Availability centered maintenance (ACM), an integrated approach

摘要

This paper presents an integrated approach to Maintenance management and optimization. As our initial results have shown, by using the Availability Centered Maintenance (ACM) approach, it is possible to answer most of the questions and needs that characterize the maintenance of complex systems. Inside the paper we are going to describe this approach starting from the basic ideas on which it has been developed and the reasons why we have decided to give a great prominence to availability. The ACM method is based on some clear and concise concepts, which can be customized to almost any kind of industrial field. Based on this approach, both a methodology and a practical tool have been developed. The tool can "dialogue" with a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), so that it is not only analytical, but analytical-managerial and, because analytical results are used as INPUT to optimally plan maintenance: the flow of information is direct. This paper focuses on the basic foundations of ACM. Great emphasis will be given to the Availability Priority Index (API), which helps us to well organize maintenance, because API measures the actual weight of an item from its availability importance. At the end of this paper, a comparison between the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and ACM approaches will be shown; through ACM we have tried to face all those queries which, according to our experiences, usually remain without a practical answer when using traditional methodologies like the RCM. Industrial plant managers and operating personnel need simple and optimized maintenance tasks that can show the minimum distance to reality (Ref. 11), taking into account all of the measurable parameters that, once correctly weighted, can drive to real availability optimization. From the global service supplier standpoint, besides the availability bonus/malus contractual clauses that more and more frequently are included in current business, a simultaneous maintenance cost minimization has become mandatory, without decreasing the effectiveness.