CHAPTER ONE FEASIBILITIES STUDY OF MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES OF FOLDFIELDS PLANT. 1.0 Background Of Study.

The environment that companies operates today is changing rapidly and continuously, competition are fierce and the means to gain and keep market shares is a major concern (Miles & Snow 1992). Companys capability together with stakeholders and customers expectation has resulted in continuous increased pressure for both variety of production and swift delivery (Coyle et al. 2003). The change from a labor intensive industry to a technology-intensive industry and the increasing competition in the market place has set a platform for companies to continue to maintain the exploration of new ways that can keep them competitive so as to distinguish themselves and be profitable (Alsyouf, 2004; Al-Najjar, 2007). Maintenance as a support function is to guarantee machine availability and reliability, employees safety and cost effective production, which attest to the above mentioned objective. Maintenance as a business function serves and supports the primary process in any organization, its process adds to customer value in terms of quality, time and profit (Alsyouf, 2004). One feasible way to ensuring machine availability and reliability with respect to complex machine and equipment used in todays industries is maintaining the condition of such complex machines (Wireman, 1990). In addition to ensuring or maintaining the availability and reliability of machine/equipment, downtime is also becoming aggravated in many industries worldwide due to the increasing adoption of just-in-time (JIT) process, total quality-management (TQM) etc. Reduced stocks or inventory allied with JIT for example, mean that minor breakdowns are much more likely to impede or slow down production. Thus JIT requires high equipment availability, which means equipment must be ready to operate or perform when production demand is made and not break down during operation cycle (Wireman, 1990). Furthermore, the growth of mechanization and automation indicate that reliability and availability have become key issues in industries as well as other sectors as diverse as healthcare, electric-power generation stations, etc. requires preventive maintenance because the more automated the equipment, the more component that could fail and cause the entire piece of equipment to be taken out of service (Eti et al. 2006). Maintenance is the combination of all technical, administrative and managerial actions during the life cycle of an item intended to retain it in, or restore it to a state in which it can perform the required function. Today, most maintenance actions are carried out by either preventive- or corrective maintenance. The preventive maintenance, with its fixed intervals, is often guided by subcontractors or operation experience. With this technique, one tries to prevent plants components, sub-systems or systems to degrade to the degree of breakdown. This is done by repair, service or component exchange in preset intervals. Preventive maintenance is sometimes called planned-, historical- or calendar based

maintenance. With corrective maintenance one instead lets the component, sub-system or system, run until breakdown or obvious fault occurs before maintenance action is considered. Corrective maintenance is sometimes called breakdown maintenance or run-tofailure maintenance. Since a few decades industry has started to use predictive- and proactive maintenance. In the predictive maintenance, one decides on the maintenance intervals by assessing the condition of the asset. This is done through analysis of e.g. vibrations, oil quality, temperature, voltages and currents, acoustics etc. Preventive maintenance is also called Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). Proactive maintenance is also called Reliability based maintenance and Precision maintenance. In proactive maintenance one tries to find the root cause of a failure and then tries to prevent it from happening again by making changes in construction, operations or production. Statement of Problem. The consequences of industries paying little or no attention to maintenance activities in companies has made plants to be often underutilized and run at high costs. Statistics have shown that many industries in developing countries (e.g. Ghana where the focus of this paper is based upon) operate productively for less than 50% of the even supposedly functioning hour per year, which part of this is mainly caused by excessive downtime, supply failure for input resources and low spare capacity to cope with unexpected high demands. Aims and Objectives. The objective of this thesis is to theoretically show how maintenance perception in the company can be enhanced. Thus, this study focuses on practical policy as a method aimed at enhancing maintenance perception and culture in the various companies. This will facilitate the change in/ needed maintenance culture which has been adopted in most developing companies. Research Questions. Through extensive literature studies, some research areas within the various plant maintenance activities have been found for the research. What standards and standardization proposals can be found within the various plant maintenance activities and what effects do they have on future research? What aspects does a company need to consider when implementing the various plant maintenance activities what are the needed incentives to invest those activities? How should the maintenance activities be designed, technically, and what Artificial Intelligence methods and techniques can be used as a mean to diagnose an incipient fault and predict the remaining useful life? Are there differences between machines and vehicles? Significance of study. Though many companies are now beginning to be aware of maintenance and the significant role it plays in achieving organizational objectives, but even with this awareness, accurate

perception about the concept is still needed to fully exploit the advantages associated with it. Maintenance capabilities is been regard as an important development factors particularly in companies, thus, lack of maintenance is one of the reasons (if not the main reason) why most companies has failed to attain its prospective capability. In todays business, it is obvious that customers are the centre of any business; therefore, availability and reliability of plant is one of the fundamental solutions to sustain production capacity, product quality, prompt service and other factors threatening the security of companies to stay in business. Organisation of Study. This thesis is divided into 5 chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis through the problem being addressed, research motivation, the objectives of the study, the methodology, research difficulties and the thesis organization. A briefly description of maintenance activities of plant at Goldfields is given in this chapter. Chapter 2 provides a relevant review of the literature. The literature deals with maintenance activities of plant at Goldfields, viability of plant system, design, methodology and implementation of maintenance, and challenges to plant encounted. Chapter 3 provides a detailed assessment of the technical and economic feasibility of maintenance activities application at Goldfields. The chapter continues with the description of the methodology and procedures and cost estimation of a maintenance system. It also gives a comprehensive description of the RETScreen simulation model used in this study. Chapter 4 focuses on the financial mechanisms of maintenance activities dissemination at Goldfields. It also describes the role of maintenance activities dissemination and the product delivery model for the company. Chapter 5 includes the conclusion summary of the result obtained from the feasibility maintenance activities plant assessment. The chapter also includes some recommendations and suggested future research studies. Limitation Certain restriction which could influence the result of the study is outlined, hence readers should be informed. This thesis objective is to primarily outline the significance of maintenance knowledge and the setback of maintenance insufficiency at Goldfields. Nevertheless, this study could be even broader and more comprehensive but due to the limited time frame (which I can say is the main limitation when carrying out this research) this study will therefore be limited to the maintenance issues of the case company, mining Company. The economic importance of maintenance will not be discussed in this study due to lack of economic data from the case company, thus, it will focus on maintenance culture and practice adopted by the case company. Delimitation.

When evaluating the work methods and company culture, focus will be on the maintenance department and the departments that either is influenced by the maintenance department or influences the maintenance department. Focus will be on how breakdowns are handled, reported and prevented from reoccurring. Company culture and mentality will play an important role in the analysis and will therefore be evaluated, but because of the complexity in changing these aspects the project will not present any implementation strategies concerning this matter. Scope of Work This research covers the feasibility study of maintenance activities at Goldfields plant and the vital value to the company. The thesis will also focuses on the various type maintenance used in the company and their procedures.