A Better Maintenance Decision Using the Internet

摘要

As the Internet becomes more popular for all phases of business and operations, equipment maintenance planningand decisions can be enhanced using web-based expert services that can improve the efficiency of the maintenancedecision process. There are six major health management functions that should comprise the suite of services:Decision Support, Data Analysis, State Detection, Health Assessment, Prognostics, and Life Extension.The critical Decision Support acts like a bridge between condition monitoring and maintenance management. It isan enabling function for Condition Based Maintenance (CBM), or Predictive Maintenance (PdM). It is theevaluated output from the other tightly integrated functions and therefore, offers the benefits of increased equipmentuptime and reduced cost of ownership. Data Analysis performs pre-processing of the data collected duringequipment operation providing meaningful trends for critical data. When these functions are integrated into a totalsolution and available as a web-based expert planning and decision support tool, the user can achieve greater levelsof efficiency and maintenance cost reductions. State Detection detects anomalies and faults (abnormalities) inherentin a piece of equipment before they cause a failure. State Detection uses an intelligent reasoning technology todetect faults and associated failure modes. Health Assessment gives users a clear index and metric of thedegradation of equipment performance. Prognostics provide estimates when failures will occur so that maintenancedecisions can be optimized for safety and cost. Life Extension is an important part of the equipment’s lifemanagement process, especially for equipment with life-limited parts like a combustion turbine engine.