Reengineering Maintenance for Dependability

Maintenance is undergoing a major revolution. The management of maintenance is being impacted by business-driven changes that are forcing fundamental improvements to the maintenance function. Maintenance planning and execution are now considered as a strategic component of asset life cycle management. The link between maintenance and design is being furthered by placing emphasis on considering reliability and maintainability during the design phase. The application of Reliability-Centered Maintenance is becoming an important method for determining the optimum maintenance program for facility assets, while at the same time providing a solid foundation for triggering selective system improvements and design changes and managing life cycle cost and risk associated with assets. The concept of dependability provides the focus for integrating design, operations and maintenance into a coherent and complete life cycle approach to facilities. Dependability is strongly linked to quality standards since, for many companies, dependability is the major component of quality that has to be satisfied to meet customer needs. This paper describes the practical application of a quality approach to a gas transmission company which has recently undergone a reengineering of its design, operations and maintenance processes.