Abstract
M.Ing. (Engineering Management)
The quest for a sustainable Asset strategy is gaining substantial momentum in modern day enterprises, especially in air separation plants where hundred percent process reliability and plant availability is no compromise. In order to achieve such levels of operational excellence and integrity, Asset strategy and equipment maintenance strategy systems must be properly integrated.
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, based upon the available organisational standards and processes.
The main objectives of this study are to identify the factors that affect centrifugal pump reliability and identify the ways to improve the reliability of centrifugal pumps in air separation industry.
Two Case studies (plants) in the same company were selected for this research. The case study method was considered the appropriate method for this research. This was based upon the type of the research questions posed and in-depth understanding of business operational processes the method provides to the candidate.
Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CQADAS) software (ATLAS.ti Version 8) was used to analyse the data from the participants. All the questionnaires that were completed by the participants were loaded into the data analysis software. Data reduction, data coding, grouping and theme generation was accomplished.
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. An updated RCM framework and an asset strategy model that was developed provide the clarity and improvement of communication that is required to improve centrifugal pump reliability.