Should we fix or improve?

Part of an effective asset management strategy is deciding when to fix something or when to improve it. The role of the engineer is to design or buy a product that meets the specification and production requirements.

The role of the maintenance team is to keep it operating as close to this level as possible at minimal cost. The choices the maintenance team make will affect the operational reliability.

According to BS4778-1:1987, reliability is the “ability of an item to perform a required function under stated conditions for a stated period of time”. The inherent reliability is the reliability of the item as it was designed. It doesn’t matter how much maintenance you perform, or how many inspections you complete, it will never improve on the inherent reliability.

Engineering and maintenance are there to support production in achieving the target output. During the acquire phase of the asset management life cycle, the item is purchased or designed and built. Let’s assume that the correct item was indeed acquired and installed. Maintenance then becomes a critical part of this strategy to assist operations to reach their production target by completing tasks to manage the risks of failure.

Failure is not an option

It takes months to design, days to install and seconds to break. If the consequence of failure is too high, whether that is safety, environmental or cost based, the maintenance team need to decide if there is a suitable scheduled preventive maintenance task to manage the consequence of failure. Where the anticipated life of the asset is known accurately, then a task can be planned in to overhaul or replace the asset before failure.  

However, as most failures occur randomly (Nowlan, F.S and Heap, H.F, Reliability-Centred Maintenance, 1978), then often a predictive or condition-based task is more effective. By determining the condition, the asset can be maintained before the functional failure occurs. Rather than scheduling the maintenance frequency based on what we believe is the correct date, data can be used to provide a more accurate prediction.

If no maintenance options are available to manage the risk adequately after assessing the effectiveness of the predictive, preventive or reactive maintenance options, then it’s time to consider an improvement with the help of the engineering team.

The roles of engineering and maintenance are important in the asset lifecycle. Through a best practice asset management system, teams can set up the administrative and technical actions using data and experience to keep the production system in good working order at minimal cost. It does however require an understanding of the fundamental techniques and processes available, if you want to achieve world class maintenance levels.

Matthew Laskaj

Specialist engineering and maintenance trainer

The Institution offers a number of courses within its maintenance portfolio, all designed to equip you with knowledge of the latest tools, techniques and best practices for asset management and maintenance.

For more information, or to discuss specific training requirements, contact us at training@imeche.org or by calling + 44 (0)20 7304 6907