BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN

THEORY AND PRACTICE IN

MAINTENANCE

D.N.P. (Pra) MURTHY

RESEARCH PROFESSOR
THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
PART-3: BUSINESS FOCUS
 OUTLINE

Framework & modelling

Case 1: Dragline
Maintenance Outsourcing
Case 2: Hydraulic pumps
FRAMEWORK & MODELLING
 KEY ELEMENTS
Technical

Maintainability
Functional requirement Design / Upgrade
requirements

Production rate Equipment degradation Maintenance (PM / CM)

Output Operating costs

Revenue Profits Investment

Business Goals
Commercial
 MODELLING

The elements that are relevant depends

on the decision problem
Need to model the relevant elements
separately
Link the models to build the model for
solving the decision problem
Data plays a critical part
DRAGLINE CASE STUDY

[CONTINUATION FROM PART 2]

 DECISION PROBLEM

Commercial considerations dictate an

increase in output
Idea: Increase bucket size (100 tons to
140?)
Greater load on components
Implications for reliability and
maintenance
 LOAD

DEGRADATION

DUTY CYCLE

MAINTENANCE FAILURE

AVAILABILITY YIELD
 MODELLING
Modelling system in terms of its major
components [Decomposition]
Modelling degradation of each
component
Modelling effect of bucket load on
component and system performance
Involves reliability science, engineering
and mathematics
 SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Availability: Depends on up and down

times
Down times: To rectify minor failures
and preventive maintenance to avoid
major failures
Up time: Productive time
Cycle: Time between major maintenance
 SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Bucket load affects both these variables

Need to take into account preventive
maintenance schedules for different
components [Different time scales]
Multiple objectives: Study different
alternatives
 OBJECTIVES

Maximise total output per year

Maximise revenue per year
Minimise total cost per year
Maximise yield [dirt moved per unit
time]
Need to take into account various
constraints
 SYSTEM FAILURE MODELLING

System comprised of 25 components

All components need to be working for
the system to be working. System fails
whenever a component fails.
System failure distribution is given by a
competing risk model involving the
failure distribution of the 25 components
 MODELLING THE SYSTEM
Failure distribution for the system is
given by
25
S (T ) 1 F (T ) 1 Fi (T )
i 1
Failure distributions of the individual
components was discussed in Part 2.
Minimal repairs for subsequent failure
modelling
 AVAILABILITY

Cycle Time: Depends on load v the ratio

of load to the base load
Up time: Tv
Expected downtime (for minor and major
preventive maintenance) obtained from
field data
From this we can obtain availability
 AVAILABILITY
Tv
A(T , v )
ECL(v )
K Tv

ECL( ) Tv [{ rvi ( x )dx} ri ] pm p

i 1 0
 RISK CONSTRAINT
1 Bucket load V1
0.95

Bucket load V0
Reliability

T1 T0
P.M. Interval (T)
 AVAILABILITY vs v
A v ailab ility v s S tre ss R atio
0.8

0.7
Av ailability (v ) (% )

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
v v
MAJOR PM INTERVAL vs v 4
x 10 P M In te rv al v s S tre ss R atio
4.5

3.5

3
T (hours)

2.5
v

1.5

0.5
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
v v
YIELD vs BUCKET LOAD
Yield vs Stress Ratio
70

65
Yield(v) (tonnes/minute)

60

55

50

45

40
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
v
SENSITIVITY STUDY ()
Yield vs Stress Ratio
75

70
Yield(v) (tonnes/minute)

65
90%
i
60

55

50

45
110%
90% i
40 i
100%
i
35 110%
i
30
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
v
 CONCLUSIONS
Study revealed increase in output yield
with increase in bucket size
Maximum yield corresponds to v 1.3
(dragline load = 182 tonnes or payload of
116 tonnes) as opposed to current
payload of 74 tonnes
Shutdown interval will need to be
reduced from 43680 usage hours to 25000
usage hours (or 4.1 calendar years)
 REFERENCE
For more details, see Townson, P. Murthy,
D.N.P. and Gurgenci, H. (2002), Optimisation
of Dragline Load, in Case Studies in Reliability
and Maintenance, WR Blischke and DNP
Murthy [Editors], Wiley, New York.
MAINTENANCE OUT-SOURCING
 CONCEPT

Outsourcing of maintenance involves

some or all of the maintenance actions
(preventive and/or corrective) being
carried out by an external service agent
under a service contract. The contract
specifies the terms of maintenance and
the cost issues and can involve penalty
and incentive terms.
 KEY ELEMENTS
OWNER'S
DECISIONS

OWNER'S
OBJECTIVES

UNKNOWN AND
MAINTENANCE
OUTCOMES UNCONTROLLABLE
SERVICE CONTRACT
FACTORS

SERVICE AGENT'S
OBJECTIVES

SERVICE AGENT'S
DECISIONS
OVERALL FRAMEWORK
ASSET STATE AT THE PAST
PAST USAGE
START OF CONTRACT MAINTENANCE

OWNER SERVICE
CONTRACT
(CUSTOMER) AGENT

NOMINATED PENALTIES / NOMINATED

USAGE RATE INCENTIVES MAINTENANCE

ACTUAL ASSET DEGRADATION ACTUAL

USAGE RATE RATE MAINTENANCE

ASSET STATE AT THE

END OF CONTRACT
 MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES

D-1: What (components) need to be

outsourced for maintenance?
D-2: When should the maintenance be
carried out?
D-3: How should the maintenance be
carried out?
 ALTERNATE CONTRACT
SCENARIOS

DECISIONS
SCENARIOS
CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENT
S-1 D-1, D-2 D-3
S-2 D-1 D-2, D-3
S-3 - D-1, D-2, D-3
 DECISION PROBLEMS

From a business perspective

Well defined objective (or goal)
Models to evaluate alternate options and
for deciding on the optimal option
Most businesses do not do this and
outsource decisions are based on
qualitative evaluation
EXCAVATORS CASE STUDY

[Outsourcing Hydraulic Pumps]

 EXCAVATORS

Excavators are used in mining to load

coal or ore on to dump trucks for
transporting
Hydraulic pumps operate the excavators
Four pumps per machine
Mine operator had four machines on site
 MAINTENANCE OUTSOURCING

The company selected on Scenario 1

where the owner decided on D-1 and D-2
Outsourcing the maintenance of
hydraulic pumps
PM action if a pump did not fail for
12,000 hours [based on manufacturer
recommendation]
CM action on failure
 MAINTENANCE
Both CM and PM maintenance results in
the reconditioned pump being back to as-
good-as new
Some items were junked based on their
condition whilst others were subjected
either CM or PM action
Customer used both new and
reconditioned pumps
 DATA ASPECTS

Customer had failure data for items that

failed and censored data (resulting from
PM actions or discarding)
No information on number of times a
unit was subjected to maintenance action
Some other information was also
collected.
 DATA ASPECTS

There was no terms in the contract for

the Service Agent to provide the owner
with the state of items sent for PM action
or the failure mode of items sent for CM
action.
 DECISION PROBLEM

The cost of a CM action >> the cost of a

PM action
The owner was interested in seeing if the
age for PM actions can be increased to
15,000 hours so as to reduce the
maintenance costs paid to the Service
Agent
 DATA COLLECTION
6 year window yielded 103 data
46 failure data and 57 censored data.
For each failure data, additional
information relating to (i) the associated
excavator (one of four different
excavators), (ii) the pump position (one
of four different positions) and, (iii) the
engine (one of two) was also collected.
 DATA COLLECTION
For the 45 pumps that failed the
following additional information was
obtained.
15 are known to be new pumps
2 are suspected to be new pumps
8 are known to be reconditioned pumps
2 are suspected to be reconditioned pumps
19 are unknown
 MODEL FORMULATION

Based on WPP plot [Discussed in Part 2]

The model selected was a mixture model
Two cases: shape parameters (i) same
and (ii) not same
F (t ) pF1 (t ) (1 p) F2 (t )
i
Fi (t ) 1 exp{(t / i ) }, 1 i 2
WPP PLOTS DATA AND MODEL
[SHAPE PARAMETERS SAME]
WPP PLOTS DATA AND MODEL
[SHAPE PARAMETERS DIFFERENT]
 MODEL PARAMETERS

Model parameters obtained by least

squares fit
Parameter p 1 2 1 2 ( )
Case 1 0.925 2.22 2.22 14800 465 0.650
Case 2 0.915 2.48 1.83 14400 566 0.515

Select the one with the same shape

parameters
 MODEL ANALYSIS
Two sub-populations
MTTF given by i (1 1/ i )i ,1 i 2
1 13110; 2 410
Around 7.5 8.5% of items have early failures
Reasons for early failures:
Particular machine and location? [some data
available to test this]
Operating environment? [no data available]
 OPTIMAL DECISION

Optimum age for PM can be derived

using the well known PM policy
Objective function: Asymptotic
maintenance cost per unit time
J (T ) {C f / C p }F (T ) [1 F (T )]
J (T ) T
Cp
tf (t )dt T [1 F (T )]
0
 C f / Cp 2
0.000158795

0.00015879

0.000158785

0.00015878

0.000158775
J(T)

0.00015877

0.000158765

0.00015876

0.000158755

0.00015875

0.000158745
15100 15200 15300 15400 15500 15600 15700 15800 15900 16000 16100
T
 IMPLICATIONS

With current reliability the optimum age

for PM is 15,000 hours with C f / C p 2
By proper understanding and
identification of the root cause one can
eliminate early failures
In this case the reliability increases and
the PM interval can be increased
 REFERENCES
Murthy, D.N.P., Xie, M. and Jiang, R. (2003),
Weibull Models, Wiley, New York.
[Deals with many Weibull based models and the use
of WPP plots for model selection.]
Murthy, D.N.P. and Jack, N. (2008),
Outsourcing of Maintenance, in Complex
System Maintenance Handbook, K.A.H.
Kobbacy and D.N.P. Murthy (eds), Springer
Verlag, London,
 Thank you

Any Questions?