MAINTENANCE ENGINEERING
Introduction
Maintenance Engineering is the
discipline and profession of applying
engineering concepts to the
optimization of equipment,
procedures, and departmental
budgets to achieve better
maintainability, reliability, and
availability of equipment
Maintenance engineering is the
occupation that uses engineering
theories and practices to plan
and implement routine maintenance
of equipment and machinery. This
must be done in conjunction with
optimizing operating procedures and
budgets to attain and sustain the
highest levels of reliability and profit.
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Maintenance engineers are often
required to have knowledge of many
types of equipment and machinery. A
person working in the field of
maintenance engineering must have
in-depth knowledge of or experience
in basic equipment operation,
logistics, probability, and statistics.
-Experience in the operation and
maintenance of machinery specific to
a company's particular business is
also frequently required. Since the
position normally requires oral and
written communications with various
levels of personnel, excellent
interpersonal communication and
participatory management skills are
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also desirable.
Maintenance engineering positions
require planning and implementing
routine and preventive maintenance
programs. In addition, regular
monitoring of equipment is required to
visually detect faults and impending
equipment or production failures
before they occur.
These positions may also require
observing and overseeing repairs and
maintenance performed by outside
vendors and contractors. In a
production or manufacturing
environment, good maintenance
engineering is necessary for smooth
and safe daily plant operations.
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Maintenance engineers not only
monitor the existing systems and
equipment, they also recommend
improved systems and help decide
when systems are outdated and in
need of replacement. Such a position
often involves exchanging ideas and
information with other
maintenance engineers, production
managers, and manufacturing
systems engineers.
Maintenance engineering not only
requires engineers to monitor large
production machine operations and
heavy duty equipment, but also often
requires involvement with computer
operations.
Maintenance engineers may have to
deal with everything from PCs,
routers, servers, and software to more
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complex issues like local and off-site
networks, configuration systems, end
user support, and scheduled
upgrades. Supervision of technical
personnel may also be required.
Good maintenance engineering is vital
to the success of any manufacturing
or processing operation, regardless of
size. The maintenance engineer is
responsible for the efficiency of daily
operations and for discovering and
solving any operational problems in
the plant.
Maintenance
Maintenance is a routine and recurring
activity of keeping a particular
machine or facility at its normal
operating condition so that it can
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deliver its expected performance or
service
without causing any loose of time on
account of accidental damage or
breakdown”.
Once equipment is designed,
fabricated and installed, the
operational availability of the same is
looked after by the maintenance
requirement. The idea of maintenance
is very old and was introduced along
with inception of the machine. In the
early days, a machine was used as
long as it worked. When it stopped
working, it was either
repaired/serviced or discarded.
The high-cost sophisticated machines
need to be properly
maintained/serviced during their
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entire life cycle for maximizing their
availability. The development of
mechanization and
automation of production systems and
associated equipment, with the
accompanying development of
ancillary services and safety
requirements, has made it mandatory
for engineers to think about proper
maintenance of equipment.
Maintenance function also involves
looking after the safety aspects of
certain equipment where the failure of
component may cause a major
accident. For example, a poorly
maintained pressure vessel such as
steam boiler may cause a serious
accident.
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Objectives of maintenance
The objectives of maintenance should
be formulated within the framework of
the overall organizational setup so
that finally the goals of the
organization are accomplished. For
this, the maintenance division needs
to ensure that:
(a) The machinery and/or facilities are
always in an optimum working
condition at the lowest possible cost
(b) The time schedule of delivering to
the customers is not affected because
of non -availability of machinery
/service in working condition
(c) The performance of the
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machinery /facility is dependable and
reliable.
(d) The performance of the machinery
/facility is kept to minimum to the
event of the breakdown.
(e) The maintenance cost is properly
monitored to control overhead costs.
(f) The life of equipment is prolonged
while maintaining the acceptable level
of performance to avoid unnecessary
replacements.
Maintenance is also related with
profitability through equipment output
and its running cost.
Maintenance work enhances the
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equipment performance level and its
availability in optimum working
condition but adds to its running cost.
The objective of maintenance work
should be to strike a balance between
the availability and the overall running
costs.
The responsibility of the maintenance
function should, therefore, be ensure
that production equipment /facilities
are available for use for maximum
time at minimum cost over a
stipulated time period such that the
minimum standard of performance
and safety of personal and machines
are not sacrificed. These
days therefore, separate departments
are formed in industrial organizations
to look after the maintenance
requirements of equipment and
machines.
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Effects of maintenance
Maintenance, being an important
function in any production system,
has far reaching effects on the
system. If the right practice of
maintenance is not established for a
particular environment, it may lead to
serious problem of either over
maintenance or under maintenance.
The selection of a particular
maintenance policy is also governed
by the past history of the equipment.
Cost effective
maintenance will help in enhancing
productivity. It is therefore, is
important for the team associated
with maintenance work, to know how
much to maintain.
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The nature of the maintenance
function affects the life of equipment.
It is known from experience that
optimum maintenance will prolong the
life of the equipment, and on the
other hand,
carelessness in maintenance would
lead to reduced life of the equipment
and in some cases an early failure as
well. Further, proper maintenance will
help to achieve the production
targets. If the
availability of the equipment in good
working condition is high, the
reliability of the production will also be
high. Another important effect of the
maintenance function is the working
environment. If the equipment is in
good working condition, the operator
feels comfortable to use it otherwise
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there is a tendency to let the
equipment deteriorate further. To get
the desired results in maintenance
operations, there should be selective
development of skilled, semiskilled,
and unskilled labour. And also proper
job description is required for the jobs
in order to make full use of skilled
workforce available.
Types of maintenance systems
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Planned Maintenance: “The
maintenance organized and carried
out with forethought, control and the
use of records to a predetermined
plan.
Preventive Maintenance: “The
maintenance carried at predetermined
intervals or corresponding
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to prescribed criteria and intended to
reduce the probability of failure or the
performance degradation of an item.”
Breakdown Maintenance: – Repair
is undertaken only after failure of
system. Equipment is allowed to run
till it fails. Lubricating and minor
adjustments are done during the
period.
- Small factories where equipment are
very small and doesn’t use special
tools
- Isn’t suitable for big industries
Opportunistic Maintenance: – In
multi component system, several
failing components, often it is
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advantageous to follow opportunistic
maintenance. When an equipment or
system is taken down
for maintenance of one or few worn
out component, the opportunistic
maintenance can utilize for
maintaining or changing other wear
out components, even though they
are not failed.
-It is actually not a specific
maintenance system, but its a system
of utilizing an
opportunity which may come up any
time.
Corrective Maintenance –
Maintaining action for correcting or
restoring failed unit.
- Very vast scope for small actions like
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adjustment, minor repairs to redesign
of equipment
- Generally once taken and completed
fully usually carried out in four steps :
1st step : collection of data,
information and analysis
2nd step : identifying the causes
3rd step : find out the best possible
solution to illuminate likely causes
4th step : Implement those solutions
Emergency maintenance: It is
carried out as fast as possible in order
to bring a failed machine or facility to
a safe and operationally efficient
condition.
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Routine maintenance which
includes those maintenance activities
that are repetitive and periodic in
nature such as lubrication, cleaning,
and small adjustment.
Running maintenance which
includes those maintenance activities
that are carried out while the machine
or equipment is running and they
represent those activities that are
performed before the actual
preventive maintenance activities
take place.
Opportunity maintenance which is
a set of maintenance activities that
are performed on a machine or a
facility when an unplanned
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opportunity exists during the period of
performing planned
maintenance activities to other
machines or facilities.
Window maintenance which is a set
of activities that are carried out when
a machine or equipment is not
required for a definite period of time.
Shutdown preventive
maintenance which is a set of
preventive maintenance activities that
are carried out when the production
line is in total stoppage situation.
Remedial maintenance which is a
set of activities that are performed to
eliminate the source of failure without
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interrupting the continuity of the
production process.
Deferred maintenance which is a
set of corrective maintenance
activities that are not immediately
initiated after the occurrence of a
failure but are delayed in such a way
that will not affect the
production process.
Shutdown corrective maintenance
which is a set of corrective
maintenance activities that are
performed when the production line is
in total stoppage situation.
Design-out maintenance which is a
set of activities that are used to
eliminate the cause of maintenance,
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simplify maintenance tasks, or raise
machine performance from the
maintenance
point of view by redesigning those
machines and facilities which are
vulnerable to frequent occurrence of
failure and their long term repair or
replacement cost is very expensive.
Engineering services which include
construction and construction
modification, removal and installation,
and rearrangement of facilities.
Shutdown improvement
maintenance which is a set of
improvement maintenance activities
that are performed while the
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production line is in a complete
stoppage situation.
Predictive maintenance is a set of
activities that detect changes in the
physical condition of equipment (signs
of failure) in order to carry out the
appropriate maintenance work for
maximizing the service life of
equipment without increasing the risk
of failure.
It is classified into two kinds according
to the methods of detecting the signs
of failure:
– Condition-based predictive
maintenance
–Statistical-based predictive
maintenance
• Condition-based predictive
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maintenance depends on continuous
or periodic condition monitoring
equipment to detect the signs of
failure.
• Statistical-based predictive
maintenance depends on statistical
data from the meticulous recording of
the stoppages of the in-plant items
and components in order to develop
models for predicting failures.
The drawback of predictive
maintenance is that it depends
heavily on information and the correct
interpretation of the information.
Some researchers classified
predictive maintenance as a type of
preventive maintenance.
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The main difference between
preventive maintenance and
predictive maintenance is that
predictive maintenance uses
monitoring the condition of machines
or equipment to
determine the actual mean time to
failure whereas preventive
maintenance depends on industrial
average life statistics.
Challenges in Maintenance
The maintenance function of a
modern industry faces a number of
challenges attributable to:
Rapid growth of technology
resulting in current technology
becoming obsolete. Such a challenge
is a frequent one in Information and
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Communications Technology (ICT)
industry where computers and
computers-based system (hardware
and Software) is the main component.
Advent of new advanced diagnostic
tools, rapid repair systems, etc.
Advance store management
techniques to incorporate modular
technologies.
Requirements of keeping both
outdated and modern machines in
service. For example, many industrial
organizations have a combination of
the old machines working on obsolete
technology and new systems utilizing
the latest technology and equipment.
The effective management of
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maintenance aspects under such
challenging circumstances is
often a difficult job. Besides the
rectification of the faults in the
equipment, the activities of the
maintenance department include:
Up gradation of the existing plants
and equipment and training
maintenance personnel to attend the
required technical skills.
Effective maintenance of the old
equipment for higher availability
Cost optimization of all
maintenance functions
Improvement of maintenance
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activities in the areas of tribology and
terotechnology
Reconditioning of used
/unserviceable spare parts.
Development of indigenous sources
for parts for import substitution
Setting up of an effective
maintenance information
management system (MIMS).
Effective utilization of the
maintenance workforce.
Setting up of in house R&D
activities for effecting improvements
in maintenance practices.
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Reliability Centered Maintenance
It is used to identify the maintenance
requirements of equipment. The RCM
establishes the functional
requirements and the desired
performances standards of equipment
and these are then related to design
and inherent reliability parameters of
the machine. For each function, the
associated functional failure is
defined, and the failure modes and
the consequences of the functional
failures are analyzed.
The consequences of each failure are
established, which fall in one of the
four categories: hidden, safety or
environmental, operational, and no
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operational. Following the RCM logic,
preemptive maintenance tasks which
will prevent these consequences are
selected, provided the applicability
and effectiveness criteria for
preventive maintenance are satisfied.
The applicability requirements refer to
the technical characteristics and
effectiveness criteria for preventive
maintenance tasks and the frequency
at which these should be carried out.
Effectiveness criteria depend on the
consequences of the failure;
probabilities of the multiple failures
for hidden failure consequences,
acceptable low risk of failure for
safety consequences, and
nonoperational consequences. When
the requirements for planned
maintenance (PM) are not fulfilled,
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default tasks include failure finding
(for hidden failure, possible redesign
of equipment, procedures and training
processes) and no-schedule
maintenance.
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