Shrichakradhar.

com (MS-57)

MS 57: Maintenance Management

Guess Paper-1
Q. What do you understand by life cycle costing? Write down its characteristics and stages of product
life cycle.

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Ans. Life cycle costing is a system that tracks and accumulates the actual costs and revenues attributable
to cost object from its invention to its abandonment. Life cycle costing involves tracing cost and revenues
on a product by product base over several calendar periods.

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The Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of an asset is defined as:
“The total cost throughout its life including planning, design, acquisition and support costs and any other
costs directly attributable to owning or using the asset”.
Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of an item represents the total cost of its ownership, and includes all the cots that
will be incurred during the life of the item to acquire it, operate it, support it and finally dispose it. Life

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Cycle Costing adds all the costs over their life period and enables an evaluation on a common basis for

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the specified period (usually discounted costs are used).
This enables decisions on acquisition, maintenance, refurbishment or disposal to be made in the light of
full cost implications. In essence, Life Cycle Costing is a means of estimating all the costs involved in
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procuring, operating, maintaining and ultimately disposing a product throughout its life.
Life cycle costing is different from traditional cost accounting system which reports cost object
profitability on a calendar basis (i.e. monthly, quarterly and annually) whereas life cycle costing involves
tracing costs and revenues of a cost object (i.e. product, project etc.) over several calendar periods (i.e.
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projected life of the cost object).
Thus, product life cycle costing is an approach used to provide a long-term picture of product line
profitability, feedback on the effectiveness of the life cycle planning and cost data to clarify the economic
impact on alternative chosen in the design, engineering phase etc.
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It is also considered as a way to enhance the control of manufacturing costs. It is important to track and
measure costs during each stage of a product’s life cycle.
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Characteristics of Life Cycle Costing:

a. Product life cycle costing involves tracing of costs and revenues of a product over several calendar
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periods throughout its life cycle.

b. Product life cycle costing traces research and design and development costs and total magnitude of
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these costs for each individual product and compared with product revenue.
c. Each phase of the product life-cycle poses different threats and opportunities that may require different
strategic actions.
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d. Product life cycle may be extended by finding new uses or users or by increasing the consumption of
the present users.
Stages of Product Life Cycle Costing:
Following are the main stages of Product Life Cycle:
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(i) Market Research: It will establish what product the customer wants, how much he is prepared to pay
for it and how much he will buy.
(ii) Specification: It will give details such as required life, maximum permissible maintenance costs,
manufacturing costs, required delivery date, expected performance of the product.
(iii) Design: Proper drawings and process schedules are to be defined.
(iv) Prototype Manufacture: From the drawings a small quantity of the product will be manufactured.
These prototypes will be used to develop the product.

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(v) Development: Testing and changing to meet requirements after the initial run. This period of testing
and changing is development. When a product is made for the first time, it rarely meets the requirements
of the specification and changes have to be made until it meets the requirements.
(vi) Tooling: Tooling up for production can mean building a production line; building jigs, buying the
necessary tools and equipment’s requiring a very large initial investment.
(vii) Manufacture: The manufacture of a product involves the purchase of raw materials and

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components, the use of labour and manufacturing expenses to make the product.
(viii) Selling
(ix) Distribution
(x) Product support

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(xi) Decommissioning:
When a manufacturing product comes to an end, the plant used to build the product must be sold or
scrapped.
Q. What do you understand by terotechnology?

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Ans. Terotechnology is a practice that leverages management, engineering, and financial expertise to

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optimize installation, operations, and upkeep of equipment. Terotechnology is derived from the Greek
root word "tero" or "I care," which is used with the term "technology" to refer to the study of the costs
associated with an asset throughout its life cycle from acquisition to disposal. The goals of this
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multidisciplinary approach are to reduce the different costs incurred at the various stages of an asset's life
and to develop methods that will help extend its life span. The discipline of terotechnology may also be
known as "life-cycle costing."
At the core of terotechnology is keeping assets maintained at an optimal level so as to perfectly manage
the life-cycle costs of a physical asset. The discipline of terotechnology is primarily concerned with
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maintainability and reliability of physical assets. Terotechnology was developed in the 1970s in the
United Kingdom. It may be applied to machines, equipment, plants, buildings, and structures and
includes the revenues and expenses of the organization that acquires them.
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The practice of terotechnology is a continuous cycle that covers the entire lifespan of an object. It starts
with the design or selection of a given object and then proceeds to its installation or construction,
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commissioning, operation, and upkeep. Terotechnology also accounts for the end of an object's useful life,
such as its decommissioning or retirement; dismantling; or removal, sale, or disposal. Terotechnology
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then will start the cycle again with the consideration of the object's replacement.
Example of Terotechnology
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For example, an oil company is attempting to map out the costs of an offshore oil platform. They would
use terotechnology to forecast the exact costs associated with assembly, transportation, maintenance, and
dismantling of the platform and finally a calculation of salvage value.
The study and application of terotechnology is not an exact science, as there are many different variables
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that need to be estimated and approximated. However, a company that does not use this kind of study
may be worse off than one that approaches an asset's life cycle in a more ad hoc manner.
Q. What are the functions of management?
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Ans. Management in some form or another is an integral part of living and is essential wherever human
efforts are to be undertaken to achieve desired objectives. The basic ingredients of management are
always at play, whether we manage our lives or business.
“Management is a set of principles relating to the functions of planning, organizing, directing, and
controlling, and the applications of these principles in harnessing physical, financial, human, and
informational resources efficiently and effectively to achieve organizational goals”.
Management is essential for an organized life and necessary to run all types of organizations. Managing
life means getting things done to achieve life’s objectives and managing an organization means getting
things done with and through other people to achieve its objectives.

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There are basically five primary functions of management. These are:

1. Planning
2. Organizing
3. Staffing
4. Directing
5. Controlling

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The controlling function comprises coordination, reporting, and budgeting, and hence the controlling
function can be broken into these three separate functions. Based upon these seven functions, Luther
Gulick coined the word POSDCORB, which generally represents the initials of these seven functions i.e. P
stands for Planning, O for Organizing, S for Staffing, D for Directing, Co for Co-ordination, R for

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reporting & B for Budgeting.
But, Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, and Controlling are widely recognized functions of
management.
1. Planning

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It is the basic function of management. It deals with chalking out a future course of action & deciding in

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advance the most appropriate course of actions for achievement of pre-determined goals. According to
KOONTZ, “Planning is deciding in advance - what to do, when to do and how to do. It bridges the gap
from where we are and where we want to be”. A plan is a future course of actions. It is an exercise in
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problem solving and decision making. Planning is determination of courses of action to achieve desired
goals. Thus, planning is a systematic thinking about ways and means for accomplishment of pre-
determined goals. Planning is necessary to ensure proper utilization of human & non-human resources. It
is all pervasive, it is an intellectual activity and it also helps in avoiding confusion, uncertainties, risks,
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wastages etc.
2. Organizing
It is the process of bringing together physical, financial and human resources and developing productive
relationship amongst them for achievement of organizational goals. According to Henry Fayol, “To
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organize a business is to provide it with everything useful or its functioning i.e. raw material, tools,
capital and personnel’s”. To organize a business involves determining and providing human and non-
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human resources to the organizational structure. Organizing as a process involves:

• Identification of activities.
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• Classification of grouping of activities.

• Assignment of duties.
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• Delegation of authority and creation of responsibility.

• Coordinating authority and responsibility relationships.
3. Staffing
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It is the function of manning the organization structure and keeping it manned. Staffing has assumed
greater importance in the recent years due to advancement of technology, increase in size of business,
complexity of human behavior etc. The main purpose of staffing is to put right man on right job i.e.
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square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes. According to Kootz & O’Donell, “Managerial
function of staffing involves manning the organization structure through proper and effective selection,
appraisal & development of personnel to fill the roles designed un the structure”. Staffing involves:
• Manpower Planning (estimating man power in terms of searching, choose the person and
giving the right place).
• Recruitment, Selection & Placement.
• Training & Development.
• Remuneration.
• Performance Appraisal.

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• Promotions & Transfer.

4. Directing
It is that part of managerial function which actuates the organizational methods to work efficiently for
achievement of organizational purposes. It is considered life-spark of the enterprise which sets it in
motion the action of people because planning, organizing and staffing are the mere preparations for
doing the work. Direction is that inert-personnel aspect of management which deals directly with

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influencing, guiding, supervising, motivating sub-ordinate for the achievement of organizational goals.
Direction has following elements:
• Supervision

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• Motivation
• Leadership
• Communication
Supervision- implies overseeing the work of subordinates by their superiors. It is the act of watching &

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directing work & workers.

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Motivation- means inspiring, stimulating or encouraging the sub-ordinates with zeal to work. Positive,
negative, monetary, non-monetary incentives may be used for this purpose.
Leadership- may be defined as a process by which manager guides and influences the work of
subordinates in desired direction.
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Communications- is the process of passing information, experience, opinion etc from one person to
another. It is a bridge of understanding.
5. Controlling
It implies measurement of accomplishment against the standards and correction of deviation if any to
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ensure achievement of organizational goals. The purpose of controlling is to ensure that everything
occurs in conformities with the standards. An efficient system of control helps to predict deviations
before they actually occur. According to Theo Haimann, “Controlling is the process of checking whether or
not proper progress is being made towards the objectives and goals and acting if necessary, to correct any
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deviation”. According to Koontz and O’Donell “Controlling is the measurement & correction of
performance activities of subordinates in order to make sure that the enterprise objectives and plans
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desired to obtain them as being accomplished”. Therefore controlling has following steps:
• Establishment of standard performance.
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• Measurement of actual performance.

• Comparison of actual performance with the standards and finding out deviation if any.
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• Corrective action.
Q. What do you understand by Maintenance Organisation?
Ans. Organizing is the process of arranging resources (people, materials, technology etc.) together to
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achieve the organization’s strategies and goals. The way in which the various parts of an organization are
formally arranged is referred to as the organization structure. It is a system involving the interaction of
inputs and outputs. It is characterized by task assignments, workflow, reporting relationships, and
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communication channels that link together the work of diverse individuals and groups. Any structure
must allocate tasks through a division of labour and facilitate the coordination of the performance results.
Nevertheless, we have to admit that there is no one best structure that meets the needs of all
circumstances. Organization structures should be viewed as dynamic entities that continuously evolve to
respond to changes in technology, processes and environment, (Daft, 1989 and Schermerhorn, 2007).
Frederick W. Taylor introduced the concept of scientific management (time study and division of labour),
while Frank and Lilian Gilbreth founded the concept of modern motion study techniques. The
contributions of Taylor and the Gilbreths are considered as the basis for modern organization
management until the middle of the twentieth century maintenance has been carried out in an unplanned

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reactive way and for a long time it has lagged behind other areas of industrial management in the
application of formal techniques and/or information technology. With realization of the impact of poor
maintenance on enterprises’ profitability, many managers are revising the organization of maintenance
and have developed new approaches that foster effective maintenance organization. Maintenance cost
can be a significant factor in an organization’s profitability. In manufacturing, maintenance cost could
consume 2–10% of the company’s revenue and may reach up to 24% in the transport industry (Chelson,

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Payne and Reavill, 2005). So, contemporary management considers maintenance as an integral function in
achieving productive operations and high-quality products, while maintaining satisfactory equipment
and machines reliability as demanded by the era of automation, flexible manufacturing systems (FMS),
“lean manufacturing”, and “just-in-time” operations. However, there is no universally accepted

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methodology for designing maintenance systems, i.e., no fully structured approach leading to an optimal
maintenance system (i.e., organizational structure with a defined hierarchy of authority and span of
control; defined maintenance procedures and policies, etc.). Identical product organizations, but different
in technology advancement and production size, may apply different maintenance systems and the

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different systems may run successfully. So, maintenance systems are designed using experience and

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judgment supported by a number of formal decision tools and techniques. Nevertheless, two vital
considerations should be considered: strategy that decides on which level within the plant to perform
maintenance, and hence outlining a structure that will support the maintenance; planning that handles
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day-to-day decisions on what maintenance tasks to perform and providing the resources to undertake
these tasks. The maintenance organizing function can be viewed as one of the basic and integral parts of
the maintenance management function (MMF). The MMF consists of planning, organizing, implementing
and controlling maintenance activities. The management organizes, provides resources (personnel,
capital, assets, material and hardware, etc.) and leads to performing tasks and accomplishing targets.
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Having a clear mission, strategy, and objectives facilitated by a corporate culture, organizing starts the
process of implementation by clarifying job and working relations (chain of command, span of control,
delegation of authority, etc.). In designing the maintenance organization there are important
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determinants that must be considered. The determinants include the capacity of maintenance,
centralization vs decentralization and in-house maintenance vs outsourcing. A number of criteria can be
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used to design the maintenance organization. The criteria include clear roles and responsibilities, effective
span of control, facilitation of good supervision and effective reporting, and minimization of costs.
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Maintenance managers must have the capabilities to create a division of labour for maintenance tasks to
be performed and then coordinate results to achieve a common purpose. Solving performance problems
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and capitalizing on opportunities could be attained through selection of the right persons, with the
appropriate capabilities, supported by continuous training and good incentive schemes, in order to
achieve organization success in terms of performance effectiveness and efficiency.
Goals and Objectives of Maintenance Organizations
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The goals and objectives of the maintenance organization determine the type of maintenance
organization that is established. If the goals and objectives are progressive and the maintenance
organization is recognized as a contributor to the corporate bottom line, variations on some of the more
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conventional organizational structures can be used.

The typical goals and objectives for a maintenance organization are as follows:
1. Identify and Implement Cost Reductions: This objective is for the maintenance organizations to find
ways to decrease maintenance and operations expenses. By examining maintenance practices,
adjustments could be made in tools, training, repair procedures and/or work planning for reducing the
amount of labour or materials that may be required to perform a specific job. In addition, any time gained
while making repairs translates into reduced downtime (or increased availability), which is more costly
than maintenance expenditures.

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2. Minimize Energy Usage: Equipment and facilities that are properly maintained will require less
energy to operate.
3. Minimize Inventory on Hand: Since maintenance spare parts average 40 % of the total maintenance
budget, reducing the on-hand quantities is a key issue. The costs of holding an inventory item in stock
will average between 20% to 30% of the actual price of the item. Any reduction in inventory results in
compounded savings.
4. Maximum production or availability of facilities at the lowest cost and at the highest quality and

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safety standards. This statement seems to be all encompassing and can be divided into some smaller
components) Maintaining Existing Equipment and Facilities:- This is the primary reason for the existence
of the maintenance organization. Unless the equipment or facilities owned by the plant are operating or

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functional, there is no advantage in having them.
b) Equipment and Facilities Inspections and Services:- This is generally referred to as the
preventive/predictive maintenance program. This activity is designed to increase the availability of the
equipment/facilities by reducing number of unexpected breakdown or service interruptions.

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5. Provide Accurate Equipment Maintenance Records: A plant or machine history record is analogous to

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the medical history record kept by a medical practitioner. The regular perusal and analysis of plant
maintenance records is the only sound and logical way of obtaining the information that will enable
the management to take action based on factual data to raise maintenance standards and improve cost
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effectiveness.
6. Optimize Equipment Life: Any equipment requires proper maintenance if it is to deliver its desired
service life.
7. Optimize Maintenance Resources: Making the most with the resources in hand is important in
maintenance. There may be a very few maintenance organizations that have as many people, materials,
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or tools as they could use.

As there is always a shortage of maintenance resources, they have to be used carefully. This can be
achieved by proper planning and scheduling of plant maintenance work load.
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Q. What do you understand by Zero Based Budgeting?

Ans. Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for
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each new period. The process of zero-based budgeting starts from a "zero base," and every function
within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built around what is needed
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for the upcoming period, regardless of whether each budget is higher or lower than the previous one.
A zero based budget breaks the overall demand for maintenance services into its constituents, that is,
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assets or areas. In addition to the unit or asset list, a zero based budget has allocations for certain areas
that are hard to define as assets such as electrical system on pavement. All these maintenance activities
can be traced back to one of the following eight demands. A demand is a categorization of where
maintenance labour or materials are expended.
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• User Maintenance: User maintenance (UM) is the maintenance based on the requests received
from the user department. This includes both routine as well as breakdown maintenance
requests. Previous year data can be used to budget this exercise.
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• Seasonal Maintenance: Review of roofing, checking of air conditioners before summer are
seasonal maintenance (SM). Some percentage of seasonally driven emergencies are also included
in this list. Budgets are based on history.
• Preventive Maintenance: Based on the facility and equipment size, use, Management
construction and the standard times of the preventive maintenance (PM) activities, the total time
for PM activities is calculated. In a Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) shop, some of the PM
hours will come from shop floor workers. Materials used for each service are also added. Some

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time for the short repairs that the machine will get is also included. Since PM has flexibility in
scheduling, the PM can be considered as a level demand activity throughout the year.
• Expansion: Any expansion in the size of facility, size of work force, addition of scope of control
will expand the overall budget requirements. New facilities disrupt the current activities as well
as taking direct time. Estimation of additional time and other resources is to be made.
• Catastrophes: Every part of the country has characteristic catastrophes. This can include flood,

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hurricane, fire etc. Add some labour hours and materials to the budget.
• Corrective Maintenance: The deficiencies in the facility or equipment found during PM are
recorded separately and taken up as scheduled maintenance. These are considered schedule

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work so long they don’t interrupt job in process. Previous year’s data can be used to know this
demand.
The Basics of Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB)
ZBB allows top-level strategic goals to be implemented into the budgeting process by tying them to

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specific functional areas of the organization, where costs can be first grouped and then measured against

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previous results and current expectations.
Because of its detail-oriented nature, zero-based budgeting may be a rolling process done over several
years, with a few functional areas reviewed at a time by managers or group leaders. Zero-based
budgeting can help lower costs by avoiding blanket increases or decreases to a prior period's budget. It is,
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however, a time-consuming process that takes much longer than traditional, cost-based budgeting. The
practice also favours areas that achieve direct revenues or production, as their contributions are more
easily justifiable than in departments such as client service and research and development.
Example of Zero-Based Budgeting
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Suppose a company making construction equipment implements a zero-based budgeting process calling
for closer scrutiny of manufacturing department expenses. The company notices that the cost of certain
parts used in its final products and outsourced to another manufacturer increases by 5% every year. The
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company has the capability to make those parts in-house using its own workers. After weighing the
positives and negatives of in-house manufacturing, the company finds it can make the parts more
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cheaply than the outside supplier.

Instead of blindly increasing the budget by a certain percentage and masking the cost increase, the
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company can identify a situation in which it can decide to make the part itself or buy the part from the
external supplier for its end products. Traditional budgeting may not allow cost drivers within
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departments to be identified. Zero-based budgeting is a more granular process that aims to identify and
justify expenditures. However, zero-based budgeting is also more involved, so the costs of the process
itself must be weighed against the savings it may identify.
Q. Write about VED Analysis and ABC Analysis.
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Ans. VED ANALYSIS: VED analysis is an inventory management technique that classifies inventory
based on its functional importance. It categorizes stock under three heads based on its importance and
necessity for an organization for production or any of its other activities. VED analysis stands for Vital,
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Essential, and Desirable.

V-VITAL CATEGORY: As the name suggests, the category “Vital” includes inventory, which is
necessary for production or any other process in an organization. The shortage of items under this
category can severely hamper or disrupt the proper functioning of operations. Hence, continuous
checking, evaluation, and replenishment happen for such stocks. If any of such inventories are
unavailable, the entire production chain may stop. Also, a missing essential component may be of need at
the time of a breakdown. Therefore, order for such inventory should be before-hand. Proper checks
should be put in place by the management to ensure the continuous availability of items under the “vital”
category.

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E- ESSENTIAL CATEGORY
The essential category includes inventory, which is next to being vital. These, too, are very important for
any organization because they may lead to a stoppage of production or hamper some other process. But
the loss due to their unavailability may be temporary, or it might be possible to repair the stock item or
part.
The management should ensure optimum availability and maintenance of inventory under the

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“Essential” category too. The unavailability of inventory under this category should not cause any
stoppage or delays.
D- DESIRABLE CATEGORY
The desirable category of inventory is the least important among the three, and their unavailability may

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result in minor stoppages in production or other processes. Moreover, the easy replenishment of such
shortages is possible in a short duration of time.

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IMPORTANCE OF VED ANALYSIS

It is of utmost importance to any organization to maintain an optimum level of inventory. Maintaining
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inventory has its costs, and hence, this analysis bifurcates inventory in three parts to help in managerial
decisions on inventory maintenance. There are four types of costs to maintain stock which are:
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ITEM COST
This is the cost or price of the inventory items. It is the actual purchase value of holding stock. Therefore,
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it will be high with more inventory and vice-versa.

ORDERING / SET-UP COST
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The purchase of inventory involves certain costs. These may include transportation charges, packing
charges, etc.
HOLDING COSTS
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After the purchase of inventory items, there are a few costs too. These may be related to storage,
insurance charges of stock or inventory, labour costs associated with the handling of stock, etc. Moreover,
it includes any damage, leakage, or pilferage of the stock in hand.
STOCK OUT COST
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These costs are the result of an inventory item running out of stock. It includes loss of production due to a
spare part getting out of stock. Moreover, this may delay the product sale. Also, the product itself may
get out of stock. Such losses are a part of the stock out cost.
VED analysis is a crucial tool to understand and categorize inventory according to its importance.
Because of it, the management can optimize costs by investing more in the vital and essential categories
of stock and lesser in the desirable category of inventory.
Usage of Ved Analysis

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Small and big organizations both widely use VED analysis. The most important application of this
analysis is in maintaining medical inventory in hospitals and their drug stores. Drugs and related
supplies comprise a significant portion of a hospital’s budget. Moreover, maintaining the right quantity
of the right drugs is an extremely challenging task for management. While a shortage of critical medicine
can lead to crises and even loss of lives, an abundance of non-important medications can lead to blockage
of money and space, both.

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VED analysis helps in dividing medicines into the three categories as per their usage and importance.
Therefore, medication in the vital group is to be kept in stock compulsorily, as they would be critical for
patients. Medicines which are a bit less risky, or which can be obtained from other sources too at short
notice, become part of an essential category. Those that are least critical and their shortage will not pose

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any danger to a patient’s health, and lives get its place in the desired class. As a result, the hospital’s
management can wisely allocate resources on medical inventory as per their respective VED categories.
Resources are always scarce for any organization, and thus optimum utilization of available resources is
the key to success. Since costs related to maintaining inventory are high, it becomes the responsibility of

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the management to tackle these costs effectively. Scientific methods like VED analysis help in maintaining

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an optimum level of stock, without posing risks of shortages or non-availability of essential spares, parts,
or products.
ABC ANALYSIS
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ABC method of inventory control involves a system that controls inventory and is used for materials and
throughout the distribution management. It is also known as selective inventory control or SIC.
The ABC analysis is widely used in supply chain management and stock checking and inventory system
and is implemented as a cycle counting system. It is most important for companies that seek to bring
down their working capital and carrying costs.
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This done by analysing the inventory that is in excess stock and those that are obsolete by making way
for items that are readily sold. This helps avoid keeping the working capital available for use rather than
keeping it tied up in unhealthy inventory.
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When a company is better able to check its stock and maintain control over the high-value goods it helps
them to keep track of the value of the assets that are being held at a time. It also brings order to the
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reordering process and ensures that those items are in stock to meet the demands.
The items that fall under the C category are those that slow-moving and need not be re-ordered with the
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same frequency as item A or item B. When you put the goods into these three categories, it is helpful for
both the wholesalers and the distributors to identify the items that need to be stocked and those that can
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be replaced.
Advantages of ABC Analysis
i) This method helps businesses to maintain control over the costly items which have large amounts of
capital invested in them.
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ii) It provides a method to the madness of keeping track of all the inventory. Not only does it reduce
unnecessary staff expenses but more importantly it ensures optimum levels of stock is maintained at all
times.
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iii) The ABC method makes sure that the stock turnover ratio is maintained at a comparatively higher
level through a systematic control of inventories.
iv) The storage expenses are cut down considerably with this tool.
v) There is provision to have enough C category stocks to be maintained without compromising on the
more important items.
Disadvantages of using the ABC Analysis
i) For this method to work and render successful results, there must be proper standardization in place
for materials in the store.
ii) It requires a good system of coding of materials already in operation for this analysis to work.

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iii) Since this analysis takes into consideration the monetary value of the items, it ignores other factors
that may be more important for your business. Hence, this distinction is vital.
The ABC model works in a manner as to get prime attention to the important items or the critical few and
not have unnecessary attention be spent on the not so important items or the trivial many. Each category
has a differing management control in place.
This prioritization of attention and focus is vital to keep the costs in check and under control in the

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supply chain system. To get the best results it is important that items that involve a lot of costs are given
the due management attention.
Q. State Elements of Maintainability.
Ans. The improvement in maintainability is an important aspect of design and maintenance department.

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The various policies and decisions related to maintainability can be classified as:
a) Design decisions
b) Maintenance policies
c) Technician requirement

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The combined effect of these three affects the various components of down time viz.,

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i) Detection Time
ii) Diagnosis Time
iii) Correction Time
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iv) Verification Time
Design Decisions
• Modular design of equipment
• Standard fasteners
• Limited variety and sizes of fasteners
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• Interchangeability of components
• Good approach to detect and correct fault
• Quick opening arrangement
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• Use of components with fail safe measures

• Better labeling and color coding to prevent wrong connections
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Maintenance Policies
• Repair vs. Discard
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• Replacement policy
• Spare parts policy
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• Condition monitoring
• Proper instruments for monitoring of system
• Use of torque wrenches and other efficient tools
• Use of crane and other lifting mechanisms for heavy components
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Technician Requirements
• Education, experience, aptitude of technicians
• Training to technicians to analyze tasks, understand procedures.
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• Compatibility of man and system

Availability: Reliability and maintainability jointly affect the equipment availability for the user. A
highly reliable system, which fails very rarely, may take a long time to repair and decommission, once it
fails. Thus the availability of highly reliable equipment is reduced by its poor maintainability. Similarly,
equipment may have good maintainability, but if its reliability is poor and fail frequently can result in
poor availability.
At the design stage, the operational availability requirements can be converted to reliability and
maintainability requirements within the constraints of the mission. Several alternative combinations of
reliability and maintainability can be obtained for any given availability level. In the working of a

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machine for 100 hours, one hour. Alternatively, failure of 10 with each down time of 30 minutes will give
availability of 95%. Both these rates may be tolerable from the operational view point. Other alternatives
giving 95 % availability, like 100 failures each with down time of 3 minutes may not be operationally
suitable. From the operationally suitable alternatives, total cost of the alternatives should be investigated.
Total cost of improving availability consists of cost of improving reliability and cost of improving
maintainability. Reliability improvement is one time investment cost, which then result in recurring

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savings in maintenance cost over the life of the equipment. The need for cost minimization among
reliability improvement and maintainability improvement alternatives that meet operational
requirements leads to trade off studies between reliability and maintainability. Attaining a desired level
of system availability requires a complex process involving many resources of which system reliability

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and maintainability requirements are generalized characteristics describing system performance during a
time period. The system availability A can be described as follows, assuming steady state conditions.
A= [MTBF/ (MTBF + MTR + MTWS)]
A Availability of the system,

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MTBF Mean Time between Failure

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MTR Mean Time to Repair
MTWS Mean Time Waiting for Spares, reflecting supply
Availability can also be expressed as input-output function:
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A = f (R, M, S)
Where
A Availability
R Reliability
M Maintainability
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S Supply Effectiveness
The relation above shows that reliability and maintainability are the product of resource combination,
which then result in system availability.
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With the increase in complexity and the opportunity cost of non- availability of equipment when
required, the understanding of the concepts of reliability, maintainability and availability of equipment is
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becoming more and more important. Reliability is the probability of a product/ equipment/ process/
system performing its intended function for a stated period of time under certain specified conditions,
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whereas maintainability is concerned with the bringing back failed equipment to its operable condition
with in a specific down time. Reliability and maintainability together decide the availability of the
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equipment. It is possible that equipment with high reliability may have low availability due to poor
maintainability and vice a versa. The various elements under design decisions, maintenance policies and
technician requirement affect the reliability, maintainability and availability. In this unit, you have
studied the concepts of reliability, maintainability and availability. With the help of numerical, you also
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know how to calculate reliability as mean time to failure. The various elements to improve reliability and
maintainability are also presented.
Q8. What is matching of expectations and role of human resource development.
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Ans. In the olden times an employee, especially a worker was treated more like a mindless machine than
as a human being. Other than basic technical skills that he/she had to have, he/she was not given any
training and was left to his/her own to improve himself. It was a case of survival of the fittest (as seen by
his superiors) that Key Issues in Maintenance Management dictated his/her career path. This process
never brought out the full creative potential even amongst the best of employees. Often, it brought out
one’s cunning ability to step on others for one’s own success. There was no conscious or organized
attempt towards developing talents, and attitudes, and relationships that could contribute to achievement
of significantly higher level of performance of the individual and through him, the organization. Artificial
methods of increasing output such as purely financial incentives and fear of dismissal had to be used. The

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enterprise, therefore, did not get the most out of its workforce. Managing such a workforce was quite
stressful to the managers. Conditions have changed a great deal in recent years. Global competition has
forced management to look into ways and means of increasing productivity and reduce costs. At all
levels technological advances have placed greater demands on the thinking process rather than just the
physical side of work. The tremendous difference made to organization efficiency, morale of workforce,
and relatively stress-free gain in productivity by companies that invested in the development of their

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employees has convinced most management that human resource development (HRD) is the
fundamental and probably the most important responsibility/duty of the organization.
Matching of expectations: To understand the meaning of HRD, one must ask what the management of
an organization wants from the workforce and what do the individuals that make up the workforce want

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from their job. Once these matters are clear, the manner and method of HRD for a given organization will
become clear. At this stage, it is important to recognize that HRD is a function and not a department
exclusively dealing with this topic. As such, its activity and responsibility stretches across many parts of
the organization and at many levels.

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Expectations of the Organization

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The explicit or implicit expectations of an organization from its employees are:
• Skill of the Job: A machine tool operator should handle the machine skillfully, safely and
without damage, and should produce error-free product. A vehicle driver should drive smoothly
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at the right speed, practice good road discipline and laws and also take care of the vehicle. A
clerk should know the related procedure, type fast and file documents correctly. A mechanic
should correctly diagnose a fault in a machine, and repair it quickly and fully in minimum time
etc.
• Commitment: The employee should show some responsibility to the task and not find excuses to
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shirk from work. He/she should show initiative and interest and solve minor work-related
problems himself. He/she should also report to the superior, upcoming difficulties or growing
problems that are outside his/her ability or authority to tackle.
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• Versatility: Complexities of modern machines and workplace demand higher degree of

specialization on the part of the work force than ever before. Yet, in many work areas tasks of
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different skills overlap. The employee must stretch his/her hand to take on a part of such ‘gray’
areas of work and achieve close coordination to save time. Also, sometimes there is a need for a
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person to do more than one task. In many cases, it is not even economical to employ a full time
specialist for jobs that cannot load him/her fully. A versatile employee can be easily trained to
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take on new roles that are inevitable in the rapidly changing industrial scenario.
• Team Spirit: More and more of today’s work is teamwork. A cooperative and mutually
supportive attitude, willingness to go with others or take others with oneself, tolerance for
different viewpoints, and having a sense of ownership about the team rather than glorifying
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oneself at the cost of the team, are the best indicators of team spirit. These can be inculcated but
the individual must also be amenable to it.
• Discipline: An organization has to have procedures and rules of conduct in order to ensure
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predictability and to avoid chaos. This involves some restraints on everybody. Constantly
rebelling against the rules simply to emphasize one’s own independence is disastrous to the
functioning of any group, department or even a whole organization. In this sense, the
organization has a right to expect disciplined behavior from the employees.
From the managers, the organization has some additional expectations. These will naturally change
according to the size and nature of the organization, but broadly these are:
• Professional knowledge of the business/industry/technology
• Skills of planning, coordinating and controlling work
• Resourcefulness and problem solving ability

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• Being innovative
• Leadership qualities (including decision making)
Expectations of the Employees
The expectations of managers and other employees from the organization are:
• Adequate monetary compensation
• Job satisfaction (Pride that his/her skills had been well utilized)

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• Social interaction at workplace
• Fairness and justice in dealing by their superiors in particular and by the organization at large
• Opportunities for growth
• Stress free work culture

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• Recognition by superiors
• Freedom to share/express his/her opinions and thoughts about work
These fit into Abraham Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’. In the old days, the attitude of slavery at work
prevented expression of the needs. With our enlightened society, protective labour laws, and fast

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communications, the modern employee has become aware and more vocal about them.

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Role of Human Resource Development: HRD can now be seen as ‘developing the workforce in such a
way as to match the organizational needs and the needs of its work force’. Implicit in this approach is the
recognition that the work force is its most important instrument of growth. It is worth noting that in the
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Indian Army ‘man management’ has always been given the highest priority – even greater than
professional competence and weaponry.’ Man is to machine (weapon) as three is to one’ is the refrain in
military leadership, administration and training. How can an organization grow unless its most
important instrument itself grows? The term ‘growth’ applied to an individual in an organization means
developing his qualities that make him more useful to the organization. Behavioral scientists have
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discovered that the individual’s growth for self also contributes to the growth of the organization. A
constructive look at the areas where the personal and the organizational expectations and needs could
match or be complimentary, will help bring out ways and means to develop the human being as a
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resource. Some expectations are common to all, but other will vary to some extent with the job. For
instance, the expectations of/from a research scientist would be different of/from a worker in a coalmine.
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Expectations of/from a machine tool/crane operator would be different from that of/from an accounts or
stores clerk or a maintenance technician. This paper deals with HRD for maintenance, where the specific
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needs of maintenance have been considered.

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MS 57: Maintenance Management

Guess Paper-2
Q. Clarify the basic statistics, including all the commonly used probability distributions.
Ans. Modernization and urgent need for higher productivity have brought with them sophisticated

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equipment and machines. Such sophisticated plants and machines, or in general, sysctl incorporate newer
technologies and designs which are generally not adequately proven, and also in most cases consist of a
larger number of assemblies/ sub-assemblies/components, and, therefore, tend to have high probabilities

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of failure. These failures cause disruption in production resulting fro111 a loss of availability of the
system and also result in an increase in the direct cost of maintenance. The cost of maintaining modem
industrial systems is very high and it inputs also be realized that this direct cost of maintenance does not
include the cost of lost production due to unavailability of the system, which, in turn, is as much as, if not
more than, the direct cost of maintenance. Thus there exists an urgent need for the fulfillment of two

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objectives, namely, the maximization of availability, and minimization of the life cycle cost of

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maintenance. Availability is a function of reliability and maintainability, and system availability also
depends to a great extent 011 the maintenance practices and procedures adopted by the user
organization.
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Reliability: A Basic Component of Assurance Sciences
Reliability as a science was born during World War I1 in the military installations. Initially, in the 1950's,
contributions were mainly in the areas of life testing research, development of some mathematical models
and identification of some statistical distributions which could be used to represent the failure patterns
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and failure distributions of electronic equipment. Later when the importance of reliability itself and
reliability prediction and estimation as inputs to maintenance planning and generally to tilt ‘area of
management of industrial maintenance became evident, the practicing engineers and equipment
manufacturers got interested., A lot of work has been done in the last three decades, and reliability
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engineering has become an essential part of assurance sciences, together with quality assurance and
maintainability engineering. The assurance sciences are well-entrenched engineering disciplines, which
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govern the quality, safety, economy, serviceability and long-term dependability of modern systems.
BASIC STATISTICS
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Reliability, maintainability and availability are all stated in terms of probabilities, and the measures of
reliability and 1naintainabilii.y are MT'TF and MTTR, which are both expected values derived fi40m
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failure and repair data. Moreover, component reliabilities can be adequately represented by known
probability distributions, such as exponential, Weibull etc. Statistics forms the backbone of reliability and
maintainability engineering. Statistics is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis,
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interpretation and presentation of numerical data. The application of statistical techniques imply the
selection of a subset of a large collection of data, on measurement, and analysis of the data obtained in
order to infer the characteristics of the complete set. The large body of data that is the target of interest is
called a population and the subset selected from it; a santple. 'l'lius tlie objective of statistics is to make an
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inference about a population based on the information contained in a sample, and to provide an
associated measure of goodliness for the inference. Data can be obtained in the form or quantitative or
causable cleat, such as length, pressure, temperature, vibration amplitude etc., or in the form of
qualitative data such as the color of a flower, subject of a book in the library, articles either conforming or
manufacturing to a specification etc. A record is made of an actual measured product characteristic, such
as amplitude of vibrations, measured in microns, then this product characteristic is turned a inviable.
Conversely, A record shows only the number of leakages from the coal carrying pipe in a power station

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in a given time period, it is said to be a record by attributes. Moreover, data, which can be described by a
discrete or a continuous variable, arc called discrete data and continuous data respectively.
Frequency Distributions and Measures of Location1 Central Tendency and Dispersion Raw data are
collected data, which have not been organized numerically. When summarizing large masses of raw data,
it is often usefi.11 to distribute or arrange the data into classes and to determine the number of data
points belonging to each class, which is called the class frequency. An arrangement of data by classes

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together with the corresponding class frequencies is called n frequency distribution or frequency table.
Histograms anti frequency polygons are graphical representations of frequency distributions. A
histogram consists of a set of rectangles with bases equal to the class width, and wit11 heights equal to
the class frequencies. A frequency polygon is obtained fro111 the frequency 1iistogl.am by connecting the

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midpoints of tlie top of the rectangles. The relative frequency of a class is tlie frequency of tlie class
divided by tlie total frequency of all classes and is generally expressed as a percentage. For example, tlie
relative frequency of the class 168 - 175 in Table 13-1 is 421100 = 42 percent. The sum of relative
frequencies of all classes in the dataset is clearly I or 100 percent. If the frequencies in the given frequency

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table are replaced by the corresponding relative histograms, anti frequency polygons are graphical

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representations of frequency distributions. A histogram consists of a set of rectangles with bases equal to
tlie class width, and wit11 heights equal to the class frequencies. A frequency polygon is obtained fro111
the frequency 1iistogl.am by connecting the midpoints of tlie top of the rectangles. The relative frequency
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of a class is tlie frequency of tlie class divided by tlie total frequency of all classes and is generally
expressed as a percentage. For example, tlie relative frequency of the class 168 - 175 in Table 13-1 is
421100 = 42 percent. The sum of relative frequencies of all classes in the dataset is clearly I or 100 percent.
If the frequencies in the given frequency table are replaced by the corresponding relative frequencies, the
resulting table is called relative frequency distribution anti the graphs called relative frequency histogram
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and relative frequency polygon. The frequency distribution exhibits two main features, namely:
i) Central tendency, that is, a tendency for the data points, or observations, to cluster around a
central value known as the location of the distribution, and
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ii) Dispersion or variation, or spread around the central value. The measures of central tendency
are the following: i) Mean, or the arithmetic average,
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iii) Mode, or tlie value which has the maximum frequency, and
iv) Median, which is the value which bisects the frequency distribution in two, or in other
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words, it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number of observations.

Exponential (Negative Exponential)
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In probability theory and statistics, the exponential distribution is the probability distribution of the time
between events in a Poisson point process, i.e., a process in which events occur continuously and
independently at a constant average rate. It is a particular case of the gamma distribution. It is the
continuous analogue of the geometric distribution, and it has the key property of being memoryless. In
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addition to being used for the analysis of Poisson point processes it is found in various other contexts.
The exponential distribution is strictly related to the Poisson distribution. If 1) an event can occur more
than once and 2) the time elapsed between two successive occurrences is exponentially distributed and
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independent of previous occurrences, then the number of occurrences of the event within a given unit of
time has a Poisson distribution.
Occurrence of events
The exponential distribution occurs naturally when describing the lengths of the inter-arrival times in a
homogeneous Poisson process.
The exponential distribution may be viewed as a continuous counterpart of the geometric distribution,
which describes the number of Bernoulli trials necessary for a discrete process to change state. In contrast,
the exponential distribution describes the time for a continuous process to change state.

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In real-world scenarios, the assumption of a constant rate (or probability per unit time) is rarely satisfied.
For example, the rate of incoming phone calls differs according to the time of day. But if we focus on a
time interval during which the rate is roughly constant, such as from 2 to 4 p.m. during work days, the
exponential distribution can be used as a good approximate model for the time until the next phone call
arrives. Similar caveats apply to the following examples which yield approximately exponentially
distributed variables:

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• The time until a radioactive particle decays, or the time between clicks of a Geiger counter.
• The time it takes before your next telephone call.
• The time until default (on payment to company debt holders) in reduced form credit risk modeling.
Exponential variables can also be used to model situations where certain events occur with a constant

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probability per unit length, such as the distance between mutations on a DNA strand, or between
roadkills on a given road.
In queuing theory, the service times of agents in a system (e.g. how long it takes for a bank teller etc. to
serve a customer) are often modeled as exponentially distributed variables. (The arrival of customers for

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instance is also modeled by the Poisson distribution if the arrivals are independent and distributed

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identically.) The length of a process that can be thought of as a sequence of several independent tasks
follows the Erlang distribution (which is the distribution of the sum of several independent exponentially
distributed variables). Reliability theory and reliability engineering also make extensive use of the
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exponential distribution. Because of the memoryless property of this distribution, it is well-suited to
model the constant hazard rate portion of the bathtub curve used in reliability theory. It is also very
convenient because it is so easy to add failure rates in a reliability model. The exponential distribution is
however not appropriate to model the overall lifetime of organisms or technical devices, because the
"failure rates" here are not constant: more failures occur for very young and for very old systems.
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Failure Rate, Hazard Rate, Failure Modes and The 'Bath -Tub' Curve
A failure has been defined as either the partial or total loss or a change in the properties of a component,
or a system, in such a way that its functioning is either seriously impeded or completely stopped. Thus
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definition of the state of failure requires the pre-identification and statement of criteria for satisfactory
performance of the component or the system. Some components and systems have well defined states in
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as much as they are either working or in a failed state. Such components and systems are known as two-
state devices, others, on the other hand, may be multi-state devices, that is, they may have one or more
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degraded states in addition to the working and failed states. The failures which result in the complete
stoppage of a system arc generally called catastrophic failures.
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Failure Rate and Hazard Rate: The number of failures a1 tires per in a given period of time, namely, the
number of failures per month, or the number of failures per 1000 hours etc., is termed the failure rate.
However, in cases where such failure data is available over a long-time horizon, the failure rate is
obtained as a coetaneous variable, and instead of using discrete netbacks or relative frequency isograms,
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the failure density function, denoted by f(t) as given, is used. In reliability and maintenance studies,
another characteristic called the hazard rate, and denoted by h(t) or Z(t), is more appropriately and
effectively used. At, given that there were no failures up to the t. In physical tenses, the difference
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between failure rate and hazard rate can be explained by all analogy in the following manner:
There are two cities A and B 300 kilometers apart and it takes a person 6 hours to 7 hours.
Statistics, Data travel from A to B. Thus, SO kilometers per hour is the average speed. Whereas the
Methods of Qualitative Analysis speed at which he is traveling at any given time during these six hours it
may be less. Thus, compared to the average speed, the instant speed of travel is a more meaningful
measure of safety or safe driving.
Q. Explain Scheduling of Plant and Equipment Overhauls.
Ans. Overhauling of plant and equipment is a necessary task and has to be carried out periodically to
restore the plant, or equipment, to a satisfactory working condition, or as nearly as possible to ‘as good as

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new’ condition, and also to reduce the incidence of unexpected failures. Although the primary intent of
overhaul is restorative in nature, it is a preventive maintenance activity, since it is not carried out after a
failure. Because it is essentially a restorative activity, in some industries in India, an overhaul goes by the
name of ‘capital repair’ or ‘capital maintenance’. Overhauls cannot be carried out while the plant, or
equipment, is running, and accordingly, necessitates plant shutdowns. These are two aspects of planning
and scheduling of plant and equipment overhauls and shutdown (note: these two aspects are two distinct

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parts of the job, one quite different from the other). The first one is the scheduling of plant and equipment
overhauls that is, deciding when to carry out the overhaul. Once the optimal overhaul interval, or the
timing of overhaul is determined, the second aspect is one of planning the task of overhaul and
scheduling of its numerous constituent activities. The second part of the job, that is, detailed planning of

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plant shutdown is as important as the decision of scheduling of overhauls, since overhauls are large and
complex tasks and generally take a significant amount of time.
Both these aspects of planning and scheduling will be discussed in detail in this unit. The overhaul
decision, that is, the problem of scheduling of overhauls will be discussed first, and thereafter, the job of

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detailed planning of overhauls and plant shutdown and scheduling of the numerous constituent activities

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will be discussed. However, before we can take up the discussion of planning and scheduling of plant
and equipment overhauls and plant shutdowns, we must discuss the basics of maintenance. Thus, under
introduction, we will take up for discussion the different types of maintenance first, and this will be
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followed by a discussion of preventive maintenance, and overhauling and overhaul decision.
Types of Maintenance
Maintenance was, till recently, synonymous with repair and consisted of breakdown maintenance. Then
come preventive maintenance which took the forms of
(i) routine activities like oiling/greasing, cleaning of the machine, the internals and the working
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surfaces,
(ii) periodic replacements of wearing parts, which are not capital items.
(iii) programmed replacements of bearings and other items with pre-determined lives, and
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(iv) periodic overhauls. Such routine maintenance, or periodic preventive maintenance, is based
on the assumption that mechanical failures and the process of deterioration of components
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depend only on the running time of the machine.

The limitations of periodic preventive maintenance are as follows:
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i) This system of maintenance does not give full protection against breakdowns. This is
particularly applicable to random failures possible due to random fluctuations in the plant
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operating conditions and if random failures are predominant, then periodic preventive
maintenance, by itself, has no positive effect on reliability and plant availability.
ii) Some of the maintenance actions are unnecessary and sometimes the plant is maintained too
frequently resulting in a corresponding loss of production.
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iii) The components are, in many cases, not allowed to run till the end of their mechanical life
and are replaced, at times, too early.
iv) Increased number of running-in failures caused by periodic overhauls, since incorrect
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assembly may occur during servicing and this is one of the principal arguments in favour of
condition-based maintenance. Bhadury and Basu, in their report of the study conducted on a
210 MW thermal power have noted the existence of a period of running in after a capital
maintenance shutdown.
Since the failure rate of components is dependent on a combination of number of factors such as load
fluctuations, lubrication, quality of materials used, quality of workmanship, environmental conditions
etc., even for same or similar components, depending on the application and working conditions, the
resultant life varies. However, failures are caused by processes of accumulation of damages to the
components and such processes give rise to gradual changes in the physical properties of the component.

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Thus observations of specific parameter(s) rationally should make available such information through the
analysis of which it is possible to predict the failure of the component. Such indicative parameters are
called prognostic parameters and the basis of predictive maintenance, also called predictive preventive
maintenance or condition-based maintenance, is the observation, measurement and analysis of these
prognostic parameters. In some cases the observation of the prognostic parameter(s) can be done while
the equipment is running, while in some other cases, the observation of the condition can only be carried

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out after the machine is stopped. The monitoring methods generally used are visual, performance
monitoring, vibration monitoring, sound-level monitoring and wear-debris monitoring
In the last fifteen years, vibration monitoring has become an important technique and is very widely used
on rotating machines. However, condition-based maintenance should only be used for critical equipment

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and is not recommended for all the machines or equipment, which make up a plant. Since in large and
complex process plants, random or incipient failures cannot be totally avoided and condition-based
maintenance is either not feasible or cost-justifiable on all the equipment, the maintenance programme
has to be a mix of emergency repairs or breakdown maintenance, planned maintenance periodic or

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routine preventive maintenance and condition-based maintenance, and this mix must be based on the

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analysis of past failure data, inferences drawn from condition monitoring data, as well as plant factors,
which will dictate the necessity of stand-by units, production factors indicating the ‘production windows’
available and maintenance factors like availability of skilled tradesman, level of stock of spares and lead-
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time for procurement of spares. Next, let us examine the formal definitions of maintenance, corrective
maintenance, and preventive maintenance and planned maintenance to see whether we can classify
maintenance, identifying therein the various types of maintenance activities discussed earlier.
Maintenance has been defined to include ‘all work undertaken to keep or restore every facility to a
specified acceptable condition’, whereas corrective maintenance has been defined as ‘that maintenance
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work which is performed to restore an item to a satisfactory condition after a failure’ and preventive
maintenance as ‘that maintenance activity which is performed to keep or retain an item to a satisfactory
operational condition’. Thus we may classify all maintenance activities under two main heads, namely
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corrective maintenance and preventive maintenance. This classification is along the lines of the accepted
definitions, which are ‘restore to’ and ‘keep in’ an acceptable condition to optimize productivity and
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utilization of scarce resources. But as per the above definition, corrective maintenance seems synonymous
to emergency repair, or at best generally to breakdown maintenance. Moreover, as far as breakdown
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maintenance is concerned, the B.S. Glossary of Maintenance Terminology (B.S.3811, 1964) further defines
the following terms:
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Emergency Maintenance: Maintenance work necessitated by unforeseen breakdown or damage, and

Planned Breakdown Maintenance: Maintenance work which is carried out after a failure, but for which
advance provision has been made in the form of spares, materials, labour and material.
Thus we find that breakdown maintenance can be in the form of emergency repair or planned
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breakdown maintenance, but in both these cases, the link is that the component or the equipment is
allowed to run, without any maintenance, till it fails. However, corrective maintenance is not just
breakdown maintenance and McBrady and Kier defines corrective maintenance as ‘the study of all
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equipment failures and breakdowns to determine that action is needed to prevent recurrences’ [8]. But
this after all is an activity, which should appropriately come under planned maintenance, since planned
maintenance had been defined as ‘that maintenance activity which is organized and carried out with
forethought, control and records’ [4]. Moreover, ‘planning in maintenance and setting up of tasks in order
of priority’ has been differentiated from preventive maintenance [3]. This means that planed maintenance
is a part of corrective maintenance and must consist of all activities emanating from the analysis of
breakdowns and all corrective maintenance jobs resulting from the preventive maintenance inspections,
both on-line and off-line, as well as the activities of repair, replacement or modifications as indicated by
the analysis of data obtained through condition monitoring. This classification is based on the percept

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that the activities of inspection and monitoring of equipment on the analysis of data thus obtained is, in
today’s context, preventive maintenance work, and activities such as priority fixation, planning of tasks
and actual corrective actions taken should appropriately come under corrective maintenance.
Scheduling of Plant and Equipment Overhauls
Determination of Optimal Overhaul Interval for Deteriorating Equipment
This problem deals with (and the models discussed can be applied to) an equipment of a continuously

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operating system (a process plant, say) in which the system is overhauled at fixed intervals as per
statutory requirement and such system overhauls are called surveys. Now the equipment of the system
deteriorates with use, or operation, affecting the system operating and maintenance cost and the system
efficiency. This equipment can be restored through periodic overhauls within this period between survey

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and the problem is the determination of the optimal overhaul interval for such equipment, which
deteriorate with use. Davidson has presented a study which was conducted in a thermal power station in
which the surveys on the boiler had to be conducted every fourteen months but within this period,
deposits built up on the inside surfaces of the boiler affecting its efficiency. To reduce the loss of

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efficiency, important parts of the boiler, such as air heater, economizer and super heater, could be

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thoroughly cleaned periodically and the study was conducted to determine the optimal overhaul interval
of the air heater. Herein, we will discuss two possible decision bases, namely, one with the assumption
that the interval between equipment overhauls is constant in as much as the system output between
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equipment overhauls is the same (and we shall also discuss a variation in which that time between
equipment overhauls is kept constant) and the other in which this assumption is relaxed and a dynamic
programming model is formulated.
Determination of Optimal Overhaul Interval for Deteriorating Equipment This problem deals with (and
the models discussed can be applied to) an equipment of a continuously operating system (a process
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plant, say) in which the system is overhauled at fixed intervals as per statutory requirement and such
system overhauls are called surveys (as discussed under section 15.3). Now the equipment of the system
deteriorates with use, or operation, affecting the system operating and maintenance cost and the system
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efficiency. This equipment can be restored through periodic overhauls within this period between survey
and the problem is the determination of the optimal overhaul interval for such equipment, which
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deteriorate with use. Davidson has presented a study which was conducted in a thermal power station in
which the surveys on the boiler had to be conducted every fourteen months but within this period,
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deposits built up on the inside surfaces of the boiler affecting its efficiency. To reduce the loss of
efficiency, important parts of the boiler, such as air heater, economizer and super heater, could be
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thoroughly cleaned periodically and the study was conducted to determine the optimal overhaul interval
of the air heater. Herein, we will discuss two possible decision bases, namely, one with the assumption
that the interval between equipment overhauls is constant in as much as the system output between
equipment overhauls is the same (and we shall also discuss a variation in which that time between
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equipment overhauls is kept constant) and the other in which this assumption is relaxed and a dynamic
programming model is formulated.
An overhaul of an equipment, or a plant, involves subjecting the plant, or equipment, and its components
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to strict inspection, and this is followed by readjustment and calibration of the equipment as required,
replacement of worn components and servicing of the equipment. Overhauling is done to restore the
equipment to a satisfactory working condition and to minimize the incidence of unexpected failures, but
it is carried out before the plant, or equipment, fails. A decision to overhaul an equipment may be taken
when the equipment operating and maintenance cost is found to be increasing, or alternatively, when the
equipment hazard rate shows a significant increase, but this decision is taken when the equipment is
working. Thus although the aim of plant and equipment is restoration, overhaul is a preventive
maintenance activity since it is not carried out after an equipment failure. Overhaul of plant, or
equipment, invariably calls for shutdown, and the plant, or equipment, in question has to be shut down

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during the period of its overhaul. Thus the decision to overhaul is an important decision. Determination
of the interval between equipment overhauls has been discussed, followed by the problem of
determining the optimal overhaul cost limit for a plant, or an equipment. Overhauling of a plant, or
equipment, is a non-routine task consisting of a large number of inter-related activities, which must be
done in a defined order for completing the entire task of overhaul. Thus plant and equipment overhaul
takes the form of a project-usually a large and complex one. Moreover, plant shutdowns result in a loss of

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productive capacity and this implies that all shutdowns of plant and equipment must be adequately
planned and monitored so that the task of overhauling is executed efficiently. Network planning methods
can be effectively applied for planning and control of maintenance shutdowns.
Q. Explain the concept of condition-based maintenance.

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Ans. Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is a maintenance strategy that monitors the actual condition of
an asset to decide what maintenance needs to be done. CBM dictates that maintenance should only be
performed when certain indicators show signs of decreasing performance or upcoming failure. Checking
a machine for these indicators may include non-invasive measurements, visual inspection, performance

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data and scheduled tests. Condition data can then be gathered at certain intervals, or continuously (as is

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done when a machine has internal sensors). Condition-based maintenance can be applied to mission
critical and non-mission critical assets.
Unlike in planned maintenance (PM), where maintenance is performed based upon predefined scheduled
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intervals, condition-based maintenance is performed only after a decrease in the condition of the
equipment has been observed. Compared with preventive maintenance, this increases the time between
maintenance repairs, because maintenance is done on an as-needed basis.
The goal of condition-based maintenance is to monitor and spot upcoming equipment failure so
maintenance can be proactively scheduled when it is needed – and not before. Asset conditions need to
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trigger maintenance within a long enough time period before failure, so work can be finished before the
asset fails or performance falls below the optimal level.
Motor vehicles come with a manufacturer-recommended interval for oil replacements. These intervals are
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based on manufacturers’ analysis, years of performance data and experience. However, this interval is
based on an average or best guess rather than the actual condition of the oil in any specific vehicle. The
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idea behind condition-based maintenance is to replace the oil only when a replacement is needed, and
not on a predetermined schedule.
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Temperature readings help monitor and control an asset’s environment. Many assets can or do include
sensors to gather temperature data, including infrared readings and thermal imaging. Also organizations
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are using “smart” technology to help facility manager’s measure and control building temperature.
Many universities, hotels, and hospitals are upgrading HVAC units to better monitor temperature.
Windows and doors also can be outfitted with sensors. With these real-time readings, the HVAC can
adjust for humidity and temperature, and alert staff to any issues.
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Machinery also can overheat, and computers must be continually cooled. Monitoring the temperature of
these assets allows staff to prevent emergency shutdowns or even fire damage.
Challenges of condition-based maintenance
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• Condition-based maintenance requires an investment in measuring equipment and staff up-

skilling so the initial costs of implementation can be high.
• CBM introduces new maintenance techniques, which can be difficult to implement due to
resistance within an organization.
• Older equipment can be difficult to retrofit with sensors and monitoring equipment or can be
difficult to access during production to spot measure.
• With CBM in place, it still requires competence to turn performance information from a system
into actionable proactive maintenance items.

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Critical systems that require considerable upfront capital investment, or that could affect the quality of
the product that is produced, need up-to-the-minute data collection. More expensive systems have built
in intelligence to self-monitor in real time. For example, sensors throughout an aircraft monitor numerous
systems while in flight and on the ground to help identify issues before they become life-threatening.
Typically, CBM is not used for non-critical systems and spot readings will suffice.
The bottom line

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When carried out correctly, condition-based maintenance is a minimally disruptive form of maintenance
that lessens overhead costs, risk to workers, and downtime due to unexpected breakdowns. Maintenance
managers should be aware, however, that setting up a CBM program can be costly, and the changes
required to set up the strategy could be met with resistance or confusion. At the end of the day, this

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strategy requires a great deal of expertise to analyse the data and condition information presented.
Benefits of condition based maintenance:
a. It reduces catastrophic machine failures. Damage caused because of catastrophic failures is usually
much more intensive.

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b. It minimizes the repair time and helps in reducing the costly downtime. Regular monitoring and

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analysis of machine condition helps in identifying defective component(s) and plan for the maintenance
work.
c. It helps in reducing the maintenance cost.
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d. It reduces spare parts inventories. Many spare parts could be purchased just in time for the repairs to
be made during scheduled machinery shutdowns.
e. Under this program machinery performance is optimized, as machinery always operates under
specified conditions.
f. Its application saves energy requirements, as the machinery is always allowed to operate under optimal
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operating conditions.
g. Application of CBM reduces the need for standby equipment or additional floor space to cover
excessive downtime. Thus, capital investment on equipment or plant is less.
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h. Prevention of catastrophic failures and early detection of incipient machine and systems problems
increases the useful operating life of the plant machinery.
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i. Maintaining optimal machine performance level helps in producing quality product.

j. It reduces overtime requirement to make-up for lost production due to breakdowns or poorly
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performing machines.
k. It helps in reducing penalties that may result because of late deliveries caused because of breakdowns
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or poorly performing machines.

l. It helps in reducing warranty claims caused due to poor product quality caused because of poorly
performing machines.
m. Predictive maintenance techniques help in verification of new equipment condition before acceptance.
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Vendor could be asked to correct the deficiencies before the final payment is released.
n. Regular monitoring of machinery helps in reducing destructive failures, which could cause personal
injury or death. Increased safety helps in reduction in penalties levied against a company for unsafe
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machinery.
o. Increased safety helps in reduction in insurance premiums for the plants.
p. Predictive maintenance techniques help in determining whether or not repairs on existing plant
machinery have corrected the identified problems. This eliminates the need for second outage that many
times is required to correct improper or incomplete repairs.
q. The understanding of the operation and condition of the plant is improved, resulting in more respect
for maintenance work force from the rest of the plant workers. Thus, helps in improving maintenance
workforce self-esteem and motivation.
r. It helps in achieving reduced life cycle costs.

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When a condition based maintenance, system is used in a plant, the benefits obtained from avoided costs
are offset by the investment costs. A real benefit arises when the avoided cost savings exceed the
investment.
CBM Initial Cost Benefit = Avoided Costs – CBM Investment
Where Avoided Costs = Scheduled Maintenance reduction + In-service Repair reduction
Q. Explain the concept of Reliability centered Maintenance.
Ans. Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) is a corporate-level maintenance strategy that is

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implemented to optimize the maintenance program of a company or facility. The final result of an RCM
program is the implementation of a specific maintenance strategy on each of the assets of the facility.
The maintenance strategies are optimized so that the productivity of the plant is maintained using cost-

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effective maintenance techniques.
There are four principles that are critical for a reliability centred maintenance program:
1. The primary objective is to preserve system function
2. Identify failure modes that can affect the system function

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3. Prioritize the failure modes

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4. Select applicable and effective tasks to control the failure modes
In other words, RCM is a methodology as well as a philosophy, and it is not possible to define it with the
help of one definition. The following definitions will help in understanding the concept of RCM. RCM is
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a systematic approach for quantitatively assessing the need to perform or review preventive maintenance
tasks and plans. It provides a methodology targeted on system functions, the failures relating to that
function, and in particular to the effects of dominant functional system failures. A decision tree is used
within RCM to identify and classify critical system components together with an appropriate and
applicable maintenance policy. The main concept underlying the development of RCM is an attempt to
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retain the design reliability of equipment, through the analysis of factors which affect its operating
reliability, and with a view to optimize preventive maintenance programs via effective maintenance
planning. RCM provides a structured and logical approach to determine the maintenance requirements
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of any physical asset in its operating context. The methodology helps in identifying what causes the
functional failures of equipment and what are the consequences of any failure? RCM concept then
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recognizes that in true sense any maintenance is carried out, not so much to prevent the failures but to
reduce the consequences of failures. RCM approach takes in consideration that all equipment or
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components do not follow an age dominated failure mode and, therefore the maintenance requirements
of all components cannot be evaluated in a similar manner. Thus, RCM is a process used to determine the
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maintenance requirements of any physical asset in its operating context. A great strength of RCM is the
way it provides simple precise and easily understood criteria for deciding which (if any) of the
preventive tasks is technically feasible in any context, and if so for deciding how often they should be
done and who should do them.
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7 questions that need to be asked for RCM

An effective reliability centred maintenance implementation examines the facility as a series of functional
systems, each of which has inputs and outputs contributing to the success of the facility. It is the
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reliability, rather than the functionality, of these systems that are considered. This has a set of minimum
criteria before a maintenance strategy can be called RCM (Gulati). The seven questions that need to be
asked for each asset are:
1. What are the functions and desired performance standards of each asset?
2. How can each asset fail to fulfill its functions?
3. What are the failure modes for each functional failure?
4. What causes each of the failure modes?
5. What are the consequences of each failure?
6. What can and/or should be done to predict or prevent each failure?

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7. What should be done if a suitable proactive task cannot be determined?

Advantages
Implementing RCM increases equipment availability and reduces maintenance and resource costs.
Jardine and Tsang give an example of a utility company who reduced maintenance costs by up to 40%.
Disadvantages
RCM does not readily consider the total cost of owning and maintaining an asset. Additional costs of

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ownership, like those considered in evidence-based maintenance, are not taken into account, and are
therefore not factored into the maintenance considerations.
The bottom line: the impact of reliability centred maintenance
Since the end product of a well-executed RCM analysis is that an appropriate maintenance strategy will

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be selected for each piece of equipment, the impact is an overall improvement of reliability. RCM aims to
reduce costs, improve safety, and eliminate maintenance tasks that are not effective or appropriate for a
given piece of machinery. Implementing RCM processes allows you to avoid a one-size-fits-all mindset
that could waste valuable time and resources.

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RCM focus is on system function approach. Complex redundant systems have reliability directly

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engineered into their design. The reliability of a system is reduced if maintenance tasks and frequencies
are not its integral component. Over maintenance reduces the system reliability on account of
maintenance induced failures. For highly reliable system, reliability very often is reduced due to human
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intervention under the pretext of PM. Therefore, RCM methodology has been successful in building up
highly reliable systems. RCM methodology helps in achieving the following: • High quality, cost
effective maintenance plans in less time
• Assurance that all maintenance important parts and their failure mode are critically considered in the
development of maintenance programs
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• Increased probability that the level and content of the maintenance requirement is optimally specified
• Provides the basis for routine, on-line information sharing among engineering, operations and
maintenance staff
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• Longer useful life of expensive assets

• Improved safety of equipment and plant personnel
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• Better environment protection

• Improved operating performance in terms of output, quality and customer service
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MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT RCM

1 RCM will eliminate breakdown: RCM can only help in reducing the number of breakdowns and their
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severity and consequences.

2 RCM is a way of replacing/attending a part before it breaks: RCM is much bigger than that. It is an
integrated approach to budgeting, failure analysis, eliminating excessive resource use and permanent
correction of problem area.
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3 All the RCM systems are same and can be copied: RCM systems are tailor made, designed to keeping in
view the type of equipment, age of equipment, product manufactured, type of service, severity of usage,
skills of the operator etc.
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4 RCM increases the workload and expenses: RCM increases uptime, reduces energy usage, reduces
unplanned events etc. Only in the beginning a good planning is required.
5 Unskilled workers can perform RCM: Maintenance Audit With good procedures and training, unskilled
workers can do many routine tasks. For greater return on investment, skilled people must be in the loop.
PITFALLS IN IMPLEMENTING RCM
Most of the organizations try a small project in one place or another, but they have no real organized or
structured approach to RCM. The common problems leading to the lack of success with RCM can be
summarized as follows:

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a) Insufficient Equipment Failure Data Historical data about equipment failure is required for the RCM
program to be effective. Without the data about the failure, frequency of failure and root cause of the
failures, the RCM programs are based on guesswork. RCM is an advanced technique that is used only
when effective preventive and predictive programs are in place.
b) Poor Training in the RCM Methodology RCM has a structured and logical approach. It doesn’t allow
an individual to do things in unplanned way. RCM consists of many methodologies, some have

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flexibility, whereas others are more rigid. Some require lot of data, others less. Some approaches are more
successful in one industry than other. Thus after selection of the appropriate approach, all the employees
involved in RCM efforts should be trained to a high degree of proficiency in the appropriate RCM
techniques. Without the training, the RCM efforts will never achieve maximum benefits for the

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organization.
c) Poor Results in the PM and PDM Efforts the PM programs have the goal of reducing the reactive
maintenance activities to less than 20 percent of all the maintenance work. The PDM programs have the
goal of eliminating all unplanned breakdowns. If these two programs are not producing results, the

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company should not attempt to RCM.

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d) Lack of Understanding at Top Management Level The lack of understanding about the benefits that
can be achieved from a successful RCM program results in poor support from top management. While
presenting the concept of RCM to upper management, present the case in terms of cost benefit analysis or
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return on investment, instead of MTBF and MTTR. Also present the opportunities by highlighting the
current losses, amount of losses that can be reduced and cost of RCM program etc.
e) Insufficient Staffing for the Program RCM task is in addition to maintenance activities and thus
required additional funding for tools and personnel. Company should provide the required staff for the
success of and getting full benefits of RCM program.
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f) Short Term RCM Efforts RCM is a valuable tool, especially when coupled with a disciplined
maintenance improvement program. It has the capacity to take the organization from reactive to world
class maintenance. The journey takes 5-10 years with no successful short cuts.
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g) Lack of Focus The organization need to be focussed on its vision, the improvement plan and the
implementation methodology needed to achieve the goals.
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h) Short Term Equipment Focus The understanding of the true life cycle of the equipment and related
components is necessary to make the equipment last longer and perform better. Companies willing to
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use, wear out or accept sub-standard performance from their equipment will not survive in today’s
competitive environment.
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Q. Explain the steps and results of maintenance audit.

Ans. Maintenance Audit when properly and regularly conducted will have the following benefits:
• Helps in confirming, the function is performing towards the objectives that are set forth for it.
• To compare the performance indices of the function with that of the targets as well as similar
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benchmarks for the industry sector or with the world class best benchmarks.
• To identify weak areas for performance improvement and implementation strategies thereof.
• To get certified towards proper system functioning from the auditing agency which may be
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requirement of a statutory and standards agency

• To apply and obtain popular awards like the Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) award etc.
The steps in a maintenance audit are given below:
Initial Orientation: The auditing team has an initial meeting with the representatives of the company’s
senior management and the regulating agency, if any. In this meeting, the goals, scope and coverage,
information requirement, schedule and the techniques of the audit to be employed are presented in a
summarized form. The initial meeting enables both the auditing and auditee groups to understand each
other’s concern well and lays the foundation for a detailed interaction at later stages.

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Preliminary Preparation Maintenance Audit: During this step, the auditors’ team studies the
management and technical information obtained in the initial orientation and prepares a plan for
addressing the major concerns expressed by the company management or the regulator. Accordingly, the
most important areas of inquiry are identified, and detailed audit visit plan and schedule are prepared. It
covers the areas of audit, identification of management personnel to be interviewed, facilities and work
areas to be visited, data requirements etc.
Preliminary Questionnaire Survey: The auditors prepare a detailed questionnaire on the various issues

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of concern in maintenance management and circulate in advance to the company management personnel.
The questionnaire contains a systematic identification of elements and series of questions to collect
information about the same. The questionnaire enables collection of documented information from a

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larger cross section of the target personnel. The answers to the questionnaire are compiled and
conclusions are arrived at as to the selected areas and management personnel to be concentrated upon
during the next steps.
Plant Visits: The auditing team undertakes a filed visit to the plant for collecting field information.

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During this visit, interviews are held with senior managers, supervisors, and technicians etc to obtain a

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firsthand feeling of the management factors and concerns and feelings. During this visit, additional
information required in terms of work processes, plant performance parameters, operation-maintenance
interactions etc are also collected. In some special audits, plant visits are also taken up to a comparable
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third party organization to make comparative analysis of the system and technical parameters. At the end
of the plant visits, the auditing team would have the data essential to understand the company’s
maintenance strategies, challenges and plans. It also enables to fully understand the present resource
structure in terms of the organization, manpower, budgets etc and its deployment.
Data Analysis: During this step of the audit, the study team reviews, digests, summarizes, and analyses
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all data and information gathered. Profiles of maintenance management performance are developed and
compared to the company’s past performance and to the performance of the industry and to similar
companies. Many of the criteria used to evaluate effectiveness and efficiency can be measured
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quantitatively in terms of cost and savings, man-hours, percent adherence to schedule or budget, energy
consumption, reliability, availability and so forth. However, truly comparable benchmarks may not be
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readily available. Accordingly, the auditor must consider the company’s performance within the context
of its unique environment. Seasoned judgment, both in tempering quantitative evaluations and in
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measuring less tangible performance factors must be used.

Development of Conclusions and Recommendations: Based on the above evaluation, the auditing team
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develops conclusions about the efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance management system. The
factors that were observed to be examples of good management practices are listed with supporting
evidence and data and thus conclusions as to the strengths of the system are identified.
Results of Maintenance Audit
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Similarly, the possible sources of the problems are also identified, documented and possible
consequences if these problems are not tackled are also listed. Alternative strategies to overcome the
problems are identified and evaluated to indicate the most suitable option for problem solving.
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Report Submission: The audit team prepares a comprehensive report indicating the scope of the audit,
methodology adopted, information gathered, analysis performed, and recommendations arrived at as a
result of the audit. Normally, a draft report is submitted to ascertain the feedback of the company
management and the final report is submitted incorporating the suggestions and the feedback. The report
submission is often accompanied by a direct presentation to the management/regulator agency where the
action plans for implementation of the suggestions and the requirement of the involvement of the
auditors.

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Maintenance management audit has to focus on both the results achieved and processes used to have
holistic idea of the system efficiency and effectiveness. Given below are the major maintenance
benchmarks, which need to be studied in the audit.
Maintenance Costs: Some of the major cost factors/ratios that need to be analysed are Total Maintenance
Costs, Maintenance Cost To Budgets, Maintenance Cost For Unit Output, Maintenance Cost/Sales,
Maintenance Cost/Asset Value and Contractor Cost Ratio to the Total Maintenance costs. Maintenance
Materials Management Performance: The factors/ratios related to maintenance materials (Spare parts)

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management performance are material consumption value to total maintenance cost value, inventory
turnover, number of stock outs, material inventory value to equipment replacement value and purchase
value to issue value.

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Performance of Plant and Equipment Maintenance: The ratios that represent the plant and equipment
maintenance performance are downtime ratio, spare parts/ consumables consumption ratio, redundancy
in equipment, design life to replacement life ratio etc.
Maintenance Organization Performance: The organizational performance of maintenance management

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is measured by ratio of maintenance manpower to asset value, planned maintenance work to unplanned

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maintenance work, backlog by craft, maintenance to non-maintenance work, line to staff support ratio,
percent jobs waiting, ratio of work order hours to standard hours etc. The customer service function of
the maintenance department is measured by percent service calls attended, service response time,
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meantime to repair, and breakdown analysis reporting.
Maintenance Management Processes: Though maintenance benchmarks or performance parameters give
the audit team a comparable idea about the status, due to the requirement of standard definitions for
these ratios, sometimes it becomes difficult to draw careful conclusions. Hence the auditing processes
now a days are concentrating on the process parameters to make evaluations more meaningful. These
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process parameters of maintenance management are listed below:

Maintenance Audit
i) Vision and Leadership: In the modern strategy oriented management processes, it is needless to
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emphasize that policy and goals enunciated by a clear vision and leadership of the top management is
very essential. The characteristics of the leadership that are looked for in an ideal situation are clear goals
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and targets, allocation of enough resources, commitment to continuous improvement programmes and
leading by examples.
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ii) Maintenance Organizational Structure: The nature and style of the organizational structure plays an
important role in the efficiency and effectiveness of the systems. The characteristics that are seen of a
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proper organization structure are lesser number of hierarchies, clear roles and accountability, delegation,
empowerment and multiskilling environment.
iii) Spare Parts Management Process: The importance of materials management for optimization of
maintenance can be gauged from the fact that about 50 to 60% of the maintenance costs are consumed by
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maintenance materials. There should be proper systems and procedures for inventory control, spares
classification and codification, vendor management and spares preservation and reclamation. IT Systems
Usage for Maintenance: The maintenance function has invariably taken the assistance of information
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technology (known as computerized maintenance management systems – CMMS). An audit will look for
ideal features in the CMMS systems, the extent of use of the system and the utilization of its fullest
capabilities.
Preventive Maintenance System: The use of preventive maintenance should be in a pro-active manner to
identify and correct equipment deficiencies in advance rather than re-active problem solving. The PM
system should be checked for optimum deployment of resources vis-à-vis achievement of targeted
equipment availability.
Predictive Maintenance System: Use of modern condition monitoring systems and techniques like
vibration analysis, infrared thermal inspections, ultrasonic, lube oil analysis are to be encouraged to

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dovetail the efforts of preventive maintenance systems to improve availability. Modern plants
increasingly depend upon outsourced expert support for sophisticated predictive maintenance practices.
Maintenance Planning and Scheduling through Work Order System: The work order system, whether
through computerized means or otherwise, should be carefully planned and implemented so that the
system enables smooth performance of the maintenance requirements while simultaneously capturing
necessary information for management analysis.
Operation–Maintenance Interface: Modern philosophies and techniques like Total Productive

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Maintenance (TPM) and Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) have made the requirement of
Operation–Maintenance cooperation and interface an extremely important requirement continuous
improvement and sustainable development.

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Q. Explain marketing through product life cycle.
Ans. There are some common marketing considerations associated with each stage of the PLC. They
cannot be used as a formula to guarantee success, but they can function as guidelines for thinking about
budget, objectives, and potential opportunities and threats.

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• Market Introduction Stage: This phase of the PLC requires a significant marketing budget. The

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market is not aware of the product or its benefits. Usually a promotional budget is needed to
create broad awareness and educate the market about the new product. Often a product launch
includes a new Web site (or significant update to the existing site), a press release and press
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campaign, and a social media campaign.
There is also a need to invest in the development of the distribution channels. For a B2B product, this
often requires training the sales force and developing sales tools and materials for direct sales. In a B2C
market, it might include training and incentivizing retail partners.
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Pricing strategies in the introduction phase are generally set fairly high, as there are fewer competitors in
the market. This is often offset by early discounts and promotional pricing. It is worth noting that the
launch will look different depending on how new the product is. If the product is a completely new
innovation that the market has not seen before, then there is a need to both educate the market about the
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new offering and build awareness of it. When Google launched Google Glass—an optical head-mounted
computer display in 2013—it had to not only get the word out about the product but help prospective
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buyers understand what it was and how it might be used. You can imagine that this was very different
from the launch of Wheat Thins Spicy Buffalo crackers, which were an extension of an existing product
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line. The Google Glass situation was also different from the launch of Tesla’s home battery. In that case
Tesla was offering a new product line of home products from a company that had previously only
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offered automobiles. The greater the difference in new products from a company’s existing offerings, the
greater the complexity and expense of the introduction stage.
One other consideration is the maturity of the product. Sometimes marketers will choose to be
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conservative during the marketing introduction stage when the product is not yet fully developed or
proven, or when the distribution channels are not well established. This might mean introducing the
product to only one segment of the market, doing less promotion, or limiting distribution. This approach
allows for early customer feedback but reduces the risk of product issues during the launch.
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While we often think of an introduction or launch as a single event, this phase can last several years.
Generally a product moves out of the introduction stage when it begins to see rapid growth, though what
counts as “rapid growth” varies significantly based on the product and the market.
• Growth Stage: Once rapid growth begins, the product or industry has entered the growth stage.
When a product category begins to demonstrate significant growth, the market usually responds:
new competitors enter the market, and larger companies acquire high-growth companies and
products.

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These emerging competitive threats drive new marketing tactics. Marketers who have been seeking to
build broad market awareness through the introduction phase must now differentiate their products
from competitors, emphasizing unique features that appeal to target customers. Pricing also becomes
more competitive and must be adjusted to align with the differentiation strategy.
Often in the growth phase the marketer must pay significant attention to distribution. With a growing
number of customers seeking the product, more distribution channels are needed. Marketers will have to

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develop and support new distribution channels to meet demand. Through the growth phase, distribution
partners will become more experienced selling the product and may require less support over time.
The primary challenges during the growth phase are to identify a differentiated position in the market
that allows the product to capture a significant portion of the demand and to manage distribution to meet

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the demand.
• Maturity Stage: When growth begins to plateau, the product has reached the maturity phase. In
order to achieve strong business results through the maturity stage, the company must take
advantage of economies of scale. This is usually a period in which marketers manage budget

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carefully, often redirecting resources toward products that are earlier in their life cycle.

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This late in the life cycle, promotional tactics and pricing discounts are likely to provide only short-term
benefits. Changes to product have a better chance of yielding more sustained results.
In the maturity stage, marketers often focus on niche markets. Since there is no new growth, the emphasis
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shifts from drawing new customers to the market to capturing more of the existing market. The company
may extend a product line, adding new models that have greater appeal to a smaller segment of the
market.
Often, distribution partners will reduce their emphasis on mature products. A sales force will shift its
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focus to new products with more growth potential. A retailer will reallocate shelf space. When this
happens the manufacturer may need to take on a stronger role in driving demand.
We have repeatedly seen this tactic in the soft drink industry. As the market has matured, the number of
different flavours of large brands like Coke and Pepsi has grown significantly.
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• Decline Stage: Once a product or industry has entered decline, the focus shifts almost entirely to
eliminating costs. For goods, distributors will seek to eliminate inventory by cutting prices. For
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services, companies will reallocate staff to ensure that delivery costs are in check. Where possible,
companies may initiate a planned obsolescence process. Commonly technology companies will
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announce to customers that they will not continue to support a product after a set obsolescence
date. Marketers will manage communications with customers to transition customers to newer
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products that are earlier in the product life cycle and have more favourable economics.
Q. Explain the costing process of product life cycle.
Ans. Life cycle costing is a three-staged process. The first stage is life cost planning stage which includes
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planning LCC Analysis, Selecting and Developing LCC Model, applying LCC Model and finally
recording and reviewing the LCC Results. The Second Stage is Life Cost Analysis Preparation Stage
followed by third stage Implementation and Monitoring Life Cost Analysis.
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LCC Analysis is a multi-disciplinary activity. An analyst, involved in life cycle costing, should be fully
familiar with unique cost elements involved in the life cycle of asset, sources of cost data to be collected
and financial principles to be applied.
The three stages are:
1. LCC Analysis Planning: The Life Cycle Costing process begins with development of a plan, which
addresses the purpose, and scope of the analysis.
The plan should:
i. Define the analysis objectives in terms of outputs required to assist a management decision.

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Typical objectives are:

a. Determination of the LCC for an asset in order to assist planning, contracting, budgeting or similar
needs.
b. Evaluation of the impact of alternative courses of action on the LCC of an asset (such as design
approaches, asset acquisition, support policies or alternative technologies).
c. Identification of cost elements which act as cost drives for the LCC of an asset in order to focus design,

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development, acquisition or asset support efforts.
ii. Make the detailed schedule with regard to planning of time period for each phase, the operating,
technical and maintenance support required for the asset.
iii. Identify any underlying conditions, assumptions, limitations and constraints (such as minimum asset

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performance, availability requirements or maximum capital cost limitations) that might restrict the range
of acceptable options to be evaluated. Identify alternative courses of action to be evaluated.
iv. Identify alternative courses of action to be evaluated. The list of proposed alternatives may be refined
as new options are identified or as existing options are found to violate the problem constraints.

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v. Provide an estimate of resources required and a reporting schedule for the analysis to ensure that the

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LCC results will be available to support the decision-making process for which they are required.
Next step in LCC Analysis planning is the selection or development of an LCC model that will satisfy the
objectives of the analysis. LCC Model is basically an accounting structure which enables the estimation of
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an asset components cost.
2. Life Cost Analysis Preparation:
The Life Cost Analysis is essentially a tool, which can be used to control and manage the ongoing costs of
an asset or part thereof. It is based on the LCC Model developed and applied during the Life Cost
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Planning phase with one important difference: it uses data on real costs.
The preparation of the Life Cost Analysis involves review and development of the LCC Model as a “real-
time” or actual cost control mechanism. Estimates of capital costs will be replaced by the actual prices
paid. Changes may also be required to the cost breakdown structure and cost elements to reflect the asset
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components to be monitored and the level of detail required.

Targets are set for the operating costs and their frequency of occurrence based initially on the estimates
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used in the Life Cost Planning phase. However, these targets may change with time as more accurate data
is obtained, from the actual asset operating costs or from the operating cost of similar other asset.
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3. Implementing and Monitoring:

Implementation of the Life Cost Analysis involves the continuous monitoring of the actual performance
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of an asset during its operation and maintenance to identify areas in which cost savings may be made and
to provide feedback for future life cost planning activities.
For example, it may be better to replace an expensive building component with a more efficient solution
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prior to the end of its useful life than to continue with a poor initial decision.
Q. What are the seven steps to maintenance strategy?
Ans. Many companies have tried to improve the efficiency of maintenance in their plants. Some are
successful, but many initiatives do not achieve their expected benefits. One reason for this could be that
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the company’s maintenance strategy is too poorly defined or that the company operates without any kind
of formal maintenance strategy at all.
In fact, there is no clear, universally agreed definition about what exactly constitutes a maintenance
strategy across industry bodies, and the guidance about what makes a good one is quite hard to find.
The British and European standard for maintenance management, and it makes two key definitions:
Maintenance Objective – The targets assigned and accepted for maintenance activities.
Maintenance Strategy – The management method used to achieve the maintenance objectives.

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Although these rather broad definitions leave their actual meanings open to interpretation, they do
indicate the broader view of maintenance it is necessary to take to create a robust strategy. While many, if
not all, maintenance operations will have documented and business-aligned objectives, it is rare to find a
maintenance strategy that goes beyond the substance of the task list and task frequency and perhaps
necessary spare parts.
A robust maintenance strategy creates a focus for the maintenance operation and creates a consistent

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ambition for the maintenance team, aligned to the needs of the parent organisation.
It is useful to consider maintenance strategy from a dual perspective:
Asset Care Strategy
Defining what the operation’s key physical assets are, and what maintenance regimes they need to

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function correctly – this covers the maintenance plan tasks, and frequency of performing them.
Operational Strategy
What the maintenance function needs to do to provide the required level of service to the operation. This
is much broader, and covers spare parts provision, maintenance planning tasks, funding, training,

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business processes and procedures.

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This model puts, quite properly, the asset at the heart of the maintenance strategy – defining what is
needed to achieve its optimum performance; and then around it is defined all the management tasks
needed to provide the asset care strategy at the core.
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A good maintenance strategy is one that achieves high uptime for key equipment at low maintenance
costs. But what works in one industry may not work in another.
1. Understanding current maturity
The first step in developing a robust maintenance strategy is to understand how mature the operation
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currently is. The term maintenance maturity describes how well developed an operation’s maintenance
processes and systems are, and to what degree they deliver value for the wider operation.
The maturity model shows the generalised progression of a maintenance operation as it gains more and
more capabilities. Capabilities are demonstrated by the beneficial use of maintenance best practices, and
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the overall maintenance strategy able to be employed by the maintenance operation significantly changes
with the development of more capabilities.
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The first strategy that is often employed in a lower capability maintenance operation is to seek to be good
at fixing things. Then, as the realisation sets in that this will take the organisation only so far in downtime
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reduction and efficient resource allocation, more planned activities take place, with the emphasis more on
job and workforce planning but still dealing with breakdowns in a rather reactive way. Adopting a more
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active strategy demands a higher level of technical capability in reliability engineering, maintenance
management and equipment knowledge, so it often develops later in an operation’s progression.
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Predictive maintenance, where the intention is to avoid any downtime at all by constantly watching for
earliest signs of failure, needs a higher order skill again.
An honest assessment of current maturity can be carried out by simply gaining an understanding of
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maintenance best practices and observing whether the operation uses them routinely or not. Most of the
specialist consultancies also have structured frameworks which can be assessed against, at a cost.
As individuals in the organisation learn to do a wider range of things, better results should follow.
2. Know your current performance in detail
In terms of performance of the maintenance operation, the most fundamental measure of success is the
availability of the equipment the operation is responsible for. Equipment availability can be translated
directly into the key objectives for the business. So, for manufacturing operations, high equipment
availability allows more products to be made for sale; and for service operations, high equipment

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availability allows the continuity of service. A good maintenance operation commonly uses measures
such as overall equipment effectiveness and service level.
To really understand performance, however, it is also necessary to grasp its flipside – how efficiently the
inputs into the operation, such as money and hours of human effort, are being translated into these
output measures.

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Some data collection is necessary:
• Understanding equipment availability – When there is downtime, where does the time go, and

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what causes it? What are the real, underlying or root causes for failure?
• Understanding the inputs – Where does the money go? How much time do people use doing
activities that don’t add any value to the goal of achieving the best results?
3. Deploy the right asset strategy

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From the perspective of the wider operation, the cost of corrective maintenance usually far exceeds the
costs of any realistic preventive maintenance effort. The exact cost ratio differs from industry to industry
but when the full cost of service interruptions, lost orders, loss of reputation or government fines or other
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losses are considered, prevention of failures is frequently more cost-effective than waiting for the failure
to occur.
Selecting the right approach to each asset’s maintenance regime is therefore fundamental. On key
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equipment, the goal should be to deliberately select the right maintenance approach for each type of
equipment failure that minimises the overall cost of the failure to the organisation.
There are generally thought to be only three broad approaches:
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• Let the equipment fail and then fix it (corrective or “run to failure” maintenance).
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• Replace or recondition parts at intervals known to approximate the lifespan of failing

components (planned preventive maintenance).
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• Detect when the equipment is starting to degrade and replace or recondition at a time convenient
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to the operation (predictive maintenance).

To be cost-effective, the corrective maintenance approach should be selected only when the cost of
“fixing” is less than the cost of proactive prevention. Such a case may be where the spare part, or indeed
the equipment itself, can be replaced very cheaply, or where the operation can function adequately for a
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while without the use of the asset. (Air-conditioning equipment for administrative offices is sometimes
used as an example needing this approach).
Even then, a true proactive approach for corrective maintenance will already have the right spare parts,
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access equipment, training and clear responsibilities in place to get the asset back into working order as
quickly as possible.
The most proactive approach should be selected for the asset to reduce long term costs by focusing
primarily on the wider cost of equipment failure.
The maintenance manager will be only too familiar with the increasing need to maintain equipment in a
cost-effective manner. For some organisations, at budget review time, maintenance spending is the first
item on the list of cost areas to be culled.

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In the long run, it is more sustainable to build reliable processes and then let the previously high cost of
corrective work reduce naturally than to undermine a good maintenance regime by cutting maintenance
costs without regard to the impact.
4. Involve the full team
Recognise that although the technician and reliability engineer are on the front line of equipment
maintenance, a much wider team of people are involved in determining the success of the maintenance

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operation. Each role has a specific job to do in reducing breakdowns and achieving high reliability.
• Front line maintenance staff can provide vital data about continuing equipment issues, such as
type of fault, duration of downtime, and remedy. In conjunction with a good maintenance

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management system that can classify, track and provide data reports this can be an important
tool for the reliability engineer to use to improve equipment performance.
• Equipment users have an underrated role in the maintenance team. Keeping the asset clean and
ensuring that the equipment they use is running within proper settings are the first steps in good
asset management. Later, further along the maturity curve, they can acquire the technical

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knowledge to be able to detect some types of faults and the skills to fix the simple ones.

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• It must be remembered that by the time equipment is in use, the inherent reliability of the
equipment has been established. An important number of failures stem from design deficiencies
in some way, and the ability to influence reliability is greatest at the early stages of a project. The
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role of production/reliability engineering, therefore, is to maintain this inherent level of
performance, but they cannot often remediate design flaws that may create reliability issues.
• It follows then that the equipment supplier’s own engineers and designers play a vital role. They
influence reliability at the design stage through selection of components, layout and
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configuration of equipment, and can be called on to work with customers to improve reliability
issues. A good working relationship with the supplier of equipment is an important determinant
of success in any reliability programme.
5. Communicating maintenance strategy in the language of economics: When it’s time to present
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the strategy to the board, using the right language helps the maintenance manager to build a
credible case for change. Engineers frequently find themselves justifying maintenance
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programmes to non-engineers at senior levels using technical justifications. That approach

frequently misses the point that all maintenance strategy often involves essentially economic
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decisions.
A different approach is needed. Nearly all technical problems at their heart are trying to solve a business
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issue. So instead of stating what the technical benefits of any proposal will be, start with the business
benefits. The technical overview can follow once the economic considerations are accepted.
This is not as difficult as it may sound. It helps to think about “What financial contribution does
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maintenance make to the operation?” –

• Avoiding equipment downtime or interruption of service.
• Extending the life of expensive capital assets
• Reducing the number of hours required to complete the same level of maintenance.
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• Avoiding risk to safety, product quality or business reputation.

All these contributions can be quantified in hard cash terms. Extending the life of a capital asset, for
example, avoids or delays capital expenditure, which has a favourable effect on the business’s return on
capital employed. Similarly, efficient maintenance labour planning can lead to a lower requirement for
manpower, and therefore reduce the business’s cost of goods sold (COGS). These are key management
ratios at the heart of every business and should be used as the basis for justifying any maintenance
programme changes.

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6. Build Capability: The maintenance operation will always achieve the results that it is designed
for. For example, an organisation that predominantly focuses the efforts of its maintenance
technicians on repairing equipment will never have the time to take the broader tasks that good
reliability engineering needs – collecting and analysing data and performing equipment
modifications. Similarly, if there are no maintenance planners, don’t expect well planned and
efficiently executed maintenance.

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Using a broad capability model helps guide the maintenance manager to know where to focus the
improvement programme. Linked to the maintenance maturity, the capability model indicates where best
practices are used to accomplish tasks within the maintenance management remit. Best practices are
defined as professional practices that are prescribed as being correct or most effective. These may vary

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among industry sectors and may need the external view of a specialist consultant to help define them.
The assessment begins with defining the main sub-functions within the operation that it needs to perform
in order to provide maximum value to the organisation: planning and executing maintenance, managing
spare parts and managing maintenance budgets will be general to all maintenance operations but others

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may be specific to an industry.

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Once the main sub-functions themselves are defined, the current level of capability in each of the areas
can be assessed by looking at best practices that would be expected to be seen in use to accomplish these
tasks. So a high level of capability is shown by observing best practices in place and in full use within the
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operation. Where there is an absence of best practices that would indicate a lower level of capability.
It is important to be clear about what capabilities are required for the accomplishment of the maintenance
objectives. Best practices are only useful where they contribute to the performance of low downtime of
key assets or allow the work to be done more efficiently. For example, a best practice of detailed failure
analysis used in the petrochemical industry may not be appropriate in low profit margin operation.
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The actions required to close the gaps then form one part of the operational maintenance strategy.
7. Understand the culture change: There is a vital cultural element to any type of improvement
activity and ignoring it can often be the reason improvement initiatives unexplainedly fail.
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Cultural change can be difficult to grasp unless you break it down into pragmatic steps
There are some easy-to-grasp elements, however:
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• Motivators – What does the organisation want the culture to be, and how does that fit with the
behaviour that the people in the maintenance operation see? This is described as the motivators
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of the maintenance operation, and it is clearly bound up in the behaviour of the operation’s
leadership. The importance of short-term budget adherence is played against the longer-term
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results of a proactive operation. People can easily see when there is a mismatch between the real
motivators and the stated objectives of the company. It is clearly not effective for an organisation
to say that high equipment reliability is important and yet not give people the time and resources
to do what necessary to prevent equipment is failing.
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• Rewards – What does the maintenance operation visibly reward? Constantly rewarding people
for returning broken equipment into use but ignoring the engineer who diligently works at
preventing breakdown will not result in a proactive maintenance organisation – it just causes
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frustration. Proactive operations are those that visibly and loudly “applaud” when a long-term
reliability issue is prevented from recurring, and are seen to divert resources to tackling the key
reliability issues rather than short term cost cutting.
• Behaviour – What is the resulting behaviour of the operation? As capabilities are acquired, and
better results seen, this spurs on the reinforcement of a proactive culture. This generally results in
more people being dedicated to conducting preventive maintenance tasks, and eventually the
creation of the space to test, experiment and learn from mistakes that brings true innovative
improvement.

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MS 57: Maintenance Management

Guess Paper-3
Q. How to implement reliability centered maintenance?
Ans. First established in the aviation industry, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) is the process of

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identifying potential problems with your assets and determining what you should do to make sure those
assets continue to produce at maximum capacity. Another way to look at RCM is it's a way to analyze
breakdowns to determine maintenance methods and unique maintenance schedules for your individual

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assets.
Reliability-centered maintenance is often mistaken for preventive maintenance; however, there is one key
difference: preventive maintenance isn't selective like RCM, making it less efficient. When performed
correctly, reliability-centered maintenance reduces inefficiency by looking at each individual asset
carefully before assigning maintenance tasks.

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Reliability-centered maintenance uses a general workflow involving four steps:

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1. Choose the asset you want to evaluate.
2. Evaluate the chosen asset based on the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) JA1011 standard.
3. Choose the type of maintenance to perform (preventive, proactive or condition-based).
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4. Repeat the RCM process for other equipment or critical assets.
Phase 1 – Decision: The first three questions combine to make up the decision phase. To avoid wasting
time, justify and plan for implementing an RCM plan. Discuss readiness, needs and desired outcomes
with your maintenance staff, project leaders, subject-matter experts and executives. The decision-making
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phase should be reserved for outlining goals in line with the budget, timeline and management concerns.
When it comes to choosing the equipment for RCM analysis, think about which pieces are most critical to
operations as well as the repair vs. replacement cost, and then look at past data to get a snapshot of how
much you've spent on previous maintenance. Include the following questions in your decision-making
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phase:
• Would a failure on this machine be difficult to detect during normal maintenance or operation?
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• Would a failure of this machine affect safety?

• How would a failure on this machine impact operations?
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• How would a failure on this machine impact spending?

Defining a data-driven list of the machine's functionality helps your team choose the capacity at which it
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wants the machine to run as opposed to its actual performance.

Phase 2 – Analysis: Questions four through six help you analyze or actually conduct the RCM study.
First, your team should identify functional failures. These can include poor performance, performing
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unnecessary functions or complete failure. For example, a total functional failure would be the belt on the
bottle capper breaking, causing the machine to stop completely.
The next step in the analysis phase is identifying and evaluating the effects of the failure(s). Your team
should document what can be observed or what actually happens during a failure. How does it affect
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overall production? How does it affect safety?

The last step in the analysis phase is identifying failure modes or what causes each failure? A popular
technique to uncover these causes is using failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA). This analysis
technique breaks down all possible failures that could occur in the design, manufacturing or assembly
process, as well as a product or service. Ask questions such as:
• How does this failure affect safety?
• How does this failure impact operation and overall production?
• Does this failure cause full or partial outages?

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FMEA looks at failure modes, root causes, failure indicators, failure criticalities, failure probabilities and
effects by considering asset history and team/employee experiences. Most FMEA analysis programs use
the information gathered to drive the planning of mitigation tasks to help detect failures early or prevent
them altogether.
Many companies automate the analysis process using a computerized maintenance management
system (CMMS). A CMMS tool helps with planning and minimizing the chances your team will miss

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scheduled work and equipment failures by generating tasks and scheduling inspections.
Phase 3 – Act: Phase 3 incorporates the seventh question (select maintenance tasks). After planning,
making decisions and analyzing, it's time to act on the information you've analyzed to update your
maintenance tasks and system procedures and improve asset design. Think about grouping your failure

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management techniques into two groups: proactive tasks and default actions.
• Proactive tasks: These include predictive and preventive maintenance techniques to prevent
failures proactively. Proactive maintenance tasks are scheduled in advance, helping mitigate the
risk of failure, while predictive maintenance tasks or condition monitoring helps detect failures

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before they begin.

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• Default actions: These refer to reactive maintenance or letting a machine run until it fails and
then fixing the issue. You may have heard this referred to as "run to failure" maintenance.
Deciding which technique is best for your situation depends on your RCM analysis and understanding
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how your failure modes affect your assets and impact your overall production.
Benefits of Implementing Reliability-Centered Maintenance
Some of the biggest benefits you'll see when implementing a reliability-centered maintenance plan
include minimizing the frequency of overhauls, reducing equipment failures, refocusing maintenance
tasks on critical assets, increasing component reliability and more. What do all of these benefits have in
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common? They all affect your bottom line. Let's take a look at a couple of real-world examples.
• NASA's Marshall Flight Center: NASA's Marshall Flight Center brought in a contractor to
design and implement a permanent reliability-centered maintenance plan for its facilities and
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collateral equipment, most notably the pressurized systems. The RCM plan decreased the flight
center's maintenance costs, extended the life of aging equipment, made work conditions safer by
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managing risk, decreased energy consumption and reduced the environmental impact, all
resulting in a taxpayer savings of more than $300,000.
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• National Ignition Facility (NIF): The NIF is a section of the government operating out of the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). According to the National Ignition Facility &
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Photon Science website, it is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration (NNSA) and uses 192 laser beams to "routinely create temperatures and
pressures similar to those that exist only in the cores of stars and giant planets and inside nuclear
weapons." By doing so, it helps the NNSA maintain the reliability and safety of the U.S. nuclear
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deterrent without full-scale testing.

The NIF lasers essentially make up one giant laser the size of three football fields, so you can imagine
how expensive and dangerous a breakdown might be. Using reliability-centered maintenance saved the
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NIF nearly $80,000 in one isolated instance alone, according to the NIF's former facilities and maintenance
manager, Nick Jize. Through an RCM program, it was determined a motor in the laser-amplifying
cooling system was put on a watch list and scheduled for weekly vibration analysis. Through vibration
analysis, it was revealed that the bearings were deteriorating and loosening, allowing the NIF to replace
the motor before it failed. Proactively replacing this motor prevented almost eight hours of "shot delays"
for a one-time savings of $80,000, according to Jize. The NIF continuously updates its RCM procedures.
Q. What are the documents required in planned maintenance?
Ans. The following documents are required in planned maintenance
a) Job Specification

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Maintenance schedules cannot be interpreted and acted upon by the tradesmen for carrying out
maintenance actions. Job specifications are compiled from maintenance schedules as a means of
communicating the engineer’s requirement to the tradesmen. They are prepared separately for each trade
and frequency as a directive to the tradesmen. A job specification should meet the following
requirements:
• It is basically an instruction to the tradesman and should define specific items on the machine requiring

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attention and clearly indicate the required action- e.g., Inspect, check, gauge, renew etc.
• It should give guidance in respect of method, where this is not obvious, stating what operational
sequence is appropriate and where special tools or measuring instruments should be used.
• The objective is to maintain a required standard, therefore it is necessary to state this by stipulating

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permissible degrees of wear, alignment, tolerance, fuse and overload capacity, pressures, temperatures,
etc. wherever appropriate.
• As in all plant work, the safety aspect concerning both the tradesmen and operators must be given
fullest consideration. A specification number appears on every job specification sheet, first letter in the

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number denotes trade (M-Mechanical, E-Electrical, C-Civil, I-Instruments, etc.) followed by an oblique

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and the frequency (W-Weekly, M-Monthly, 3M-Three monthly, A-Annual).
The office copy of the job specification should carry details regarding the labour requirements and
estimated time for carrying out the task. This is essential information for preparing the labour allocation
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and the weekly planning program.
Tradesmen should be trained and encouraged to look for, and to state on the inspection report, any other
defects that are noticed during the inspection, even if they do not form part of the job specification itself.
b) Work Order
Work order system helps in planning and controlling of maintenance work. The work order is a form in
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which written instruction are detailed for work to be carried out and it must be filled up for all jobs. It is
also known as work request, work requisition, job card or work ticket. The work order system helps in
the following:
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• Maintenance work to be performed is requested in writing

• Screening the work requested by operation
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• Assigning the best method and the most qualified workers for the job
• Reducing cost through effective utilization of resources
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• Improving planning and scheduling of maintenance work

• Maintaining and controlling the maintenance work
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• Improving overall maintenance through data collected from the work order to be used for control
and continuous improvement programs.
This form is split into two by a vertical line running from top to bottom. All the information to the right is
used as control input information and concerns the job costing, plant and maintenance coding, priority,
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cause and action taken, and details of labour hours and class of labour employed. Total repair time
directly convertible to labour cost and total downtime, if incurred, are calculated and entered by the
planning and control office. The forms are printed in triplicate. Production and maintenance supervision
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and other selected members of staff are authorized to generate a work order. The originator fills up
information regarding plant description, work required and job priority. First two copies are handed over
to appropriate maintenance supervisor for action. After the work has been completed, tradesmen
complete the information regarding action taken, cause and time. Work orders are checked and signed by
the maintenance supervisor before passing it to the planning office. He can add any pertinent information
that the tradesman has not filled up and feels may be necessary for the plant history record. Maintenance
planning office completes information regarding total repair time and down time.
The information carried by a work order is as follows:

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• Planning Information
– Inventory number, unit description and site
– Person requesting job
– Job description and time standard
– Job specification and code number
– Date required and priority

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– Trades required and coordinating supervisor
– Spares required
– Special tools and lifting tackle required
– Safety precaution if any

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– Drawing and manual number
• Control Information
– Cost information
– Down time

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– Actual time taken

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– Cause and consequences of failure
– Action taken
c) Inspection Report
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This form is used only for reporting the results of planned productive maintenance inspections, as set out
in the job specifications. The inspection report has a close resemblance to the work order. The format for
statistical information on costing is identical to the work order and is extracted exactly in the same way.
Job specification number, plant identification details and cost codes are entered by the maintenance
planning office. There is no need of a copy, since issue and receipt are recorded on the master copy of the
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weekly planning program retained in the planning office.

The reverse of the form is blank and can be used, should it be necessary, to report at length on any
specific operation. We are only interested in a report on the adjustments and repairs actually carried out
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or required and not on what is found satisfactory. This reduces the amount of writing required by the
tradesman and facilitates analysis work at a later stage. Tradesman should be encouraged to write brief
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and concise reports.

d) History Records
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The equipment history file is document on which information about all work done on a particular
facility/ equipment is recorded. In the equipment history file, information about all repairs performed,
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downtime, repair work and planned maintenance specification are recorded. It is necessary to record the
following:
• Equipment description and location
• Inspections, repairs, servicing and adjustments carried out, and breakdown/ failures their causes
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and corrective actions undertaken

• Work done on equipment, component repaired or replaced, condition of wear, erosion, corrosion
etc.
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• Measurements or reading taken, clearance, results of tests and inspections

• Failure time and the time lost to carry out repairs. History records should be complete and
recorded in an organized fashion for future access and use.
The regular perusal and analysis of plant history records is an absolutely essential part of operating
planned maintenance system. It is the only sound and logical way of obtaining the information that will
enable the management to take the necessary action based on factual data to raise maintenance standards
and improve cost effectiveness.

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Q3. What do you understand by Maintenance Costing? Write down the benefits of accurate
maintenance costing.
Ans. Costing is the technique of ascertaining costs. It consists of analyzing, recording,
classifying and appropriate allocation of expenditure for the determination of the costs of
products or services, comparing against standards or budgets, reporting and recommending. It
renders information for the guidance of the management for proper planning, operation,

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control and decision making.
The costing of maintenance department involves three steps:
i) Collection and classification of maintenance costs

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ii) Departmentalization of maintenance cost
iii) Absorption of maintenance cost
As manufacturing businesses in Northern Europe ‘automate’ or immigrate to low cost labour
regions in the quest to remain competitive, the role of effective maintenance management has

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never been so important. For businesses that remain at their current operating site, competitive

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pressures and new business change programmes, such as lean, agile and mass customisation, all
place a premium upon operational effectiveness but ignore, to a greater extent, any real
treatment of cost of maintenance and potentially ignore the point at which a business is better to
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acquire new assets than continue with old technology. Such old technology is a major concern
in an era when product lifecycles are shortening and therefore assets and their associated costs
represent key areas of contemporary operations management effectiveness and also as
organisational and inventory buffers have been reduced to near zero over the past decade.
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Cholasuke et al. [1], in their survey on the status of maintenance management practice in UK
manufacturing organisations, show that only few organisation seriously consider good
maintenance management practices and realise the full benefits. The academic and theoretical
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treatment of maintenance costing issues has also been quite limited with most papers dealing
with planning and engineering issues rather than the practice of management and the financial
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evaluation of performance. Mirghani ([2],[3]) proposed a framework for costing planned

maintenance that is based on the techniques of job order costing and activity-based-costing.
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With such a gap in the body of knowledge, an underlying theme of this paper is to call attention
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to the importance of maintenance costing. First we propose the use of Activity-Based Costing
(ABC) combined with discrete event simulation to make estimation on how the maintenance
resources are consumed by maintenance activities including planned (preventive) maintenance
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and unplanned (corrective) maintenance. Further, we underline the importance of maintenance

costing by the showing how accurate maintenance costing is important in the context of
maintenance management itself and other business analysis including the total cost of
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ownership analysis and product costing.

Benefits of accurate Maintenance Costing
Product Costing
As competition in the global manufacturing environment has greatly intensified, accurate
costing becomes very important as it may lead to better decisions made by companies to
survive and maintain profit margin. One of the most problematic issues in cost management is
the product costing, which deals with assigning shared or indirect costs associated with
production support services (e.g. procurement, maintenance, quality control) to individual

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products. This is especially true for manufacturing environments that produce a wide variety of
products with a wide range of volumes. An accurate product costing system will help managers
come up with better product profitability analysis and product pricing decisions. In parallel
with what we have explained earlier and with regard to the use ABC approach in maintenance,
ABC can provide more accurate product costing than the traditional costing approach. Rather
than using volume-based cost allocation, ABC maintains a logical manner in tracing costs to the

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products through quantifying the resources consumed in all the activities required for making
the products. As ABC enables us to allocate the total maintenance cost to all the machines and
the machines are associated with production activities for making the products, the ABC

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applied in maintenance can be viewed as a subset of the bigger ABC framework associated with
product costing.
Total Cost of Ownership
In recent years, Total Cost Ownership (TCO) has become a particular focus of interest across a

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wide range of commercial and non-commercial communities concerned especially with the

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purchase of technology. TCO should be viewed as an integral part of the new concept of Asset
Life Cycle Management that covers comprehensive processes to gain greatest lifetime
effectiveness, utilisation and return from purchased assets (Schuman and Brent. It is arguable
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that effective management of physical assets plays a strategic role in sustaining business
profitability by avoiding the purchase of assets with long lives that have low initial purchase
prices but large maintenance cost burdens. As the name implies, TCO takes into account all
costs including purchase price and all other costs that occur during the entire life cycle of the
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equipment (Shank and Govindarajan).

Maintenance Improvement
Apart from its contribution to TCO and product costing analysis, an accurate maintenance
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costing will also provide a clear metric for maintenance improvement and a means of
demonstrating how maintenance improvement activity contributes to the competitiveness of
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the firm. a continuous maintenance improvement cycle that basically consists of three activities:
identifying opportunities for cost reduction, generating best practice initiatives, and measuring
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the improvement.
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The worthiness of an accurate maintenance costing lies in its ability to evaluate maintenance
improvement program activities by determining the true cost of maintenance (‘we are not able
to compare before we know how to cost’). Further, ABC in maintenance provides employees a
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clear picture of how the maintenance activities perform. This way, employees can better
understand the costs involved and identify opportunities for consuming resources in the most
cost-effective manner.
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Q. Write about spare parts inventory management.

Ans. Spare parts inventory management shares many traits with standard inventory management, but
requires an extra layer of cost consideration.
Whether a maintenance and repair organization (MRO) is internal to a larger business, or providing
maintenance services to an external customer, efficient spare parts inventory management plays a critical
role in reducing costs and maximizing customer service.
For this example, we will look at an internal MRO to a production facility. These five steps collect the
information you need for executing effective spare parts inventory management.

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Step 1: Understanding existing (or projected) consumption

Because repairs happen due to system failures, rather than as part of a production plan, many logistics
professionals overlook consumption predictions.
Depending on the age of the MRO, spare parts consumption can be based on either actual historic
consumption, or projected based on equipment manufacturer preventative maintenance
recommendations and fleet records of other system owners.
Step 2: Calculating system failure costs

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In-stock levels and the size of your on-site inventory should be directly linked to costs of system failure or
“down time”. Every machine in a production facility plays a role.
Some have redundancy, like the multiple fork lifts in a warehouse, while others act as a single point of

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failure for the whole building, such as an automated full-building outbound sorter.
Step 3: Estimate soft cost impact of out-of-stocks
It is a picture familiar to many industry professionals: parts hoarded in toolboxes, a spare motor under a
desk in the maintenance supervisor’s office, or the "secret stash" closet with thousands of dollars worth of

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parts.

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Reducing inventory dollars on the books as part of spare parts inventory management can lead to an off-
books rise in inventory costs. You are guaranteed these behaviours will start when your out-of-stock rate
in your frequently requested spare parts inventory reaches 4-5%.
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Step 4: Work with vendors for cost-reduction and in-stock improvement
In many instances, leveraging vendor relationships will allow you to reduce your overall inventory
dollars and keep better in-stocks.
Rather than using your own time and resources to monitor spare parts usage, establish reorder points,
and project parts required for preventative maintenance, the manufacturer can often provide you a
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starting point for your stocking levels.

In the best cases, you can find vendors willing to provide spare parts inventory management on a
consignment bases: you pay only for parts consumed.
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Step 5: Calculate costs (hard and soft) of expedited orders

It is sometimes impossible to maintain a spare parts inventory for every contingency. The key is to
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establish an expedited spare parts ordering process and understand the costs involved. This allows
subordinate managers and maintenance person to make good decisions on what to expedite and what to
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order on standard orders.

These five steps are just the beginning to achieving optimum spare parts inventory management. From
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these basics, you can measure, evaluate and further stream line your spare parts inventory control
processes.
Cost reduction, increased system availability, and improved moral because workers have the tools they
need to do their jobs are just some of the benefits you can experience.
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Q. Explain the importance of spare parts inventory.

Ans. Benefits of an effective spare parts inventory
High Service level
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The easiest way to sum up this advantage is that of having the right spare parts at the correct
time and place. This allows business to be conducted in a more efficient and effective manner.
Having the correct spare parts in stock allows business to be conducted smoothly without
halting even after a major breakdown thereby preventing the loss of crucial time and wage
while waiting for the correct parts to meet market demands.
Thwart unwanted Expenses
Initially the purchase of spare parts might be a tad expensive but this cost is almost negligible as
compared to the expenses encountered during a breakdown sans the proper spare parts at
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hand. The unavailability of vital spare parts can often cause the entire plant to shut down. Work
and production is ceased while the wait is still there for the arrival of the new spare parts. The
affected machinery might need to be shut down which often leads to the missing of vital
deadlines and thus cause the loss of clients.
Effective control over the processes
You might have been the victim of being handed over duplicate spare parts with numbers that

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has no co-relation to the reality. This mess can be avoided by exercising an effective control and
having a proper systematic management of a spare part inventory.
Proper repairs

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Tales are often heard about employees who in a desperate attempt to avoid a major downfall/
shut down resort to conducting a “patch job” on the machinery. This usually leads to an even
more expensive damage of the equipment. Having the correct at the required time helps in
tackling this problem thoroughly.

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Enhanced equipment uptime

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Strong and effective spare parts management systems reduces the chances of downtime supply
due to the lack of timely availability of the correct spare parts. Along with this comes an
improved fix time rate that naturally leads to more savings. Efficient spare part management
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helps reduces the time wasted on assets that are unused.
Along with this come the following benefits
• Enhanced transparency that leads to an effective management of spare parts inventory
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• Reduced cost that is caused by having obsolete spare parts
• Reduced tacit knowledge by formal component specifications
Q. Write a short note about Maintenance Database and its system.
Ans. In order to enable information technology processing to help the maintenance function, input data
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has to be collected and entered in the master databases.

Equipment Master: The equipment master would have all the static information about all the equipment
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in the plant. Some of the illustrative information are the equipment code, equipment description,
manufacturer/supplier details, purchase data, warranty/insurance information, drawings, major
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specifications, details and specifications of sub-assemblies, details of spare parts etc. This master
information can be maintained in the data base in different forms.
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Corrective Maintenance Master: This master database maintains the information regarding the standard
corrective maintenance activities to be performed on the equipment. Some examples of corrective
maintenance activities are balancing a fan rotor, replacement of pump impeller, relining a cement kiln
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refractory wall etc. For each of these activities information like activity code, description of the activity,
normal frequency of execution, resource requirements like manpower, materials, tools, standard
downtime, activity restriction like safety permits etc. are stored in the database. It could be visualized that
some corrective maintenance activities would be standard activities applicable to a large number of
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equipment, whereas some of them would be equipment specific. The master database can also keep this
information as to whether a particular activity is standard or equipment specific.
Spare Parts/Materials Master: The information regarding the maintenance materials is normally
maintained in this master database. Ideally, this information would also be required for materials
management function and hence would be part of that system. The type of information that would be
maintained are item code, item description, specifications, cost, lead time, vendor details, ordering
Quantity, classification etc. The database may also keep this information regarding other types of
maintenance resources like tools, sub assemblies, rotatable spares etc.

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Latest maintenance management softwares have capability to store both the text characters as well as
images. Thus the above master data bases can also retain information like equipment figures and
drawings, lubrication diagrams, instructions for preventive maintenance etc. in the computer medium.
Purpose of Database Management Systems
Organizations use large amounts of data. A database management system (DBMS) is a software tool that
makes it possible to organize data in a database.

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The standard acronym for database management system is DBMS, so you will often see this instead of the
full name. The ultimate purpose of a database management system is to store and transform data into
information to support making decisions.
A DBMS consists of the following three elements:

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The physical database: the collection of files that contain the data
The database engine: the software that makes it possible to access and modify the contents of the
database
The database scheme: the specification of the logical structure of the data stored in the database

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While it sounds logical to have a DBMS in place, it is worth thinking for a moment about the alternative.

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What would the data in an organization look like without a DBMS? Consider yourself as the organization
for a moment, and the data are all the files on your computer. How is your data organized? If you are like
most typical computer users, you have a large number of files, organized in folders.
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You may have word processor documents, presentation files, spreadsheets, photographs, etc. You find
the information you need based on the folder structure you have created and the names you have given
to your files. This is called a file system and is typical for individual computer users.
Functions of a DBMS
So, what does a DBMS really do? It organizes your files to give you more control over your data.
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A DBMS makes it possible for users to create, edit and update data in database files. Once created, the
DBMS makes it possible to store and retrieve data from those database files.
More specifically, a DBMS provides the following functions:
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Concurrency: concurrent access (meaning 'at the same time') to the same database by multiple users
Security: security rules to determine access rights of users
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Backup and recovery: processes to back-up the data regularly and recover data if a problem occurs
Integrity: database structure and rules improve the integrity of the data
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Data descriptions: a data dictionary provides a description of the data

Within an organization, the development of the database is typically controlled by database
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administrators (DBAs) and other specialists. This ensures the database structure is efficient and reliable.
Database administrators also control access and security aspects. For example, different people within an
organization use databases in different ways. Some employees may simply want to view the data and
perform basic analysis. Other employees are actively involved in adding data to the database or updating
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existing data. This means that the database administrator needs to set the user permissions.
Pros and Cons of DBMS
There are a number of benefits to using a DBMS.
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• A DBMS provides automated methods to create, store and retrieve data. It may take some time to
set up these methods, but once in place, a DBMS can make tedious manual tasks a thing of the
past.
• A DBMS reduces data redundancy and inconsistency. Have you ever had different versions of
the same file on your computer hard drive? The same thing happens in organizations. A well-
designed DBMS will eliminate redundancy.

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• A DBMS allows for concurrent access by multiple users, each with their own specific role. Some
users only need to view the data, some contribute to adding new data, while others design and
manage the database - all at the same time.
Q. Explain the concept of reliability, availability and maintainability.
Ans. The term Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) is very important for the operational as
well as maintenance personnel. The RAM of equipment affects the productivity of the manufacturing

m
system. Reliability of a machine or equipment is the probability that the equipment will give failure free
performance of its intended functions during that time. It is measured as Mean Time between Failure
(MTBF). It is the average time between two consecutive failures. When failure rate is fairly constant, it is

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reciprocal of the constant failure rate. The availability of machine or equipment is different from
reliability. A machine or equipment may be highly reliable as the failure rate is negligible and it fails only
one or two times in a given period. But availability may be very bad because once it fails it takes very
long to repair. The time taken to repair is the concept of maintainability. It is a characteristic of design and
installation which is expressed as the probability that an item will be restored to specified conditions

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within a given period of time when maintenance action is performed in accordance with prescribed

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procedures and resources. Numerically it is calculated as the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) which is
defined as the statistical mean of the distribution of times to repair. The accumulation of active repair
times during a given period of time divided by the total number of malfunctions during the same time
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interval. In this unit you will learn the concept, interrelationship and the ways to improve reliability,
availability and maintainability.
Reliability: Reliability is the probability of a product/equipment/process/system performing its intended
function for a stated period of time under certain specified conditions. Four aspects of reliability are
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apparent from this definition.
• Reliability is a probability based concept. The numerical value of reliability is between 0 and 1.
• The functional performance of the product to meet certain stipulations. Product design will
usually ensure development of a product that meets or exceeds the stipulated requirements.
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• Reliability implies successful operation over a certain period of time.

• Operating or environmental conditions under which product use takes place are specified.
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Reliability of an equipment having many parts is a complex phenomenon and to be examined carefully.
Consider equipment with 500 parts all in series and reliability of each part is 99.5 %. The reliability of this
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equipment would be (0.995)500, which comes out to an unexpected low value of 8%. No one would
accept such equipment which has more than 92 % failure chances. Thus reliability is a function of
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complexity i.e. the number of components. The manufacturing of equipment and its repair method
should be such that most of the parts have 100 % reliability. Reliability engineering is concerned with
identifying and isolating the parts which have less than 100 % reliability after having best manufacturing
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and repair methods. These parts need necessary corrective action. The need of reliability should be
carefully assessed. The failure of one component doesn’t always cause total failure of the equipment nor
does the failure of one equipment always cause total failure of the project or mission (except project like
space mission). Achieving total reliability is very costly and so the users in the industries often have to
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compromise and aim for the low chance of failure of the equipment. Equivalent emphasis is placed on
early return back of the equipment after repair of any breakdown. Reliability improvement is a
continuous engineering process. It involves enormous amount of data collection, data analysis to find out
the mode of failure and various stresses on the equipment. Production department using the equipment,
maintenance department, the equipment manufacturer and the designer of the equipment are fed with
this data for necessary actions to improve reliability. Pareto analysis is used to segregate critical
components/parts which fail too frequently or which have greater impact on the availability of the
equipment. This is also called 80 : 20 analysis, where 20 % of the parts account for 80 % of the failures. At

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the design stage various approaches are used to enhance the reliability of the equipment. The most
prevalent is use of over design. Using thicker material, stronger, better materials for light purpose
equipment. This approach is highly inefficient from the cost perspective, as it increases the cost of
equipment. Other approaches being used are simple and standardized components/ parts. Lesser the
number of components, higher is the reliability. Standardized, proven components have higher reliability
than tailor made special components.

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Debugging Phase: This is also called infant mortality phase represents the failures due to initial problems.
Chance Failure Phase: In this phase failures occur randomly and independently. The failure rate in this
phase is low and constant, and represents the useful life of the equipment.
Wear out Phase: In this phase increases in failure rate is observed as parts age and wear out.

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The reliability parameters MTBF and MTTF are useful for the maintenance department to develop the
wear out characteristics of the components and equipment. This analysis helps in developing better
monitoring and preventive maintenance programs. The need of spare parts and standby equipment can
also be estimated from the MTBF/ MTTF data. The production department can use the reliability data to

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estimate the down time of the equipment. In general, the effectiveness of equipment is a function of

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reliability and availability of the equipment. The safety standard of the equipment is designed with the
knowledge of reliability of components.
System Reliability: Most equipment and machines are made up of a number of components. The
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reliability of each component and the configuration of the system consisting of these components
determine the system reliability. Although product design, manufacture and maintenance influence
reliability, improving reliability is largely the domain of design. One common practice for increasing
reliability is through redundancy in design that is placing components in parallel. As long as one
component operates, system operates. System fails when all components in parallel fail.
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Maintainability: Maintainability is an obscure concept unless derived from and related to the purpose of
the system or equipment. It must be derived mathematically before it can be used as significant system
specification. After making these decisions, business decisions can be made regarding allocation of
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budgets and resources to design, development and maintenance as well as reliability and performance.
Alternative system designs and configurations of different module sizes have alternative reliability and
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important considerations in design is maintenance free design. Maintainability may be given less
importance in one shot applications like missile and rocket propulsion, where reliability is highly
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important. But in most of the general industrial machines and equipment maintainability has to be given
due consideration.
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The maintainability is the combined qualitative and quantitative characteristics of material design and
installation which enable the accomplishment of operational objectives with minimum expenditure
including manpower, personnel skill, test equipment, technical data and facilities under operational
environmental conditions in which scheduled and unscheduled maintenance will be performed. The
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improvement in maintainability of machine or equipment requires that the procuring activity should
specify an equipment repair time in the detailed equipment or system specification. The design of
equipment or system should be such that the geometric mean of all active repair time intervals required
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to repair independent failures shall not exceed the specific equipment repair time. Compliance of this
requirement needs to be verified in the final design stage and in the procurement and operational stage.
Some of the quantitative measures of requirement are:
• Maintenance man-hours per 100 machine running hours.
• Turnaround time required for returning the machine to an operationally ready condition.
• Percentages of components/ modules, which can be down for maintenance and still permit the
attainment of the operational requirement.

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Another aspect of maintainability is its consequences and the intensity of consequence. The five
consequences can be down time, maintenance time, logistics requirements, and equipment damage and
personnel injury.
Q. Illustrate the close relation between safety and environmental issues and maintenance
management.
Ans. Management of the modern business enterprise is not just the culmination of producing

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products and services to sell to the customers and make profit. Due to the intrinsic network of
various stakeholders of an enterprise starting from the shareholders to the general public at
large, a management has to not only look for immediate results like profitability but also take

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care of long term goals like customer satisfaction, public image and goodwill etc. The
assiduously built reputation of a company can be destroyed by a single incident of accident in
its premises. A recent example was the accident in Bhopal in the Union Carbide factory, which
sullied its reputation worldwide. Similarly, Governments and the general public are demanding

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safeguards for environmental performance of the products and processes of a production

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operation. In view of these requirements, safety and environmental issues have assumed
priority over many other requirements for a business enterprise. The earlier thinking in the
safety assurance of an operation system was to stress on creation of a separate safety
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specialization, which had been primarily made responsible for the safety of men and machines.
Such attempts have often been found to be inadequate due to non-participation of the grass root
level personnel of the plant. The modern concept of safety assurance tries to stress the
importance of involvement of all the people, right from the top most owner of the company to
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the lower most workers in the safety and environment movement of the company.
Terminologies like ‘Total Safety Management’, ‘Sustainable Development’ etc are the result of
such modern thinking to bring a holistic view into the subject. The analysis of the causes of
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many safety and environmental accidents, have invariably identified ‘improper maintenance’ as
one of the major reasons. While simple preventive maintenance activities like inspections,
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timely replacements etc would be quite economical, the neglect of the same has been the reason
for enormous loss of revenue running to millions of rupees as a result of the accidents
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emanating from such causes, not to speak of the invaluable loss of precious lives. Needless to
emphasize, safety and environmental issues need to be made an integral part of the
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maintenance management function, without which the basic objective of the maintenance
function of assurance of plant availability is not complete.
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The Components of Safety and Environmental Issues and Their Relation To Maintenance
Management: There are various issues concerned with the safety and environmental
performance of an enterprise. Each of these issues has also linkage with the operation and
maintenance management functions. These are briefly described below:
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Corporate Objectives and Goals: The top management of the organizations is expected to
clearly specify the corporate objectives and goals it would like to practice in terms of
environment and safety assurance. Many a times, this is done through a widely publicized
policy statement. The policy and objectives of the operation and maintenance functions are
expected to dovetail them into the corporate safety and environmental objectives. For example,
a policy of strict environmental cleanliness in terms of carbon dioxide emission norms may

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mean operation and maintenance policy practice of alternate use of clean fuels or the
requirement for more frequent preventive maintenance overhauling.
Documentation of Process and Equipment: Another important requirement for the safety and
environmental assurance for the company is the meticulous documentation of the vital
specifications of the process and equipment in terms of their compliance to safety and
environmental standards, statutory or otherwise. This documentation can be either

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independently prepared or integrated into the operation and maintenance manuals of the plant
processes or equipment.
Risk Management: As it may not be possible to totally eliminate the risks to zero level,

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specifically in case of large complex process plants, it would be required to scientifically analyze
the risks involved and prepare plans to mitigate them. Risk management involves use of multi
disciplinary knowledge and participation to identify all possible hazards and also identify
solutions to keep their risks at acceptable levels. The contribution of operation and maintenance

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in risk management is to contribute to the analysis process through inputs regarding various

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hazards of operation and maintenance processes. For example, many of the accidents in
chemical process plants are due to typical maintenance operations like structure welding,
catalyst change, overhauling etc. Hence the maintenance functions having intrinsic knowledge
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of these processes need to contribute in the process of study of these risks.
Change Management: In process plants, many of the environmental and safety failures arise
from the failure to manage changes, both in the technology applications or systems. The
Flixborough accident happened due to the failure to manage properly the change required in
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terms of providing a bypass line to a reactor during shut down of a reactor. Hence process
safety guidelines insist on well laid out procedures for change management. As maintenance
activities are the most prominent examples of unknown changes, due to their unique nature
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each time, these requirements are mainly applicable to the maintenance function.
Human Factors: The untrained or improperly placed worker is likely to commit mistakes,
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which may lead to safety or environmental consequences. Apart from this, there are other
human factors like attitude, ergonomics, work culture etc, which have great bearing on the
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safety and environmental performance. Nurturing the human factors to enable achievement of
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best safety results is equally applicable to all plant functions, including operation and
maintenance.
Investigation of Incidents: There is requirement, statutory or otherwise, to intensely investigate
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incidents, so that underlying causes can be found out and corrective actions for future
improvements can be prescribed. The role of operation and maintenance personnel are
important in such investigations, as they have to provide the correct sequence of activities
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before, during and after the incident to the investigating team and also implement the
suggestions emanating from such investigations.
Safety and Environmental Audits: As already explained in another unit, there is increasing
tendency to integrate the safety and environment audit requirements in the maintenance audits.
The audits are mainly to identify whether the existing systems, techniques and procedures
comply with the stated and required standards and suggest improvements wherever required.
The maintenance executive is an important team member of the safety and environment audit
team in many process plants.

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