It is thus observed that the maintenance concept serves a twofold purpose :(1) formulation of maintainability requirements for the system to be developed and (2) provision of the facilities for supporting the system which has been developed. Therefore, the maintenance concept should be realistic in nature and should satisfactorily meet the needs of the system design engineers and the requirements for the logistic support planners.
During the development of maintenance concept, care must be taken to define the repair policy to meet out the maintenance requirements. Formulation of the repair policy will also help to make the necessary arrangements for the support system.
A high level of automation, deploying complex and sophisticated machines, characterizes the modern industries. The objective behind automation is to achieve higher productivity and profit in business. This has resulted in total dependency on machines and, therefore, it is essential that the equipment/system must remain in operation without any trouble. This requirement has changed the technology and the operating philosophy of the industry . A new body of knowledge is progressively coming up to assist the industry in meeting the challenges of maintaining the modern engineering systems. The measures taken by the industry to keep machines and operating systems in trouble-free condition, are collectively termed maintenance engineering.
After the equipment is designed, fabricated and installed, the maintenance department looks after the operational availability of the same. The idea of maintenance is very old and was introduced along with the inception of the machine. In the early days, a machine used as long as it worked. When it stopped working, it was either repaired/serviced or discarded. In today’s age, the high-cost sophisticated machines need to be properly maintained /service during their entire life cycle for maximizing their ability so that their operation and the resulting production is cost effective.
Maintenance is a function to keep the equipment /machine in a working condition by replacing/repairing some of the components of the machine. Sometimes even periodic examination is an outline plan of how the maintenance function will be performed. With this information available from the users, detailed procedures are drawn to concrete the maintenance concept. The executable procedures developed thus are collectively called the maintenance plan. The development of such a maintenance plan is one of the most important requirements of the maintenance program that calls for a meaningful interaction between the user and the manufacturer. The feedback information thus received will allow manufacturer to rearrange the design as per user’s operating conditions as well as maintenance requirements.
The maintenance concept of equipment is related to the operational needs of the equipment, which may change from machine to machine or system to system. The operational needs of the equipment /system vary from intermittent use to continuous use. First of all, the operational concept is determined and then the maintenance concept is developed to support the operational concept. Finally, a maintenance plan is prepared in accordance with the concept thus developed, which can be more realistic.
For example, if the operational concept of a unit requires the use of ten trucks/dumpers at a time for a particular mission, the maintenance concept has to be designed accordingly to meet such requirements. To keep ten trucks /dumpers ready all the time, it may be necessary to procure twenty such equipment in the case of online maintenance, or fifteen such equipment in the case of remove/replace policy.
Thus, the scope of maintenance has grown to include not only system repair, but also system safety, economic viability, quality, and the most appropriate use of environment resources.
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