Browsing by Author "Amorim-Melo, P."

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    Challenges in cost analysis of innovative maintenance of distributed high-value assets
    (Elsevier, 2014-10-31) Kirkwood, Leigh; Shehab, Essam; Baguley, Paul; Amorim-Melo, P.; Durazo-Cardenas, Isidro
    Condition monitoring is an increasingly important activity, but there is often little thought given to how a condition monitoring approach is going to impact the cost of operating a system. This paper seeks to detail the challenges facing such an analysis and outline the likely steps such an analysis will have to take to more completely understand the problem and provide suitable cost analysis. Adding sensors might be a relatively simple task, but those sensors come with associated cost; not only of the sensor, but of the utilities required to power them, the data gathering and processing and the eventual storage of that data for regulatory or other reasons. By adding condition monitoring sensors as a sub- system to the general system an organisation is required to perform maintenance to the new sensors sub-system. Despite these difficulties it is anticipated that for many high value assets applying condition monitoring will enable significant cost savings through elimination of maintenance activities on assets that do not need such cost and effort expended on them. Further savings should be possible through optimisation of maintenance schedules to have essential work completed at more cost efficient times.
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    Cost drivers of integrated maintenance in high-value systems
    (Elsevier, 2014-10-31) Amorim-Melo, P.; Shehab, Essam; Kirkwood, Leigh; Baguley, Paul
    High value systems are determined by a wide structure, where operations are considered to be one structural component. Nowadays “down-time” as a major impact in the operation costs of any system. To avoid or minimize “down-time” it is essential to match the appropriate maintenance to each failure. Therefore, it is relevant to determine the cost drivers of integrated maintenance in any system, in order to minimize the overall cost. It is common to use Value Driven Maintenance (VDM) to capture the cost drivers in maintenance. VDM is a methodology which relies in four distinct areas: Asset Utilization; Resource Allocation; Control Cost and Health and Safety and Environment. Within each category it is possible to allocate different cost drivers, building a framework for each system studied. The aim of this paper is to categorize the cost drivers of rail infrastructure networks, associating them with the maintenance preformed for each case. Furthermore, analysis of which part of the track falls under each VDM category as well as the general failure causes and effects will be included in the framework presented. Finally relating the maintenance type for each effect will provide the necessary inputs towards a cost model structure. The benefit of achieving a successful model will be the optimization of the cost in integrated maintenance of the rail infrastructure.