Condition Monitoring as a driver for Logistics and Maintenance Planning

Abstract

In this M.Sc. Thesis the Maintenance Management (MM) loop developed by the Norwegian Oil Directorate (now PSA) has been used as a basis. The model was developed during the "basic study for Maintenance Management" in 1998. The purpose with this thesis was to connect this MM loop with Condition Monitoring (CM) as a strategy.

This thesis can be seen as divided into two main parts as the task description shows. The first part with focus on the MM loop and CM, and the second part with focus on a decision tool for determination of maintenance and logistic demand related to offshore equipment.

First the influences of CM on the input and output parameters of the MM loop have been discussed. Here the input parameters are the resources in form of organization, materials and support documentation. The output parameters are risk level and regularity due to HSEQ and costs. A premise for implementing CM will be that the benefits from CM must exceed the extra input costs, and that CM overall will be a better strategy than conventional periodic maintenance.

Then activities in each step of the loop related to CM have been detected and discussed. Also analysis tools that may be used to support these activities have been detected and described. The most important tool detected was Reliability centered maintenance (RCM).

There is also performed an investigation on the flow of CM data from signal data to useful information used for planning and decision support with respect to maintenance and logistics. This flow diagram starts with CM and data from CM, goes through among others condition analysis, prediction of reliability and remaining useful life, and ends up with actual failure mechanisms and condition development from the planned maintenance actions.

For the second main part of the thesis, first a typical maintenance regime for offshore separators today has been briefly described. Then there has been tried to develop a decision tool with main focus on going from goals and requirements to a maintenance program for general offshore equipment. This decision tool includes the most important aspects needed to take into consideration when evaluating if CM is feasible from both a technical and a cost point of view.

At last the decision tool has been evaluated and discussed towards a separator case. The analysis results utilized here are mainly collected from the M. Sc. Thesis of Jørgen Houmstuen from last year.