operation, support and
Maintenance cost. d) Life extension or Decommission cost. As the result, considering these four steps,
LCC include the equipment cost and its operating cost.
If you estimate the OEE for a redundant system that has three equipment operated in 2 out of 3
pattern (two equipment are operating and one stand by), how will you estimate the OEE?
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) estimation is through this formula:
Availability*Performance*Quality
So system uptime, system downtime and system planning must be considered, and small stops which
are planned for this kind of system (2 out of 3) affect the OEE.
How can value-driven maintenance help in estimating the LTB for a specific maintenance programme.
When we are estimating the LTB, considering Production Losses (Asset utilisation), Cost or Losses Saving
(Benefits), SHEQ and other environmental issues can be helpful. The mentioned items are related to
value-driven maintenance. Moreover, some other items like society and employment are related to
value and should be considered by a company, like the mentioned example in the lecture which was
about farming or oil and gas industries.
