Abstract
M.Ing. (Engineering Management)
In industries, engineers and managers are faced with the conundrum of which method to use to improve the reliability and subsequent availability of their manufacturing processes. This research aimed to develop a tool to assist process plants with deciding on the best approach to use between increasing the redundancy of bottleneck equipment or to improve on the management of integrated logistic support principles like supply support, maintenance strategy and inventory management. It also made use of a case study process plant to analyse and improve the maintenance system around bottleneck centrifugal pumps. A decision making tool (framework) was developed and presented to assist with decision making around the stated problem. A survey conducted also affirmed the need for such a tool in industry.
The decision of installing an extra pump per set to increase redundancy or to improve on the ILS of maintenance is split between 48% against the installation and 43% supporting the idea. This is an indication of how contentious this issue is without doing the proper analysis and using the right tools of decision making. Most decisions in industry are made on an emotional viewpoint based on the “head-aches” certain equipment gives.
It was discovered that the case study plant utilises a run-to-failure philosophy on bottleneck pumps. This philosophy lead to production losses of 14 days over a 23 months span, equating to R33, 2 million rand loss compared to R2, 2 million sample period cycle cost of increasing redundancy.