Risk Management in Repair Work Decision Making

Abstract

ABSTRACTRepair work decision making for Navy surface ship depot availabilities has challenged maintenance managers for many years. Today's environment of reduced maintenance funding increases the magnitude of this challenge. Effective decision making in these circumstances requires not only properly assessing but also capably managing the risk of deferred work that results.Risk has two elements, severity of failure and probability of failure. Although the severity of failure sometimes overshadows the probability of failure in repair work considerations, both play an important role in making effective decisions. The result of using both correctly provides a reliable basis for evaluating the risk of deferred work accurately and establishing the risk management actions necessary to minimize the effects of in‐service failure.This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate the relative risks of deferred work decisions in terms of successful depot availability completion and subsequent ship operational reliability. It also permits correlating those risks with maintenance funds requirements. Finally, it outlines different risk management approaches that may be taken to deal effectively with the deferred work that ultimately results.