Abstract
Although many different maintenance programmes exists in the current industrial domain, unintended downtime due to failures of centrifugal pumps remains a major source of downtime in air separation plants. This phenomenon is investigated here in the context of the implementation of reliability centred maintenance (RCM) framework in air separation environment. The main objectives of this study are to investigate centrifugal pump reliability problems in air separation plants and to identify the factors that lead to success or failure of RCM frameworks. Two case studies (plants) in the same organisation were selected for this research and the case study research methodology was used to investigate the outlined problem. It was found that effective two-way communication or lack thereof between the plant personnel and the Reliability Engineers affects knowledge sharing and quality of pump strategies. In this research an updated RCM framework and an asset strategy model provides the clarity and quality of communication that is required to improve centrifugal pump reliability. An updated framework was proposed based upon the findings of this research as a way to improve centrifugal pump reliability and availability in air separation plants.