April 21st, 2015
Introduction
Manufacturers in different sectors attempt to develop scheduled-maintenance programs for their equipments to realize the ultimate reliable capabilities of the equipment while achieve cost minimization objective. Failure evaluation can be the initial step in any scheduled maintenance program in order to classify failures and errors according to their frequency and severity. Economic consequences, therefore, can be analyzed in order to identify the required procedures involved to operating the equipment safely. This paper will discuss the relationship between reliability and scheduled maintenance in order to assess the impact of maintenance programs on overall reliability.
Scheduled-Maintenance Programs and its Impact on Reliability
Maintenance programs have for purpose to extend the equipment lifetime while preventing the occurrence of potential failures that may be require costing repairs. By enacting effective scheduled-maintenance programs, the frequency of service interruption can be reduced along with its potential consequences. Scheduled-maintenance procedures clearly affect components and system reliability; because the maintenance effort performed to save the machines can enhance system performance without compromising reliability. Therefore, scheduled-maintenance programs are tools for ensuring system reliability and satisfactory component and increase capacity by using more reliable components. One of the reliable maintenance programs is the Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM); it is a cost effective program for sustaining machine reliability and can be installed by different electric utilities to act as a powerful management tool. RCM program aims to ensure the realization of inherent safety and reliability levels of the designated equipment subject to maintenance; it tends to restore safety and reliability to their inherent level when failures have occurred by collecting needed information involved to design improvement of the broken items in the equipment.
Scheduled-maintenance programs go through the following procedures:
Determine the failure type, whether it is a potential failure or a functional failure.
Identify the safety consequences, such as the potential loss of certain components of the equipment
Categorize the consequences as operational and non-operational consequences; the operational consequences involve the possibility of loosing the equipment or one or more of its components; the non-operational consequences involve the direct loss of money and potential repair costs.
Scheduled-maintenance programs are necessary for any type of equipment in different manufacturing sectors in order to attenuate the risk of system failure to an acceptable level; it is a vital tool to reduce the economic consequences of equipment failures and its relevant costs.
References
Bloom, N. (2006). Reliability centered maintenance (RCM). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Endrenyi, J. (2001). The Present Status of Maintenance Strategies and the Impact of Maintenance on Reliability. IEEE Power Engineering Review, 21(12), 68-68. doi:10.1109/mper.2001.4311233
