55000 Implementation Proposal Integrated With a Risk Management System for a Water Utility Case

The main objective of this chapter is to suggest a methodology for the application of ISO 55000 for a water utility in order to obtain all the benefits of asset management from the starting point of application. In addition, risk is an important part of this methodology, so it also complies with the clauses of ISO 31000. The methodology consists of six steps to be carried out: plan (1), implement (2), risk management (3), monitor (4), analyze (5) and make decisions and improvements (6). The application of this methodology is an iterative process in which the information obtained is going to be used in the previous and subsequent steps so that its benefits are greater as time goes by. At each point in the guide, the actions to be taken in compliance with the clauses and sub-clauses of ISO 55001 will be proposed along with some documents so that companies have a clearer idea of how to proceed.

Selection of Maintenance Strategies in an Operating Theatre

The aim of this chapter is to select the most suitable combination of maintenance policies in the different systems that make up an operating theatre: air conditioning, sterile water, power supply, medicinal gases, and operating theatre lighting. To do so, a multicriteria model will be developed using the Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical Based Evaluation Technique (MACBETH) approach considering multiple decision centres. The model uses functional, safety, and technical-economic criteria, amongst which is availability. Mean availability for repairable systems has been measured to assess this criterion, using Markov chains from the data obtained over three years from the subsystems of a hospital operating theatre. The alternatives considered are corrective maintenance; preventive maintenance together with corrective maintenance by means of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly programmes; periodical predictive maintenance together with corrective maintenance; and corrective together with preventive and predictive maintenance.

Fundamentals for the Challenge of Controlling Risk Through Standardization

This chapter is intended to deal with the topic of standardization as a solution for risk control and decision making, mainly in high technologized context. For that purpose, this document starts introducing the reason of controlling risk as well as the uncertainty background that lays in different sectors. After that, the risk management evolution is outlined, defining briefly the risk concept, mentioning some current management models and enumerating the more relevant norms, standards, and guidelines for risk management. From this point, an overview on the standard ISO 31000 about risk management is provided in order to finally summarize some possible future research lines and some conclusions about this groundwork on risk and uncertainty.

Fatigue Fracture, CTOD, and CVN Testing in Heat-Affected Zone of High Strength Low Alloy Steels

High strength low alloy steels (HSLA) are currently used in large quantities for constructions in the North Sea and elsewhere. For success operation under such rigorous conditions, it is essential to ensure adequate weld metal toughness at temperatures of -10ºC or even lower is used. To comply with this high requirement, the heat input control is needed to avoid forming martensitic microstructure in high strength low alloy steels (HAZ) near to the fusion line during weldment cooling. This work carried out CTOD tests to ensure that, under welding conditions, the fatigue crack, toughness, hardness, and resilience in the HAZ are acceptable with the standards. Crack size in accordance with number cycles will be represented as the crack growth rate da/dN vs. stress intensity factor amplitude.

An Analysis of the Relationship Between Maintenance Engineering and Knowledge Management

Knowledge is vital in everyday life, but from the viewpoint of the companies, it is a powerful intangible capital that can check the efficiency and existence of the organizations themselves. However, in industrial production environments, maintenance and exploitation activities are little studied in reference to the mechanisms of transmission of knowledge that are generated based on the difficulty of their capture, because it is fundamentally based on tacit knowledge (intrinsic fond professions operating personnel) acquired by operators for years from their work experiences in the industrial plant. These highly qualified professionals, accustomed to solve technical problems and maintain the required state of production with a high load of stress, traditionally function as islands of knowledge, and the company loses an important asset when one of them leaves. This chapter approaches the transcendence of the tacit knowledge among staff and marks the conditions for transmission as a basis for the learning of other partners of the organization.

An Investigation for CA-Based PageRank Validation in View of Power-Law Distribution of Web Data to Enhance Trustworthiness and Safety for Green Cloud

An investigation on cellular automata (CA)-based validation of PageRank with reference to the power-law distribution is presented in this chapter to enhance the trustworthiness and safety of Clouds. Web traffic data for several Clouds were analyzed in view of power-law distribution to explore whether they are natural or manmade. Results obtained for CA-based PageRank validation were compared with Alexa®, which further supported the power-law distribution with some cut-offs, which ensured effectiveness and accuracy for CA-based validation of PageRank. Hence, this exploration helps to enhance the trustworthiness for any computed PageRank, and thus, it helps for the automated decision-making process towards an enhanced trust and safety of Clouds.

A Hybrid Asset-Based IT Risk Management Framework

Information security has become one of the most important responsibilities of all organizations due to increasing cyber threats. Attackers take advantage of systems vulnerabilities; therefore, system administrators should be aware of potential threats to take necessary actions to protect their organizations and stakeholders. At this point, a risk assessment is needed to discover possible threats for vulnerable systems of the organization and to implement strategies for the business goals. This study proposes a hybrid risk management framework using both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze risk within organizations and reduce them with practical countermeasures. Based on this framework, case studies have been carried out considering three hypothetical companies identifying possible information security risks, and these risks have been reduced to an acceptable level by applying the proposed risk analysis methodology.

Implementation of an Integral Methodology for the Simulation of Renewable Energy Scenarios Applied to an Isolated Area

This chapter provides an implementation of an integral methodology for the simulation of renewable energy scenarios applied to an isolated village situated in Democratic Republic of Congo. A specific area in Democratic Republic of Congo is selected as a case study in order to validate the methodology. In addition, this chapter includes the experimental validation of the HRES configuration, operating a scalable prototype in LabDER at UPV (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain). Experimental tests conducted in the laboratory are described and main results and conclusions are discussed.

Fuzzy Greedy Search

In recent years, there has been a growth of interest in the development of systematic search methods for solving problems in operational research and artificial intelligence. This chapter introduces a new idea for the integration of approaches for hard combinatorial optimisation problems. The proposed methodology evaluates objects in a way that combines fuzzy reasoning with a greedy mechanism. In other words, a fuzzy solution space is exploited using greedy methods. This seems to be superior to the standard greedy version. The chapter consists of two main parts. The first part focuses on description of the theory and mathematics of the so-called fuzzy greedy evaluation concept. The second part demonstrates through computational experiments the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed concept for hard combinatorial optimisation problems.

Internal Control and Assets Management

Risk management is a core element from a strategic and operational point of view. Conditions of the environment, financial scandals like Enron and Worldcom, globalization, and new technologies make risk a priority for companies that want to keep a sustainable competitive advantage under uncertainty. In line with these, there are several frameworks, initiatives, and ways to approach risk under a structure organization and integrated approach, including the development of internal control standards like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). One of the elements to be considered when taking optimum decisions is a proper risk management. In this chapter, the key elements of assets risk management will be exposed, starting from main concepts, constructing the elements that are applicable to build a risk management system, and developing a practical example under SOX framework with a management and system approach.