Services
Maintenance engineering
Introduction
Maintenance Engineering consists in the application of an engineering approach, based on data and well-defined processes, orientated to goal and optimization, to definition and subsequent management of on-site maintenance activities. The ultimate aim is to obtain the maximum possible efficiency from maintenance (that is, performance of equipment and systems) and efficiency (that is, lower costs and use of resources), consistently with the specific goals of the company and with the operating context. This approach is applicable to all sectors that intensively use physical assets (process, manufacturing, railway and aeronautics, power, etc.) and allows managers, when well structured, to have better control of processes and to identify any inefficiencies, often leading to a significant reduction in operating costs.
Maintenance Engineering is often applied in synergy with Reliability and Availability activities, being the natural outlet of the latter when it is necessary to pass from fault analysis to the search for possible solutions to prevent them and manage them in an optimized way.
The services delivered by RAMS&E within Maintenance Engineering are the following:
- Reliability Centered Maintenance Studies (RCM) and optimization of maintenance policies
- Consulting and support activities for maintenance management systems
- Support in the drafting and optimization of guidelines, maintenance procedures and plans
- Consulting and support activities (except IT part) in relation to maintenance information systems (CMMS)
- Coordination and/or expert support for customer work groups and workshops aimed at optimizing maintenance
- Support to multidisciplinary design teams for maintainability aspects
- LCC (Life Cycle Cost) and ILS (Integrated Logistic Support) studies
CASE HISTORY
RCM study for electric traction medium-capacity train subsystems
GOALS OF THE ACTIVITY
As part of this project, RAMS&E supported the Customer, a primary player in the market for the supply of complete trains and related maintenance services, in the optimization of the Maintenance Plan of various systems that are part of a medium-capacity electric train intended for short-haul transportation. The goal was to reexamine and redefine, where necessary, the Maintenance Plans presented by the individual subcontractors in order to present to the future operator and to the Authorities an integrated Maintenance Plan that was technically robust and flawless from the safety point of view, and at the same time cost-sustainable.
SERVICES DELIVERED
The following activities have been developed.
- Fault analysis review (FMEA) developed by the subcontractors of each subsystem (braking system, SCMT/SCB signaling system, carriage coupling system, bogies system, train coupling system, etc.).
- Application of the RCM decision-making process to each fault in order to identify the most appropriate maintenance policies and tasks for the prevention of each fault.
- Estimation of the fault expected frequency of the components and related life cycle cost for preventive and corrective maintenance, through the application of Weibull curves and Monte Carlo method.
- Cost/benefit analysis and definition of optimized intervention frequencies, considering the results of the simulations and legislative and operational constraints.
- Maintenance Plan update with new tasks and new intervals.
- Update of LCC (Life Cycle Cost) model with the new preventive intervals and new expected fault frequencies, in order to quantify the savings achieved.