بهبود مستمر در اطلاعات و فن آوری های تعمیر ونگهداری بر خط برای افزایش سودآوری(کارآمدی هزینه)

Industries are increasingly paying attention to maintenance services, due to the relevance that maintenance is taking as a business and profit centre within the companies. Many of the improvements could be obtained using new technologies and strategies to maximize service level and to reduce the maintenance costs. Predictive maintenance (PdM) technologies, whether on-line or inspection, are key in this change as they provide supervision and control over assets condition. However, it is important to avoid risky upgrades that may have no positive effect on maintenance operations cost-benefits, and hence may serve to underestimate the potential of PdM and finally stop maintenance progress. Here is important to pay attention to several aspects of the proposed upgrades, such as the maturity of the proposed technologies. Also, the culture and organization of the company should be taken into account, and in particular is very important to understand the existing level of information management at the company, where bottlenecks at information acquisition, transmission or processing concerning reliability and maintenance operations can be expected. This paper presents a methodology that provides a continuous assessment of PdM technologies with respect to specific business scenarios. The methodology integrates existing reliability and maintenance business analysis techniques and standards, always having in mind the positive impact that may have the implementation of these technologies. A critical simulation tool is also developed in order to compare different PdM strategies. The paper finally explains how this methodology has a positive impact not only on the cost-effectiveness of maintenance processes, but also on the maintenance information available.

Performance improvements in maintenance activities are usually measured by availability and operational reliability indicators. They should be obtained preserving maximum quality and safety levels and minimizing the costs. In the current scenario of competitiveness, improvement efforts are essential to reach high levels of effectiveness and efficiency in every company’s production or operational department. The purpose is to achieve competitive advantage (in products or offered services) based on different hard-to-copy aspects, i.e.know-how.To obtain maximum performance, the organizations must be prepared for changes and there are three interconnected areas [1]:

This paper presents a methodology that provides a continuous assessment of PdM technologies with respect to specific business scenarios. While the methodology integrates mainly existing reliability and maintenance business analysis techniques and standards, new specific tools are added when necessary, such as a specific auditing tool for lubrication process analysis at step 3, or, more important, a simulation tool for step 4 able to provide coherent comparison of expected performance in KPIs for different potential maintenance strategies, including PdM strategies.As indicated, the impact is not only in the identification of best cost-effective alternatives, but also in the quality of information handled by the maintenance business units.It is expected that this tool may help companies, and specially maintenance services, to understand how a predictive technologies may push forward the maintenance business in many sectors (energy, transport, production,SME…) where there are different difficulties for the adoption of PdM technologies: Initial costs of PdM deployment and product integration; lack of understanding of these technologies and tools; and reticence for maintenance culture change. These drawbacks require proving, coherent tools that may show when new technologies are cost-effective.At the very end of this improvement process is the new role that the maintenance function is taking, particularly at the manufacturing industry. Taking into account the life-cycle management oriented approach, where limits on resources and energy consumption require a sharp change in the objectives of manufacturing, maintenance activities are gaining in attractiveness as business and profit sources, and will hence become of equal importance to actual production activities[10]. This change is causing a shift in emphasis from the need to produce more efficiently to ensure customer satisfaction and profitability, and the methodology presented here will surely help companies to develop this changing business focus with confidence in the actual and future performance of their maintenance processes.