Case Studies in Maintenance and Reliability: A Wealth of Best Practices

“This book is an essential tool to help pass on the wealth of knowledge of best practices to future generations of maintenance leaders.”
—Joel Leonard, “The Maintenance Evangelist,” MPACT Learning Center

“An essential primer on maintenance topics … food for thought even for the most experienced manager.”
—S. Bradley Peterson, President, Strategic Asset Management, Inc.

“This is a must read for people who have to struggle with the day-to-day problems of plant life.”
—Charles J. Latino, CEO and President, Reliability Center, Inc.

“I have bought many books on maintenance and reliability and this is up with the best…”
—D. M. Thompson

“This is the first book I have ever read like this. I love it.”
—Ricky Smith, CMRP

“I read the book from the perspective of a ‘non-technical’ reader and think that it is a fund of valuable knowledge and experience.”
—Ayesha Chopra, Trainer, Seminar Leader and Co-author ”Secretary’s Factomatic”

For the full reviews, click on “Praise” above.

This is a Print-On-Demand book and is printed upon receipt of your order. Delivery will take approximately 10 to 14 days.

In Case Studies in Maintenance and Reliability, The authors describe 42 on-the-job events or situations – case studies taken from their own work experience and from which they gained invaluable insights into a wealth of best practices in maintenance and reliability. In many instances they did not know the underlying academic theories that would have applied. They found solutions often more by intuition and teamwork.

The case studies are real, told by the people who were professionally and emotionally involved. The authors have resisted the temptation to offer a set of recipes for all occasions. Rather, the approach is all about “how we did it” rather than “how you must do it”. Case study stories are a great way to communicate, and that is the medium the authors have adopted. They’ve packed the book with common sense ideas on how to improve maintenance and reliability performance.

Operations and maintenance technicians, supervisors, managers, planners, schedulers and support engineering teams, as well as designers and project managers will value these dynamic illustrations of real-life situations. Many will recognize similarities to their own work. Students will find the true case studies to be a refreshing change from the usual diet of books emphasizing theory.

Features

• Provides a logical organization with chapters grouped into six broad headings, enabling readers to choose the order in which they wish to absorb the lessons, which are based on the Shewhart-Deming Continuous Improvement cycle.
• In addition to the Plan-Schedule-Execute-Analyze elements, the authors have added Leadership and People to complete the suite.
• Each chapter has broadly similar sections, beginning with a Background to the events, going on to describe the key elements of the approach, and ending with Lessons and Principles.
• Underlying theories, philosophies or even detailed descriptions of methods are stripped out of the main chapters and described in Appendices, so that only those readers who wish to delve into details may do so.
• Contains a Book Summary which draws all the principles and lessons together, and gives references to the relevant chapters.
• Copiously illustrated, with charts, diagrams and tables which relate closely to the text.

Vee Narayan is a leading authority on maintenance and reliability engineering. He is an experienced maintenance manager with a successful track record in a variety of industries including engineering, petroleum refining, pharmaceutical, liquefied natural gas production and oil & gas exploration and production. He has worked in several countries and cultures, including India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

He led Shell’s Centre of Excellence in Maintenance and Reliability and represented Shell in a Joint Industry Project (OREDAzzz). For eight years, he led the Maintenance Strategy group in Shell’s Exploration & Production Company in Aberdeen.

Vee is a successful trainer over a period of 14 years in specialist areas such as Reliability Centred Maintenance, Root Cause Analysis and other maintenance management subjects. He is a visiting lecturer in the MSc course in Asset Management, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK, and an Associate Fellow of the MIRCE Akademy, Exeter, UK.

Contents

Part 1: Introductory

• Introduction & Navigation Guide
• The Locations

Part 2: Leadership

• Creating the vision
• Setting Objectives
• Changing Paradigms with Leadership and Expertise
• Applying Best Business Practices
• Evaluate Contractor’s Unit Rates
• Benchmarking

Part 3: People

• Manning levels
• Integrating Inspection and Degradation Strategies
• Technician Training Challenge
• Competence Profiles
• Operators & Maintainers
• Building a Reliability Culture
• Managing Surplus Staff
• Retraining Surplus Staff

Part 4: Plan

• Integrated Planning
• Critical Path Planning Capability
• Shutdown Management
• Electrical Maintenance Strategies
• Minor Maintenance by Operators
• Relocating Machine Tools
• Painting Contract Strategy

Part 5: Schedule

• Long Look-Ahead Plan
• Workload Management
• Infrastructure Maintenance
• Workflow Management

Part 6: Execute

• Trip Testing
• Work the Plan
• Keeping to Schedule
• Operators as a Maintenance Resource
• Overtime Control
• Manage Contractors

Part 7: Analyze

• Reliability Engineering in New Projects
• Computing Reliability Data
• Shutdown Planning Review
• Shutdown Duration/Cost
• Turnaround Performance Improvements
• Motor Maintenance Regimes
• Boiler Feed-Water Pump Seals
• Cooling Water Pump Failures
• Laboratory Oven Failures
• Heater Outlet Flue Gas Dampers
• Pump Reliability

Book Summary