Maintenance Engineering & Reliability Engineering

Maintenance Engineering Lecture IV

Definition - Maintenance Engineering

A staff function whose prime responsibility is to ensure that maintenance techniques are effective, equipment is designed and modified to improve maintainability, ongoing maintenance technical problems are investigated, and appropriate corrective and improvement actions are taken.

Definition Reliability Engineering

A staff function, responsible for risk management and life cycle asset management. It is a strategic resource that has single point accountability for providing the long-term business strategy that ensures production capacity, product quality, and best life cycle cost. Its mission is to provide the proactive leadership, direction, single point accountability, and technical expertise required to achieve and sustain optimum reliability, maintainability, useful life, and life cycle cost for a facilitys assets, as well as its processes.

Differences between Reliability Engineering and Maintenance Engineering

Reliability Engineering Strategic Command Pro-futuristic Approach Cheap to develop Intangible results Independent of other functions Maintenance Engineering Tactical Command Pro-present Approach Cost intensive Tangible results Dependent upon other functions

Maintenance Engineering Program



Identify, initiate, coordinate, and complete tactical maintenance and process improvement opportunities Technical support of operations or maintenance in assigned area, for example, trouble-shooting, turnaround scoping, spares management, and so on On new projects, assist project engineering with development and implementation of control plans, that is, criticality, preventive maintenance plan, spares, quality, maintainability, and operability

Continued


On existing assets, perform periodic reviews and upgrade and modify control plans Communicates with reliability engineering to ensure long-term operations and maintenance asset problems are appropriately investigated with solutions implemented Assist operations or maintenance management with department budgeting and expenditure forecasting Continuously track and evaluate operations or maintenance expenditures, for example, cost and labor-hours to ensure effective resource utilization

Continued


Facilitate positive change in the maintenance organization by proactively leading department initiatives. Act as a change agent in implementing crossfunctional plant business objectives Generate the maintenance reports for area of responsibility Completions of environmental health and safety (EHS) tasks, including excavation permits, preliminary hazard analysis (PHA), and the like Develop, implement, and survey best practices within area of responsibility.

Continued


 

Review major purchases to assure correct specifications and design Initiate, develop, and review capital improvement projects Generate the monthly maintenance report for area of responsibility Backup for maintenance supervisor Other duties and projects as assigned

Primary Maintenance Program Contents



A group of preventive maintenance tasks, which include

failure-finding tasks, scheduled to be accomplished at specified intervals, or based on condition.

    

The objective of these tasks is to identify and prevent deterioration below inherent safety and reliability levels by one or more of the following means: Lubrication or servicing Operational, visual, or automated check Inspection, functional test, or condition monitoring Restoration / Standardization / Calibration Discard or disposal

Secondary Maintenance Program



It is this group of tasks, which is determined by reliabilitycentered management (RCM) analysis, for example, it comprises the RCM based preventive maintenance program. A group of nonscheduled maintenance tasks which result from
Findings from the scheduled tasks accomplished at specified intervals of time or usage Reports of malfunctions or indications of impending failure (including automated detection)

The objective of this second group of tasks is to maintain or restore the equipment to an acceptable condition in which it can perform its required function.

What should you do?



An effective program is one that schedules only those tasks necessary to meet the stated objectives. It does not schedule additional tasks that will increase maintenance costs without a corresponding increase in protection of the inherent level of reliability. Experience has clearly demonstrated that reliability decreases when inappropriate or unnecessary maintenance tasks are performed, due to increased incidence of maintainer-induced faults.

Next time

Forms of Maintenance