Current Maintenance Practices Research Articles

Proposal for used electronic products management in Mexicali

Mexicali, a Mexican city located near the US-Mexico border, has faced several challenges related to adopting an integrated e-waste management system. Thus, the main objective of this work is to propose a new system to be implemented in phases. The current system is evaluated using several methodological approaches including field studies, surveys, interviews, and quantitative modeling via material flow analysis. We suggest the need to properly integrate both the formal and informal sectors to achieve the optimal system that mitigates environmental impacts while preserving the positive social and economic traits of the current system. Thus, without supplanting the current reuse, refurbishment, repair and maintenance practices, a hybrid system is proposed, based on a centralized facility that primarily handles those parts or materials that create environmental impacts and health hazards if mishandled. Furthermore, a decentralized transition phase toward the new system is recommended.

A Survey of the Underlying Success Factors of Maintenance Digital Transformation

Advances in information technology and sensors, efficient connectivity, and ground-breaking computational ability are proving to be game-changer for improving maintenance strategies and production outcomes. The integration of conventional maintenance concepts with disruptive technological developments leads to significant changes in current maintenance practices in a response to the digitalized context requirements. However, despite the availability of technology and its relative affordability, many maintenance digital transformation (MDT) initiatives fail to accomplish their goals. This is due to the fact that technology alone is not sufficient for an organization to successfully digitalize its operations. Several challenges including the absence of a business case, limited analytical capabilities, uncertainties about new technologies, and impact of the human factor are hindering the success of attempted MDT efforts. MDT enablers reflect various aspects and span different implicated areas of the organization. This study seeks to develop a comprehensive and structured list of the underpinning factors driving the success of MDT. To that end, the authors conducted a systematic literature review in order to extract the various factors highlighted in the literature. Subsequently, a purification phase was conducted which consisted of merging the redundant factors together, then mapping them into various thematic categories based on the aspect covered. The final consolidated list comprises 63 enablers of MDT that are classified into 14 categories. This research enriches the extant relevant literature and provides guidance to practitioners in this field.

Circular production and maintenance of automotive parts: An Internet of Things (IoT) data framework and practice review

The adoption of the Circular Economy paradigm by industry leads to increased responsibility of manufacturing to ensure a holistic awareness of the environmental impact of its operations. In mitigating negative effects in the environment, current maintenance practice must be considered for its potential contribution to a more sustainable lifecycle for the manufacturing operation, its products and related services. Focusing on the matching of digital technologies to maintenance practice in the automotive sector, this paper outlines a framework for organisations pursuing the integration of environmentally aware solutions in their production systems. This research sets out an agenda and framework for digital maintenance practice within the Circular Economy and the utilisation of Industry 4.0 technologies for this purpose.

Assessing personal protective equipment needs for healthcare workers.

BackgroundPersonal protective equipment (PPE) is critical for healthcare workers (HCWs) since it acts as a barrier to infection transmission; however, current PPE is not ideally suited to their needs due to limitations in protection and comfort. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify major issues of current PPE for body protection and assess its needs within health care.MethodsAn online survey was conducted with a convenience sample of 200 U.S. healthcare professionals who interact with patients. The survey was designed to identify the types of PPE that HCWs currently use, assess current PPE design features for body protection, examine the effect of PPE design features for body protection, and HCWs' years of work experiences on overall PPE acceptability, and explore current PPE maintenance practices. Both quantitative and qualitative data were used for analyses.ResultsThis study showed the need for current PPE improvement in terms of fit, comfort, mobility, and donning and doffing for HCWs' safety and health. Donning and doffing plays an important role in HCWs' overall acceptance of PPE for body protection. This study revealed that most HCWs dispose of their PPE in a trashcan in a healthcare unit and non‐disposed PPE is laundered at home, which may expose their family members to a health risk if a proper precaution is not followed.ConclusionThis study provides critical insights for the needs of (a) novel PPE design research and (b) proper donning and doffing training and its strict regulatory effort to ensure HCWs' safety and health.

The effect of wire rupture on flexural behavior of 45-year-old post-tensioned concrete bridge girders

Current maintenance practices for aging prestressed concrete bridges are facing challenging tasks to judge structural adequacy and remaining service life even with insufficient information and invisible deterioration. For prestressed concrete bridges, remaining prestress forces and corrosion of strands are the most crucial data. To accumulate the data, full-sized and deteriorated 45-year-old prestressed concrete bridge girders were recovered from an existing bridge. The post-tensioned girders were tested to observe key performance indicators such as cracking, yielding and crushing. The proposed strain compatibility method considering average tested material properties and measured prestressing force provides reasonable estimation of the flexural capacity of the old prestressed concrete girders. From the observed flexural behavior, a flexural cracking can give a good indication of the residual prestressing force. Based on the experiment, discussion on the assessment of existing bridges and shift from safety-oriented limit states to quantitative approach for extended service life.

Semantic Structure from Motion for Railroad Bridges Using Deep Learning

Current maintenance practices consume significant time, cost, and manpower. Thus, a new technique for maintenance is required. Construction information technologies, including building information modeling (BIM), have recently been applied to the field to carry out systematic and productive planning, design, construction, and maintenance. Although BIM is increasingly being applied to new structures, its application to existing structures has been limited. To apply BIM to an existing structure, a three-dimensional (3D) model of the structure that accurately represents the as-is status should be constructed and each structural component should be specified manually. This study proposes a method that constructs a 3D model and specifies the structural component automatically using photographic data with a camera installed on an unmanned aerial vehicle. This procedure is referred to as semantic structure from motion because it constructs a 3D point cloud model together with semantic information. A validation test was carried out on a railroad bridge to validate the performance of the proposed system. The average precision, intersection over union, and BF scores were 80.87%, 66.66%, and 56.33%, respectively. The proposed method could improve the current scan-to-BIM procedure by generating the as-is 3D point cloud model by specifying the structural component automatically.

Lifetime Benefit Analysis of Intelligent Maintenance: Simulation Modeling Approach and Industrial Case Study

The introduction of Industry 4.0 is expected to revolutionize current maintenance practices by reaching new levels of predictive (detection, diagnosis, and prognosis processes) and prescriptive maintenance analytics. In general, the new maintenance paradigms (predictive and prescriptive) are often difficult to justify because of their multiple inherent trade-offs and hidden systems causalities. The prediction models, in the literature, can be considered as a “black box” that is missing the links between input data, analysis, and final predictions, which makes the industrial adaptability to such models almost impossible. It is also missing enable modeling deterioration based on loading, or considering technical specifications related to detection, diagnosis, and prognosis, which are all decisive for intelligent maintenance purposes. The purpose and scientific contribution of this paper is to present a novel simulation model that enables estimating the lifetime benefits of an industrial asset when an intelligent maintenance management system is utilized as mixed maintenance strategies and the predictive maintenance (PdM) is leveraged into opportunistic intervals. The multi-method simulation modeling approach combining agent-based modeling with system dynamics is applied with a purposefully selected case study to conceptualize and validate the simulation model. Three maintenance strategies (preventive, corrective, and intelligent) and five different scenarios (case study data, manipulated case study data, offshore and onshore reliability data handbook (OREDA) database, physics-based data, and hybrid) are modeled and simulated for a time period of 20 years (175,200 h). Intelligent maintenance is defined as PdM leveraged in opportunistic maintenance intervals. The results clearly demonstrate the possible lifetime benefits of implementing an intelligent maintenance system into the case study as it enhanced the operational availability by 0.268% and reduced corrective maintenance workload by 459 h or 11%. The multi-method simulation model leverages and shows the effect of the physics-based data (deterioration curves), loading profiles, and detection and prediction levels. It is concluded that implementing intelligent maintenance without an effective predictive horizon of the associated PdM and effective frequency of opportunistic maintenance intervals, does not guarantee the gain of its lifetime benefits. Moreover, the case study maintenance data shall be collected in a complete (no missing data) and more accurate manner (use hours instead of date only) and used to continuously upgrade the failure rates and maintenance times.

Development of intelligent road maintenance system mobile apps for a highway

Roads are one of the main assets of a country where the network infrastructure offers economic and social benefits. It is understood that road maintenance would improve economic development and social benefits, and the poorly maintained road network would destruct mobility, raise accident rates, intensify isolation, poverty and vehicle operating costs. Unidentified road environment covers many aspects and based on that matter, it is important to improve the quality of inspection reports, whereby the efficiencies by mobile application shall be utilized. Developed system mobile apps have been found to be effective, versatile to use, as they can be used anywhere and at any time. The goal was therefore to recognize the types of defects, issues and deficiencies in current road maintenance practices and to develop a computerized highway maintenance program. The scope of the research will be limited to a case study at PLUS highway, connecting the north and south highway of peninsular Malaysia. The findings showed that road maintenance work is not adequately and effectively designed because it requires more time and includes a lot of paperwork. Due to this matter, the proposed mobile application would provide an invaluable added benefit to intelligent system of PLUS highway

Residual Life Prediction of Gas-Engine Turbine Blades Based on Damage Surrogate-Assisted Modeling

Blade damage accounts for a substantial part of all failure events occurring at gas-turbine-engine power plants. Current operation and maintenance (O&M) practices typically use preventive maintenance approaches with fixed intervals, which involve high costs for repair and replacement activities, and substantial revenue losses. The recent development and evolution of condition-monitoring techniques and the fact that an increasing number of turbines in operation are equipped with online monitoring systems offer the decision maker a large amount of information on the blades’ structural health. So, predictive maintenance becomes feasible. It has the potential to predict the blades’ remaining life in order to support O&M decisions for avoiding major failure events. This paper presents a surrogate model and methodology for estimating the remaining life of a turbine blade. The model can be used within a predictive maintenance decision framework to optimize maintenance planning for the blades’ lifetime.

Advantage of in Service Condition Based Assessment for Transformers in enhancing the maintenance strategy

Controlling the maintenance OPEX is one of the major challenges that any utility faces. The challenges lie in how to optimize the three main factors: risk, performance, and cost. Besides, no utility can depend on a unique type of maintenance, there is always a combination of a different kind of maintenance such as breakdown, preventive, risk-based, conditionbased,..etc. So, what is the answer to this question: what type of maintenance needs to be followed to keep the transformer in service in with high performance? There is no specific answer to this question. Each type of maintenance can be applied based on the transformer`s operating environment. However, most of the utilities apply preventive and condition-based maintenance. To justify this answer, some data need to be analyzed to assess the maintenance performance and recommend what are enhancement need to be added. One of these approaches is to apply in service condition-based assessment to study the health of the assets based on the current maintenance practice. Furthermore, study both historical maintenance recordsand failure rates will help to understand the relationship between the effectiveness of maintenance and service efficiency.This relation can come in two shapes. One is to do the right things by developing a set of maintenance activities that need to be performed during the maintenance to ensure its effectiveness. Second, is to do things right by enhancing the maintenance crew capabilities and competencies to ensure high efficiency. After analyzing all these factors mentioned above, It has been noticed that in-service condition-based assessment of the transformer is a powerful tool that can be used to enhance and build an effective strategy. It will not only involve a set of activities during the maintenance, but it also covers the whole life cycle of the transformer. Besides, it highlights the gaps in the maintenance process and procedures, and provide indications where enhancement need to be applied based on international practice. These changes were observed on the cost and performance in the benchmarking study that was done through International Transmission Operation and Maintenance Study (ITOMS) which was a good indication of the effectiveness of strategy used for transformers. However, as part of the asset management approach, continuous improvement will continue to reach the vision that has been set in the maintenance optimization and to prepare for the future significant increase in transformer aging.

Investigation of Highway Stormwater Management Pond Capacity for Flood Detention and Water Quality Treatment Retention via Remote Sensing Data and Conventional Topographic Survey

Stormwater management ponds are common best management practice (BMP) and green infrastructure (GI) for flood attenuation and water quality treatment in highway projects. Originally designed to provide storage volume for flood detention, stormwater ponds today often employ additional retention volume at pond bottom in a hope to improve water quality via sedimentation and other pollutant-removal mechanisms. It is commonly assumed that sediment accumulation and topographic variations (such as erosion, channelization, and in-pond plant growth and decay) over time often decrease the capacity of stormwater ponds. However, differences between design capacities and field capacities over time have never been verified and quantitatively analyzed before. This study presents such analysis using conventional topographic survey techniques and remote sensing data (topographic light detection and ranging digital elevation model [LIDAR DEM]) for 10 highway stormwater ponds along Interstate Highway-95 (I-95) systems in Baltimore City, Cecil County, and Harford County, Maryland, United States, with facility service life ranging from 14 to 26 years (1990–2015). Data derived from LIDAR DEM were compared with those from topographic survey; the LIDAR DEM data appear to be effective in measuring flood detention capacities and identifying silted ponds, but not in estimating the remaining retention volume for water quality treatment. Data from topographic survey indicate that the total volume in the ponds was relatively unchanged compared with the design, with increases in some instances. The increase typically occurred at the pond’s upper stages. Nonetheless, the water quality treatment capacity at pond bottom (wet pool volume) was drastically less (up to 100% of the design). As current maintenance practice of stormwater ponds relies heavily on visual inspection, the storage volume variations are often overlooked. As such, the findings prompt uncertainty on the long-term effectiveness of watershed implementation plan and models in the Chesapeake Bay watersheds, as many of them depend on wet pool volume design in BMP and GI.

A Digital Maintenance Practice Framework for Circular Production of Automotive Parts

The adoption of the Circular Economy paradigm by industry leads to increased responsibility of manufacturing to ensure a holistic awareness of the environmental impact of its operations. In mitigating negative effects in the environment, current maintenance practice must be considered, not just for the reduction of its own direct impact but also for its potential contribution to a more sustainable lifecycle for the manufacturing operation, its products and related services. Focusing on the matching of digital technologies to maintenance practice in the automotive sector, this paper outlines a framework for organisations pursuing the integration of environmentally aware solutions in their production systems. This research acts as a primer for digital maintenance practice within the Circular Economy and the utilisation of Industry 4.0 technologies for this purpose.

Strategies for Enhancing Roadside Motor Vehicle Mechanics on Basic Computer Skills for Effective Manipulation of Automotive Digital Diagnostic Tools in Nsukka Urban of Enugu State

This study analyzed strategies for enhancing roadside motor vehicle mechanics on basic computer skills for effective manipulation of automotive digital diagnostic tools using a 4-point scale questionnaire, validated by three experts, on 30 master roadside motor vehicle mechanics and 20 apprentice roadside motor vehicle mechanics in Nsukka urban of Enugu state. The study was guided by three research questions. Descriptive survey research design was employed for the study. A reliability co-efficient of 0.95 was obtained using Cronbach alpha test. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to analyze data collected. Findings of the study revealed among others that roadside motor vehicle mechanics do not possess the needed computer skills for the effective manipulation of automotive digital diagnostic tools and this poses challenges to the diagnosis, repair and maintenance of modern vehicles. The current maintenance practice falls below international best practice required for effective manipulation of automotive digital diagnostic tools; as a result, roadside motor vehicle mechanics loss daily patronage from customers who use modern vehicles. The study recommended among others that stakeholders in collaboration with leaders of roadside motor vehicle mechanics should continually organize appropriate training and retraining programmes for up skilling of roadside motor vehicle mechanics in Nsukka urban of Enugu state.

Preventive Maintain of Ventilators and its Cost Consideration

Background: Maintenance is the core function of biomedical engineering and is essential for the optimum functioning of equipment. This study was undertaken to understand the current maintenance practices of ventilator and its cost implications from administrative point of view. Methodology: 179 Ventilators supplied and installed by one vendor in different wards of the hospital were studied. It was a retrospective, descriptive study. Equipment related data was taken from various service reports. This data was used to calculate spares failure and their costs implication. Results: A total of 692 maintenance visits were undertaken for 179 ventilators of 5 different modals over 27 months by 6 Bio- Medical Engineers (BME). The mean number of spare changed throughout the study was 2.73. The uptime was within satisfactory limits. The yearly repair to cost ratio was 3.50 %. The cost of spare changed was a factor of modal under consideration and the status of equipment concerning its coverage under maintenance contact. Conclusion: The findings of the study should enable researchers in the future to formulate an effective equipment maintenance policy for the hospital.

Concrete crack detection with handwriting script interferences using faster region‐based convolutional neural network

AbstractThe current bridge maintenance practice generally involves manual visual inspection, which is highly subjective and unreliable. A technique that can automatically detect defects, for example, surface cracks, is essential so that early warnings can be triggered to prevent disaster due to structural failure. In this study, to permit automatic identification of concrete cracks, an ad‐hoc faster region‐based convolutional neural network (faster R‐CNN) was applied to contaminated real‐world images taken from concrete bridges with complex backgrounds, including handwriting. A dataset of 5,009 cropped images was generated and labeled for two different objects, cracks and handwriting. The proposed network was then trained and tested using the generated image dataset. Four full‐scale images that contained complex disturbance information were used to assess the performance of the trained network. The results of this study demonstrate that faster R‐CNN can automatically locate crack from raw images, even with the presence of handwriting scripts. For comparative study, the proposed network is also compared with You Only Look Once v2 detection technique.

A risk-based modelling approach to maintenance optimization of railway rolling stock

Purpose Railway transport maintenance plays an important role in delivering safe, reliable and competitive transport services. An appropriate maintenance strategy not only reduces the assets’ lifecycle cost, but also will ensure high standards of safety and comfort for rail passengers and workers. In recent years, the majority of studies have been focused on the application of risk-based tools and techniques to maintenance decision making of railway infrastructure assets (such as tracks, bridges, etc.). The purpose of this paper is to present a risk-based modeling approach for the inspection and maintenance optimization of railway rolling stock components. Design/methodology/approach All the “potential failure modes and root causes” related to rolling stock systems are identified from an extensive literature review followed by an expert’s panel assessment. The failure causes are categorized into six groups of electrical faults, structural damages, functional failures, degradation, human errors and natural (external) hazards. Stochastic models are then proposed to estimate the likelihood (probability) of occurrence of a failure in the rolling stock system. The consequences of failures are also modeled by an “inflated cost function” that involves safety-related costs, corrective maintenance and renewal (M&R) costs, the penalty charges due to train delays or service interruptions as well as the costs associated with loss of reputation (or loss of fares) in the case of trip cancellation. Lastly, a time-varying risk-cost function is formulated to determine the optimal frequency of preventive inspection and maintenance actions for rolling stock components. Findings For the purpose of clearly illustrating the proposed risk-based inspection and maintenance modeling methodology, a case study of the Class 380 train’s pantograph system from a Scottish train operating company is provided. The results indicate that the proposed model has a substantial potential to reduce the M&R costs while ensuring a higher level of safety and service quality compared to the currently used inspection methodologies. Practical implications The railway rolling stocks should be regularly inspected and maintained so as to ensure network availability and reliability, passenger safety and comfort, and operations efficiency. Despite the best efforts of the maintenance staff, it is reported that a considerable amount of maintenance resources (e.g. budget, time, manpower) is wasted due to insufficiency or inefficiency of current periodic M&R interventions. The model presented in this paper helps the maintenance engineers to assess the current maintenance practices and propose or initiate improvement actions when needed. Originality/value There are few studies investigating the application of risk-based tools and techniques to inspection and maintenance decision making of railway rolling stock components. This paper presents a modeling approach aimed at planning the preventive repair and maintenance interventions for rolling stock components based on risk measures. The author’s model is also capable of incorporating real measurement information gathered at each inspection epoch to update future inspection plans.

Patient-Specific, Risk-Based Prevention, Maintenance, and Supportive Care: A Need for Action and Innovation in Education.

To develop a competency-based curriculum framework for prevention, supportive care, and maintenance for use in educational and patient care programs and to seek consensus on an overarching competency statement that embraces these critical learning and patient care concepts. A preliminary survey of current preventive and maintenance practices in U.S. dental and prosthodontic programs was completed and summarized with quantitative analysis. The American College of Prosthodontists organized a one-day consensus workshop with 14 participants from various U.S. dental schools with diverse backgrounds to develop a curriculum framework. The curriculum framework was used in the development of a joint competency statement using an iterative, online consensus process of debate and feedback. The preliminary survey helped frame the initiative and identify potential educational needs and gaps. Consensus was achieved for a recommended competency statement: "Graduates must be competent in promoting oral health through risk assessment, diagnosis, prevention, and management of the hard tissue, soft tissue, and prostheses, and as part of professional recall and home maintenance."This competency statement complements the proposed curriculum framework designed around 3 domains-caries prevention, periodontal supportive care, and prosthesis supportive care-with a set of recommended learning objectives. Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) learning standards do not outline patient-customized, evidence-based recall and home maintenance programs that highlight prevention of dental caries, periodontal supportive care, prosthesis maintenance, and patient education.The proposed competency-based curricular framework serves as an initial step in addressing student learning and patient care within the context of a recall system and home maintenance program while offering schools the needed flexibility for implementation within their curriculum.

Assessing Practice and Criteria for Green Roof Maintenance on High-rise Residential Building in Malaysia

Urbanisation inevitably shows a positive sign in increasing the economic reputation of a country. Nevertheless, it has led to several problems including the deficit in green spaces and destruction of the natural environment, therefore green building is introduced as an alternative to overcome crucial environmental issues. Numerous approaches were also adopted to reduce other environmental issues such as urban heat island, air pollution and lack of green spaces. One of the sustainable approaches that help to minimise the environmental problems is by using the means of vegetation or plant material on rooftops or also known as the green roof. The implementation of the green roof on top of buildings is becoming a trend in the urban cities as it provides numerous benefits to the green development. The green roof is also part of criteria in green building and among the benefits, implementing green roofs will reduce heat flux, optimise energy efficiency and improve stormwater management. However, despite the benefits, enhancement on the green roof installation and maintenance consideration are two factors which are still largely unexplored as the main significant factor in the viability of the green roof installation. Hence, this paper is aimed to determine the vital criteria of maintenance and its ranking towards the establishment of best practice maintenance for the green roof, by focusing on high-rise residential. Questionnaires were distributed by email and through an online survey to 30 maintenance managers of green roof of high-rise residential in Kuala Lumpur and the samples are drawn by using purposive sampling technique. The results showed that the most significant maintenance criteria of the green roof are drainage, followed by waterproofing, irrigation, water retention, and roof slab. The outcome of this study has provided a significant contribution to the current maintenance practice of green roof by prioritising the criteria of maintenance and key address of green roof, where it may help to standardise the maintenance practice of the green roof in the tropical climate of Malaysia.

Research on criteria selection for replacing air filters and consequences emphasis

Automotive engine air filters have numerous shapes best suited for each engine. Most used filter materials are paper fibres (cellulose fibres) and felt (non-weaved fibres). Current maintenance practice for replacement of air filters is indicated by certain distance travelled, by certain number of hours in use, or less common by a specialized transducer indication. The current paper is about experimental research done on Renault K9K 612 engine air filters. Experimental tests were done on a specially built testing stand based that includes the original air intake system from the said engine. This air intake system has a special transducer that measures the air restriction and gives indication for when to be replaced. We measured air restriction produced by new and used OEM air filters, and two types of aftermarket filters and came to the conclusion that the filters were changed prematurely. Also, while the specialized OEM transducer showed a higher value of restriction as a mark to change the filter, the actual air restriction of the used filters shown by our test stand is much lower.

Preventive Maintenance Planning in A Nigerian Aircraft Industry using Quality Function Deployment

Abstract Quality improvement research in aircraft maintenance as well as our knowledge of the methods in the course of which enhancement is achieved and managed is disoriented and deficient. Current preventive maintenance practices are usually based on the number of flight cycles, flight hours or calendar time. Such PM activities are technical programme-oriented without any consideration for customer requirements are expectations. The unfortunate issue is that the results provided by these technically-oriented decisions are usually sub-optional. After characterised by poor customer satisfaction, requiring repeat services in some cases. A worse situation may even result such that total customer dissatisfaction may trigger out souring maintenance services despite having resources for repairs and services. In this communication, a complete departure from current practice in preventive maintenance of pure technical content to technical plus customer focused practice is adopted. This innovative approach involves obtaining customer requirements and translating them into design requirements in the house of quality of the quality function deployment (QFD). Questionnaire were developed and administered while the results were coupled with interviews to obtain the desired model validation of the QFD structure formulated. The results indicated feasibility of the proposed approach in practice. With thus novel contribution to literature, preventive maintenance managers in airline could confidently schedule services for success with a customer orientation.