Maintenance Planning and Optimization of Feed System and Camera System used in Norwegian Aquaculture - Using RCM approach to construct a maintenance program

Abstract

There is an increasing global demand for seafood consumption. Fish farms in Norway has gradually moved to more exposed sites due to competition with other coast-based industries. Sea based aquaculture occupation is one of most dangerous occupation in Norway and the existing fish farms operate at the edge of safety limits.

The present state of technology in fish farms involve human interaction with cages and tools. Moving to exposed locations, also increases the challenges in terms of working environment and demand systems to be more robust and reliable. The objective of this thesis is to choose systems used in aquaculture and study them in detail to improve their availability.

The two systems that are crucial in daily operations of fish farms are, namely feed system and camera system designed by the AKVA Group are analyzed using Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) methodology. RCM is a structured procedure that identifies the functions, functional failures, failure modes, failure effects and consequences of the asset under consideration. Then a suitable maintenance task either corrective or preventive is recommended for the identified failure modes. The analysis suggested 23 preventive and 8 corrective tasks for feed system and 17 preventive and 4 corrective tasks for camera system. This knowledge benefits in improving system availability and to identify potential for autonomy