Proper Maintenance Ensures Profitability

Maintenance should focus on those actions necessary to maintain, monitor, schedule and repair components and systems to a level that ensure safe and reliable operation in a cost effective manner. It must take into account the requirements levied on it by issues such as manning, classification, certification, commissioning, lay-up and decommissioning of a unit. When properly planned and executed, a good maintenance plan can enhance profitability, demonstrate ‘due diligence’, yet be defensible when challenged. Maintenance that is logically deducted and properly implemented can show a net return for costs invested. This paper outlines a methodology that addresses how to develop maintenance plans in a cost efficient manner. It addresses how to avoid a unit’s reliability being degraded when changes driven by budgetary considerations are proposed, how maintenance costs can be prioritized through understanding the various modes of failure and their consequences, and the necessity of having a good monitoring and feed back program to ensure that expectations are met.