Towards a Simpler Selection Process for Maintenance Strategies

Recent research at four large manufacturing sites in the North East of England showed that maintenance organisations were failing because they were locked in a cycle of quick fix and mend despite deploying extensive planned maintenance policies. Consequently they were unable to plan and formulate strategies because they did not have the time. Simple and quick tools were needed to select the best maintenance approach for the machines and the plant. Two possible selection tools were developed. Firstly a truth table was produced based on the key characteristics of each maintenance approach and these mapped against simplified failure mode combinations. This offered a quick and easy selection method for machines, based on failure mode patterns. Secondly, the macro level was addressed using a conceptual model employing a 2x2 matrix. This consisted of two axes, the level of machine failures and the level of improvement activity. The resulting framework was used to predict how maintenance organisations would progress from a state of reactive maintenance towards world class. Then informed by the truth table it was possible to select an appropriate maintenance approach which was most suitable for each stage. It is suggested that these two methods offer simple and quick approaches to guide vital maintenance decision making at plants in difficulty. This of course does not preclude the need to develop maintenance strategies but rather facilitates this process by freeing up time and resources

Development and implementation of preventive-maintenance practices in Nigerian industries.

A methodology for the development of PM using the modern approaches of FMEA, root-cause analysis, and fault-tree analysis is presented. Applying PM leads to a cost reduction in maintenance and less overall energy expenditure. Implementation of PM is preferable to the present reactive maintenance procedures (still prevalent in Nigeria

On the role of Prognostics and Health Management in advanced maintenance systems

The advanced use of the Information and Communication Technologies is evolving the way that systems are managed and maintained. A great number of techniques and methods have emerged in the light of these advances allowing to have an accurate and knowledge about the systems’ condition evolution and remaining useful life. The advances are recognized as outcomes of an innovative discipline, nowadays discussed under the term of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM). In order to analyze how maintenance will change by using PHM, a conceptual model is proposed built upon three views. The model highlights: (i) how PHM may impact the definition of maintenance policies; (ii) how PHM fits within the Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) and (iii) how PHM can be integrated into Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) programs. The conceptual model is the research finding of this review note and helps to discuss the role of PHM in advanced maintenance systems.EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020, 645733 - Sustain-Owner - H2020-MSCA-RISE-201

A commentary on recent water safety initiatives in the context of water utility risk management.

Over the last decade, suppliers of drinking water have recognised the limitations of relying solely on end-product monitoring to ensure safe water quality and have sought to reinforce their approach by adopting preventative strategies where risks are proactively identified, assessed and managed. This is leading to the development of water safety plans; structured ‘route maps’ for managing risks to water supply, from catchment to consumer taps. This paper reviews the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedure on which many water safety plans are based and considers its appropriateness in the context of drinking water risk management. We examine water safety plans in a broad context, looking at a variety of monitoring, optimisation and risk management initiatives that can be taken to improve drinking water safety. These are cross-compared using a simple framework that facilitates an integrated approach to water safety. Finally, we look at how risk management practices are being integrated across water companies and how this is likely to affect the future development of water safety p

Advanced Techniques for Assets Maintenance Management

16th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing INCOM 2018 Bergamo, Italy, 11–13 June 2018. Edited by Marco Macchi, László Monostori, Roberto PintoThe aim of this paper is to remark the importance of new and advanced techniques supporting decision making in different business processes for maintenance and assets management, as well as the basic need of adopting a certain management framework with a clear processes map and the corresponding IT supporting systems. Framework processes and systems will be the key fundamental enablers for success and for continuous improvement. The suggested framework will help to define and improve business policies and work procedures for the assets operation and maintenance along their life cycle. The following sections present some achievements on this focus, proposing finally possible future lines for a research agenda within this field of assets management

A novel tool for organisational learning and its impact on safety culture in a hospital dispensary

Incident reporting as a key mechanism for organisational learning and the establishment of a stronger safety culture are pillars of the current patient safety movement. Studies have suggested that incident reporting in healthcare does not achieve its full potential due to serious barriers to reporting and that sometimes staff may feel alienated by the process. The aim of the work reported in this paper was to prototype a novel approach to organisational learning that allows an organisation to assess and to monitor the status of processes that often give rise to latent failure conditions in the work environment, and to assess whether and through which mechanisms participation in this approach affects local safety culture. The approach was prototyped in a hospital dispensary using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles, and the effect on safety culture was described qualitatively through semi-structured interviews. The results suggest that the approach has had a positive effect on the safety culture within the dispensary, and that staff perceive the approach to be useful and usable

A framework for effective management of condition based maintenance programs in the context of industrial development of E-Maintenance strategies

CBM (Condition Based Maintenance) solutions are increasingly present in industrial systems due to two main circumstances: rapid evolution, without precedents, in the capture and analysis of data and significant cost reduction of supporting technologies. CBM programs in industrial systems can become extremely complex, especially when considering the effective introduction of new capabilities provided by PHM (Prognostics and Health Management) and E-maintenance disciplines. In this scenario, any CBM solution involves the management of numerous technical aspects, that the maintenance manager needs to understand, in order to be implemented properly and effectively, according to the company’s strategy. This paper provides a comprehensive representation of the key components of a generic CBM solution, this is presented using a framework or supporting structure for an effective management of the CBM programs. The concept “symptom of failure”, its corresponding analysis techniques (introduced by ISO 13379-1 and linked with RCM/FMEA analysis), and other international standard for CBM open-software application development (for instance, ISO 13374 and OSA-CBM), are used in the paper for the development of the framework. An original template has been developed, adopting the formal structure of RCM analysis templates, to integrate the information of the PHM techniques used to capture the failure mode behaviour and to manage maintenance. Finally, a case study describes the framework using the referred template.Gobierno de Andalucía P11-TEP-7303 M

A model and framework for online security benchmarking

The variety of threats and vulnerabilities within the online business environment are dynamic and thus constantly changing in how they impinge upon online functionality, compromise organizational or customer information, contravene security implementations and thereby undermine online customer confidence. To nullify such threats, online security management must become proactive, by reviewing and continuously improving online security to strengthen the enterpriseis online security measures and policies, as modelled. The benchmarking process utilises a proposed benchmarking framework to guide both the development and application of security benchmarks created in the first instance, from recognized information technology (IT) and information security standards (ISS) and then their application to the online security measures and policies utilized within online business. Furthermore, the benchmarking framework incorporates a continuous improvement review process to address the relevance of benchmark development over time and the changes in threat focus.<br /

Intelligent systems in manufacturing: current developments and future prospects

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are demanding increasing changes in manufacturing environments. Enterprises are required to constantly redesign their products and continuously reconfigure their manufacturing systems. Traditional approaches to manufacturing systems do not fully satisfy this new situation. Many authors have proposed that artificial intelligence will bring the flexibility and efficiency needed by manufacturing systems. This paper is a review of artificial intelligence techniques used in manufacturing systems. The paper first defines the components of a simplified intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS), the different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to be considered and then shows how these AI techniques are used for the components of IMS