Volume 4 No 3 March 2014
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Reliability Centered Maintenance Plan for the Utility Section of a Fertilizer Industry: A Case Study
Muhammad Abid*, Suleman Ayub, Humza Wali, Muhammad Najam Tariq Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences & Technology, Topi, 23640, Swabi, KPK, Pakistan *abid@giki.edu.pk
Abstract—This paper provides an insight to the application of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and life data analysis. The objective is to formulate a Failure Management Policy for the utility section of a fertilizer industry. It focuses on how key elements of the RCM process can be combined to select appropriate policies for managing a system’s failure modes and their consequences, using an RCM decision algorithm. The foremost objective of Reliability Centered Maintenance plan is to optimize reliability of physical assets while being cost effective. Furthermore in addition to traditional RCM, life data of the machinery is analyzed using empirical analysis of Weibull distribution. The estimates of the parameters of Weibull distribution are found using Median Rank Regression (MRR) method. Each machine is then matched with one of the six most widely accepted patterns of failure. In the end these two techniques i.e. RCM and Weibull Analysis are integrated in a manner to formulate an optimized Failure Management Policy. The plan is in compliance with RCM SAE JA1011 standard. Keywords: RCM, Reliability Engineering, Management Policy, Life data analysis. Failure
example, deductions and results obtained can be applied to the all the systems of ammonia/urea complex plant. II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
A. Failure Curves Failure rate or hazard rate is defined as probability density function divided by reliability [2]. There are a total of six failure curves associated with most of the equipment installed in an Industry which
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