2001

Laakso, Kari; Strömberg, Andre

The paper describes an approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the maintenance strategies of technical systems in operating power plants. In the Experience Based Reliability Centred Maintenance (EBRCM) approach, the analyses of the history of occurred faults and the preventive maintenance program are combined. Changes in the maintenance programs are proposed for reduction of faults or increasing the cost-efficiency of maintenance. The justification of changes is based on simple maintenance indicators and study of the underlying failure and maintenance data. To make the analysis resource-efficient and generate easily the maintenance indicators, suitable data analysis and warehouse tools are used. They facilitate the online access and treatment of the work orders and other planning information in plant information systems. In order to direct the analysis to the important items from maintenance point of view, the equipment of the plant are classified based on their importance for reaching the maintenance objectives such as plant safety, plant availability and worker protection. Maintenance optimisation is directed to those important equipment which exhibit a high number of failures. The other equipment of less maintenance importance, but which exhibit high preventive maintenance costs and low numbers of failures are also analysed to improve the cost-effectiveness of maintenance. After experiences from performing two case studies, both on a standby safety system and a continuously operating process system, Barsebäck Kraft AB adopted the experience based RCM approach as standard method for evaluation of the maintenance action programs and planning of modifications in them. The strength is the applicability and continuity of this method, i.e. each year again.