Estimation of Mean Time between Failures of a Two Tandem Mill of a Sugar Plant

When minutes of down-time can negatively impact the bottom line of a business, it is crucial that the physical infrastructure supporting be reliable. The equipment reliability can be achieved with a solid understanding of mean time between failures. Mean time between failures (MTBF) has been used for years as a basis for various maintenance decisions supported by various methods and procedures for lifecycle predictions. To quantifying a maintainable system or reliability we can use MTBF. For developing the mean time between failures model we can use make use of Poisson distribution, Weibull model and Bayesian model. In this paper we will be talking about complexities and misconceptions of MTBF and clarify criteria that need to be consider in estimating MTBF in a sequential manner. This paper sheds light on MTBF using examples throughout in an effort to simplify complexity. Keywords: MTBF, Two Tandem Mill, Sugar Mill, Reliability, Maintenance

Biomedical Machine Maintenance Scheduling

Tissue banks procure approximately 45,000 tissue donations per year, providing nearly 9,000,000 individuals (about half the population of New York) with life-enhancing and life-saving medical procedures. Proper biobank machine maintenance is imperative to this process. Mandatory forms of maintenance are critical to avoid unexpected malfunctions, which can halt operations and render samples unusable. Each machine has a unique reliability rate within the system; although some can quickly be repaired or replaced, many processes rely on limited machinery where even planned downtime can significantly influence the tissue processing. AlloSource, one of the largest tissue manufacturers in the United States, too often schedules these preventive events unnecessarily or inconveniently, resulting in machines breaking down at inopportune times. In response to these inefficiencies we ask, “What is the best consolidated and standardized equipment maintenance schedule that maximizes monthly maintenance events to ensure increased equipment availability while meeting the demand of the biomedical manufacturing network?” We use an optimization model to consider equipment reliability, downtime, availability, and demand to develop a preventive maintenance schedule. Our model focuses on scheduling the maximum number of events the maintenance crew can conduct each month to ensure vital equipment to the allograft process is available, which provides more opportunities for tissue therapies. In doing so, the maintenance crew is also able to complete more events, driving up annual throughput while driving down equipment downtime.

High-Pressure Flexible Pipe for Fracturing Fluid Delivery

Hydraulic fracturing is a well stimulation treatment that has been around since the 1940s, becoming more popular in recent years because of the unconventional hydraulic fracturing boom in North America. Between the 1990s and 2000s, the oil and gas industry found an effective way to extract hydrocarbons from formations that were previously uneconomical to produce. Consolidated unconventional formations such as shale and other tight rocks can now be artificially fractured to induce connectivity among the pores containing hydrocarbons, enabling them to easily flow into the wellbore for recovery at the surface. The method of fracturing unconventional reservoirs requires a large amount of surface equipment, continuously working to stimulate the multiple stages perforated along the horizontal section of the shale formation. The operations normally happen on a single or multi-wells pad with several sets of perforations fractured by using the zipper-fracturing methodology (Sierra & Mayerhofer, 2014). Compared with conventional hydraulic fracturing, the surface equipment must perform for extended pump time periods with only short stops for maintenance and replacement of damaged components. This paper addresses improvements made to the fracturing fluid delivery systems as an alternative to the fracturing iron traditionally used in fracture stimulation services. The improvement aims to enhance equipment reliability and simplify surface setup while reducing surface friction pressure during the hydraulic fracturing treatment.

Optimization of equal-cycle maintenance strategy considering imperfect preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance is an important means to extend equipment life and improve equipment reliability. Traditional preventive maintenance decision-making is often based on components or the entire system, the granularity is too large and the decision-making is not accurate enough. The meta-action unit is more refined than the component or system, so the maintenance decision-making based on the meta-action unit is more accurate. Therefore, this paper takes the meta-action unit as the research carrier, considers the imperfect preventive maintenance, based on the hybrid hazard rate model, established the imperfect preventive maintenance optimization model of the meta-action unit, and the optimization solution algorithm was given for the maintenance strategy. Finally, through numerical analysis, the validity of the model is verified, and the influence of different maintenance costs on the optimal maintenance strategy and optimal maintenance cost rate is analyzed.

DETERMINATION OF OPERATIONAL RELIABILITY INDICATORS OF AVIATION EQUIPMENT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT ICAO RECOMMENDATIONS

On the basis of the developed technique for estimation of aviation equipment reliability indicators, the results of determination of orientating reliability indicators of helicopters and their functional systems are presented. The list and the main reasons for the change of reliability indicators for 2016–2020 are determined.

Determinants of Assurance Management System for Critical Asset: A Literature Review

Several studies found that critical asset failure results in delays and downtimes in operation for most industries. One of the studies revealed that 272 of the 773 occurrences involved a critical asset breakdown. Thus, this study aimed to discuss the relevant factors of implementing the Assurance Management System for the industry's selected critical asset. Literature reviews play a significant role in this research through a content analysis review process from different review articles, google scholar, journals, and other social sciences. The result revealed that increasing the organization's knowledge of the processes and asset criticality in the assurance management system offers a high degree of openness to the activities carried out to ensure continued asset reliability and integrity. Relatively, it shows a clear long-term progress pattern of improved equipment reliability, leading to a significant increase in consumer trust due to introducing a system of reliability assurance management. Indeed, the study recommended that implementing an assurance management system is an integral part of the critical asset as it offers trust that the asset will perform as anticipated. Finally, it is an aid in understanding the asset and its relationship between expected and actual performance and efficiency in using a structured approach of the Assurance Management System for Critical Asset, the AMSCAF Framework. Therefore, industry stakeholders should consider the recommendations and best practices to ensure critical asset management systems need to generate value that maintains a competitive advantage in today's highly complicated and challenging market competition through the Assurance Management System.

Design of Intelligent Power Saving Socket Based on Infrared and Mechanical Control

In order to effectively solve the problem of power waste caused by forgetting to cut off the power supply during standby, reduce the waste of power resources and improve the safety of electrical appliances, this paper designs an intelligent power saving socket which can be used in many scenarios. The design fully considers the cost of equipment, reliability and practicability, can greatly save electricity, so as to achieve the purpose of energy saving and emission reduction.

The Implementation of Laser Shaft Alignment System on Rotating Machines in the Bulla Field, Platform 6

Shaft misalignment is a common fault in rotating machines in the industry. Inadequate coupling alignment of rotating shafts often results in serious vibration problems and premature machine component failure. This article introduces the concept of using a laser shaft alignment system to improve equipment reliability, maintenance efficiency, and reduce rotating component wear. This paper explores the concept of implementation of laser shaft alignment system on rotating machines in the Bulla field, Platform 6. For this purpose, an appropriate tool has been selected for further implementation. As compared to a traditional mechanical method, the proposed electronic approach has more accurate results and optimize the performance gained via the previous techniques. Additionally, the application of the proposed system is user friendly and faster compared to the previous method. The measurement procedure is issued as per system manufacturer recommendation, and manufacturer video training will be submitted to appropriate maintenance staff. The novelty of the approach is to increase the reliability of rotating machines on Platform 6 in the Bulla field and develop Company maintenance processes by implementing a new laser measurement system.

A Systematic Review of Medical Equipment Reliability Assessment in Improving the Quality of Healthcare Services

Medical equipment highly contributes to the effectiveness of healthcare services quality. Generally, healthcare institutions experience malfunctioning and unavailability of medical equipment that affects the healthcare services delivery to the public. The problems are frequently due to a deficiency in managing and maintaining the medical equipment condition by the responsible party. The assessment of the medical equipment condition is an important activity during the maintenance and management of the equipment life cycle to increase availability, performance, and safety. The study aimed to perform a systematic review in extracting and categorising the input parameters applied in assessing the medical equipment condition. A systematic searching was undertaken in several databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, IEEE Xplore, Emerald, Springer, Medline, and Dimensions, from 2000 to 2020. The searching processes were conducted in January 2020. A total of 16 articles were included in this study by adopting Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The review managed to classify eight categories of medical equipment reliability attributes, namely equipment features, function, maintenance requirement, performance, risk and safety, availability and readiness, utilisation, and cost. Applying the eight attributes extracted from computerised asset maintenance management system will assist the clinical engineers in assessing the reliability of medical equipment utilised in healthcare institution. The reliability assessment done in these eight attributes will aid clinical engineers in executing a strategic maintenance action, which can increase the equipment's availability, upkeep the performance, optimise the resources, and eventually contributes in providing effective healthcare service to the community. Finally, the recommendations for future works are presented at the end of this study.

Analyzing Mission Impact of Military Installations Microgrid for Resilience

This article develops a method to model, analyze, and design military microgrids with the objective to improve their resilience in the face of disconnections from the larger electrical grid. Military microgrids provide power to installation and base facilities to enable base mission objective accomplishments that are related to national security. Previous research, tools, and methods for microgrid design and assessment do not adequately address resilience in terms of accomplishing mission objectives and instead primarily focus on economic outcomes. This article proposes a novel metric to quantify microgrid resilience in terms of its ability to minimize the impact of power disruption on missions supported by the microgrid. The metric is used in a novel design method to ensure an islanded military microgrid can continue operations while disconnected for a two-week duration. Our model examines the ability to continue mission operations subject to various microgrid disruptions as well as equipment reliability.