ASSIGNMENT

Course Code : MS-57

Course Title : Maintenance Management

Assignment No. : MS-57/TMA/Sem-II/2020

Coverage : All Blocks

Note: Attempt all the questions and submit this assignment to the Coordinator of your Study
Centre on or before 31st October, 2020.

1. “A maintenance system can be viewed as a simple input–output model”. Explain the

systematic approach to maintenance management in the view of this statement.

2. What is Human Resource Development in Maintenance Management? Explain the

explicit or implicit expectations of an organization from its employees.

3. “Spare parts go through various stages in their life cycle” What are they? Explain them
in brief.

4. “Replacement policies form an integral part of all industrial maintenance programmes”.

Explain the concept of replacement decisions in the view of this statement.

5. “Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) is a methodology as well as a philosophy”.

Explain the concept of RCM along with its benefits and misconceptions.
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ASSIGNMENT REFERENCE MATERIAL (July20 to Dec20)

MS-57
MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT

Q1. “A maintenance system can be viewed as a simple input–output model”. Explain the
systematic approach to maintenance management in the view of this statement.

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Ans:- A maintenance system can be viewed as a simple input-output model. The inputs to
such a model are labor, management, tools, spares, equipments, plans and schedules; and the
output is the equipment that is up, reliable and well configured to achieve the planned
operation of the plant. This helps to optimize the resources for maximizing the output of a
maintenance system. A typical maintenance system is shown in Figure.

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The basics of preventive maintenance form the foundation of a maintenance management

system. Once the preventive maintenance foundation is in place, inventory, work-orders,
computerized maintenance management systems, and training of maintenance manpower
form the next level. Involving the operator for routine maintenance, along with the predictive
and Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) techniques, build on this foundation. With the
availability of sufficient plant data, the organization can focus on its asset management
strategy by Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and maximize its life cycle profits. Once

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this level is achieved, the organization should strive for continuous improvement and bench
marking.

Production organizations are usually concerned with converting inputs such as raw materials,
labor and processes into finished products of higher value at minimum cost satisfying the
customer needs. Increased competition for timely delivery of high quality products has forced
manufacturers to adopt automation. This has resulted in very high investments in plant and
equipment. In order to achieve maximum return on investments the production systems will
have to minimize plant downtime, increase productivity, improve quality and deliver orders
to customers in a timely fashion. This has brought to the forefront the role of maintenance as
a key function in any production system.

Q2. What is Human Resource Development in Maintenance Management? Explain the

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explicit or implicit expectations of an organization from its employees.

Ans:- HRD can now be seen as ‘developing the workforce in such a way as to match the
organizational needs and the needs of its work force’. Implicit in this approach is the
recognition that the work force is its most important instrument of growth. It is worth noting
that in the Indian Army ‘man management’ has always been given the highest priority – even

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greater than professional competence and weaponry.’ Man is to machine (weapon) as three is
to one’ is the refrain in military leadership, administration and training.
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How can an organization grow unless its most important instrument itself grows? The term
‘growth’ applied to an individual in an organization means developing his qualities that make
him more useful to the organization. Behavioral scientists have discovered that the

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individual’s growth for self also contributes to the growth of the organization. A constructive
look at the areas where the personal and the organizational expectations and needs could
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match or be complimentary, will help bring out ways and means to develop the human being
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as a resource. Some expectations are common to all, but other will vary to some extent with
the job. For instance, the expectations of/from a research scientist would be different of/from
a worker in a coalmine. Expectations of/from a machine tool/crane operator would be
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different from that of/from an accounts or stores clerk or a maintenance technician.

This paper deals with HRD for maintenance, where the specific needs of maintenance have
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been considered.
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The starting point for HRD is the senior most maintenance engineer/manager talking to his
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colleagues and subordinates and to take the following steps:

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• Identify the short and long-term goals for maintenance; typically, reducing downtime of
selected machines to a lower (specified) level; reducing cost on spares; increasing part
rebuilding.

• For each goal undertakes a series of brainstorming sessions with related (interdepartmental)
persons at mixed levels, levels, on ‘deterrents that come in the way of achieving that goal’.

• Prioritize these and select a few (usually five to eight) key deterrents and carry out further
brainstorming to identify why these deterrents existed.

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• After this stage the major problem areas will become clear-as perceived by the participants
of the brainstorming session. These will fall into five main classes: knowledge; skill;
attitudes; workload; and organization.

• These problems must now be solved step by step, again involving personnel at all levels.
These steps (such as developing excellence through various types of training, leadership,
stress management, team building etc) have been discussed earlier in this paper,

Q3. “Spare parts go through various stages in their life cycle” What are they? Explain
them in brief.

Ans:- Spare parts go through the following six stages in their life cycle.

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The details of each phase will be discussed below.

Stage 1: Design and Specifications

Stringent specifications, high quality of manufacture and careful operation/maintenance of

the machine reduce consumption and cost due to replacement of spares. Ideally, spare parts

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from the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) should be used. Spares have a huge range
- each one having several specifications, which are not available to the user. Without actual
fitting, it is not possible to tell whether a part will fit or not. This is clearly is not practicable
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as spares are stocked in advance of requirement. It will be worth paying for a certificate or
warranty for the spare part from its supplier, at least for critical and expensive parts. Only
large consumers such as railways, airlines, transport fleets, armed forces etc. can assess the

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life of parts by destructive or accelerated life-testing or from the quality records of the
manufacturer.
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Stage 2: Determination of Initial Requirements

The machine supplier usually gives a ‘Recommended List of Spares’ to the user. This list
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should be scrutinized for additions that are basically profit-oriented. The supplier should be
asked to give consumption rate for various spares. The maintenance engineer can than better
assess the spares to be stocked for a chosen initial period – say, for one to two years based on
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his experience with similar items, number of machines installed, age of machines, operating
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conditions, engineering factors and the inventory control system in operation. Casual
selection of spares at this stage will create a large inventory of nonmoving spares. In initial
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stages only a few will need replenishment.

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Stage 3: Procurement

For highly specialized equipment or for that likely go out of production, the user should
assess their availability. There is not much room for competitive procurement of spares
except at the time of buying the machine. Machines using standard replacement parts (such as
ball/roller bearings and hardware) should be preferred.

Non-standard parts are always expensive, and often difficult to get. The contract for supply of
spare parts should take care of the points made earlier.

Stage 4: Receipt, Storage and Preservation

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On receipt, the spare parts are checked for correctness of quantity and quality before storing
them. The principles here is ‘a place for everything in its place’ Spares are stocked machine-
wise. Items common to more than one machine are stocked together. The location of each
spare is marked on the bin card for the spare. These bin-cards are also the account cards,
which indicate the receipt and issue (and stock balance) and particulars (part number etc) of
the spare. Mentioning details of interchangeable of substitute spares is a great help in an
emergency.

Stage 5: Issue and Replenishment: The Reorder Level System of Inventory Control

The replenishment of parts withdrawn from stock involves two basic questions, namely,
‘How much to order?’ and ‘When to order?’ The quantity (and especially) the time of
replenishment has to be determined scientifically as they profoundly affect the cost

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effectiveness of inventory management. Figure shows the stock position of a typical item
being used up at a steady rate of 30 pieces per week. The value of an initial stock of, say 300
pieces, each costing Rs.10 will be Rs.3000 (point A). It will linearly fall to zero (point B)
after 10 weeks. If the item can be ordered and received instantly, we may order it only at this
point. Then the stock will rise to the original value of Rs.3000 (Point C), assuming that we
ordered 300 pieces. This is called ‘Order quantity’ or OQ, or just Q. It is expressed either in

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rupees or in numbers. The average inventory during this repeating cycle of steady
consumption is obviously half the OQ i.e. 150 pieces or Rs.1500.
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Stage 6: Disposal of Damaged, Surplus and Obsolete Spare Parts

An organization expecting good resale value for its surplus spare parts should ask itself

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whether it would buy ‘second hand’ spares from another unit as any price other than scrap
value. One can never be sure as to how long the parts had been in stock and what
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deterioration had set in during storage. Such spares get some value only when they are sold
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along with the used machine itself. Further, it is not wise to dispose off spare parts applicable
to existing machines simply because they had not been used. Only stock of insurance spares
exceeding 1 could be sold off-but not at scrap value. It is safer to carry the inventory.
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Possibilities should be explored for alternative uses or as substitutes (Even with

modifications) for the surplus/obsolete spare parts.
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Q4. “Replacement policies form an integral part of all industrial maintenance

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programmes”. Explain the concept of replacement decisions in the view of this

statement.
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Ans:- Replacement policies form an integral part of all industrial maintenance programmes.
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A replacement decision is only considered if the cost of an in-service failure exceeds the cost
of preventive replacement action, that is, it must be more costly to replace an equipment, or
component, after failure than before. Further there are three fundamental assumptions made
in all replacement decisions. These are as follows:

1. The state of the equipment, whether good or failed, is always known with certainty. This is
a reasonable assumption in most practical situations encountered in operating plants.

2. The replacement action returns the equipment to the as new condition so that the new
equipment, or component, can continue to provide the same services as the equipment, or
component, which it has replaced. This is also not an unreasonable assumption since the

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equipment which has been used to replace an operating equipment can be considered to be at
least as good as the old one. There is of course an exception that of technological
improvement, wherein the new equipment is considered to have lower operating/running and
maintenance costs.

3. The operating/running and maintenance costs of the equipment subject to replacement is

increasing, or alternatively, the hazard rate of the equipment, or component, must be
increasing.

1) Replacement of Capital Equipment:- The decision to replace an expensive capital

equipment involves the investment of a large sum of money. Since the capital equipment has
a useful life of many financial years, the costs, such as the running and maintenance costs and
the benefits accruing from the investment in the form of revenues earned from the product

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and services produced continue for a number of years. Moreover, since money can earn
interest at a certain rate through its investment for a period of time, it is important to
recognize that a sum of Rs.1,000 received at some future date is not worth as much as Rs.
1,000 in hand at the present. This relationship between interest and time leads to the concept
of ‘the time value of money’*. Thus the time value of money implies that equal sums of
money received at different points in time do not have equal value if the interest rate is

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greater than zero. Engineering economics is concerned with decision-making relating to
engineering operations covering acquisition, use and retirement of assets with a view to
achieve optimal economy in terms of money. Thus engineering economic analysis is
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concerned with the evaluation of alternative decisions with regard to an investment and these
alternatives are described by indicating the amount and timing of estimated future receipts
and disbursements that will result from each decision. The final choice is made based on the

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analysis of the estimated consequences of the feasible alternatives and for a proper
comparison, the estimated consequences should be expressed in identical monetary terms.
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There must, therefore, be a basis of comparison, or a measure of equivalence, which

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summarizes the significant differences between investment alternatives. A basis of
comparison, in this case, is an index containing particular information about a series of
receipts and disbursements resulting from the investment alternative and the most common
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bases for comparison used in replacement decision - making are the present worth amount,
the annual equivalent amount or the equivalent uniform annual cost, and the future worth
amount.
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2) Present Worth, Interest Formulae and Equivalence:- Let P represent the principal
amount, n the number of years, or the number of annual interest periods, for which it has been
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invested/borrowed, and i the annual interest rate in percent. Then the interest earned by the
investor, or due from a borrower, is P.n.i./100, and the total sum due is the principal plus the
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interest, and that is:

F, sum resulting from the initial investment P

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provision is made that the earned interest is due at the end of each interest period and since
the borrower is allowed to keep the earned interest until the deposit becomes due, the
deposit/loan is increased by the amount equal to the interest due at the end of each interest
period. Thus, if P is invested for n annual interest periods and the relevant interest rate is i
percent per annum, payable annually, then after n years the sum F resulting from the initial
investment is:

F=P (2)

Thus, if P = Rs. 1,000, i = 10 percent, compounded annually and n = 2 years as considered

earlier, the amount due after 2 years is Rs. 1,210. The present day value, or the present worth,
of a sum of money to be spent or received in the future is obtained by doing the reverse
calculation. Thus the present worth of F is:

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P=F (3)

where r = is termed the discount rate. Thus the present worth of Rs. 1.210 to be received two
years from now is P = 1210 = Rs. 1000. Till now, we have assumed that the interest rate is
paid once every year. Interest rate may, in fact, be paid weekly, monthly, quarterly, or semi-

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annually, and when this is the case the formulae (2) and (3) has to be modified accordingly. If
the interest rate of i percent per annum is paid m times per year, then in n years the value F of
an initial investment P is:
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F=P (4)

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Also the present value P of the money to be spent or received n years in the future is:
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P=F (5)
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Further, it is possible to assume that the interest rate is paid continuously. This is equivalent
to letting m in equation (4) tend to infinity. When this is the case, F = P = P exp (6) and the
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appropriate present worth formula is:

P = F exp (7)
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In practice, in replacement problems it is usually assumed that interest rates are paid once per
year and thus equation (14.3) is used in present worth calculations.
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Continuous discounting is sometimes used either for mathematical convenience or because it

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is felt that it reflects cash flows more accurately and when this is the case, equation (14.7) is
used. Moreover, it is usually assumed that the interest rate i is given as a decimal and not in
percentage. Equations (3) and (7) then become:

P = F Qualitative Analysis

P = F exp [- i n] (9)

Let us now consider an illustrative example of an investment decision in which three equally
effective machine tools are available and their purchase price, cost of installation (which is
the same in all the three cases), operating and maintenance cost for succeeding three years

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and the salvage value at the end of three years are as given in Table 1. Let us also assume that
the appropriate discount rate, r, is 0.9 (or, i = 11 per cent) and the operating and maintenance
costs are paid at the end of the year in which

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they are incurred. We have to calculate the present worth of the three investment alternatives

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to be able to compare them and arrive at the choice, which will achieve optimum economy in
terms of money. Now
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3 Determination of the Optimal Replacement Interval, or the Economic Life of a Capital

Equipment
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In practice, the maintenance cost of capital equipment generally increases with age. The
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simplest case of increasing maintenance cost is that of linearly increasing annual maintenance
cost. We shall illustrate the engineering economic analysis used for the determination of the
optimal replacement interval of capital equipment for this general and more practical case of
increasing maintenance cost through an example in which the annual maintenance cost is a
linearly increasing function of time.

Q5. “Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) is a methodology as well as a

philosophy”. Explain the concept of RCM along with its benefits and misconceptions.

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Ans:- RCM is a methodology as well as a philosophy, and it is not possible to define it with
the help of one definition. The following definitions will help in understanding the concept of
RCM.

RCM is a systematic approach for quantitatively assessing the need to perform or review
preventive maintenance tasks and plans. It provides a methodology targeted on system
functions, the failures relating to that function, and in particular to the effects of dominant
functional system failures. A decision tree is used within RCM to identify and classify critical
system components together with an appropriate and applicable maintenance policy. The
main concept underlying the development of RCM is an attempt to retain the design
reliability of equipment, through the analysis of factors which affect its operating reliability,
and with a view to optimize preventive maintenance programs via effective maintenance
planning.

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RCM provides a structured and logical approach to determine the maintenance requirements
of any physical asset in its operating context. The methodology helps in identifying what
causes the functional failures of equipment and what are the consequences of any failure?
RCM concept then recognizes that in true sense any maintenance is carried out, not so much
to prevent the failures but to reduce the consequences of failures.

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RCM approach takes in consideration that all equipment or components do not follow an age
dominated failure mode and, therefore the maintenance requirements of all components
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cannot be evaluated in a similar manner. Thus RCM is a process used to determine the
maintenance requirements of any physical asset in its operating context. A great strength of
RCM is the way it provides simple precise and easily understood criteria for deciding which

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(if any) of the preventive tasks is technically feasible in any context, and if so for deciding
how often they should be done and who should do them.
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To summarize

• RCM is a process used to determine the maintenance requirements of any physical asset in
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its operating context.

• RCM is a process used to determine what must be done to ensure that any physical asset
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continues to fulfil its intended functions in its present operating context.

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• RCM is a method for developing and selecting maintenance design alternatives based on
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safety, operational and economic criteria. It employs a system perspective in its analysis of
system functions, failure of functions and prevention of these failures.
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• RCM is a system consideration of system functions, the way function can fail and a priority
based consideration of safety and economics that identifies applicable and effective PM tasks.

Thus RCM has four unique features:

1. Preserve functions

2. Identify failure modes that can affect functions

3. Prioritize function needs via failure modes

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