ABS is supporting the ‘smart shipping’ concept with programs that focus on
data-driven, reliability-based maintenance, write Domenic Carlucci, Robert Conachey and Christopher Serratella, ABS Corporate Technology.
For proactive shipowners, maintenance is never an afterthought, and it is increasingly being integrated into the design of new shipboard systems. Industry leaders are designing maintenance systems by accounting for a data-driven, lifecycle approach as a step towards the ships of the future.
As maintenance management philosophies shift from calendar-based to more condition-driven intervals, classification surveys must also evolve, leveraging this new source of information in the crediting of machinery toward special survey requirements.
By implementing a range of planned and integrated procedures, owners are able to achieve a maintenance approach within the context of class recognition and move in the direction of smarter shipping operations.
Incorporating performance in operational and maintenance planning is becoming easier at a time when this type of data collection, analysis and monitoring of machinery condition, performance and maintenance data are vital to effective marine asset management.
Applying New Techniques
Developing a robust maintenance plan relies on reliability techniques that align maintenance tasks and monitoring techniques with the potential equipment failure modes and respective causes.
The next step is to establish data streams directly from the vessel’s automation and control systems to provide information on machinery condition. This can reduce crew burden and the potential for human error and also help turn an often complex puzzle of qualifying and analysing condition and performance data into an ever-improving, standardized process for decision-making and maintenance planning.
Information gathered from these processes can create a learning loop that, when implemented in an Enterprise Asset Management strategy, can improve existing operational execution and influence the next generation of ship systems and processes.
Classification societies are in a position to provide reliability programs that recognize and provide credit for improved maintenance program performance. In implementing this type of program, operators have the additional benefit of a clearer definition of asset health, which allows unanticipated repairs to be minimised and reduces the likelihood of delays to operations.
Defining Reliability Strategies
Engaging in reliability-based design and management processes can result in a maintenance programme that strikes the right balance among performance, risk and costs for each piece of machinery or system.
Improving the inherent reliability of a system or component requires this to be addressed at the design stage, while applying risk and reliability analysis tools throughout the design process provides the information needed by the operator to make more informed decisions.
Maintenance management consists of assessing the ‘what, when, why, who and how’. The end result is to develop a safe and proven design in which future performance meets reliability expectations.
Owners need to consider some fundamental issues, such as the type of maintenance strategy that will be deployed and when maintenance activity is needed – why it should be performed (return on assets or cost benefit), who will perform the activity and how it will be accomplished.
There is always a trigger that creates a decision point on maintenance. Whether this is an interval based on calendar or running hours or by monitoring results such as condition, performance, or failure finding based on inspection and testing, the trigger determines the need for maintenance.
Moving Maintenance into the Future
The engineering and survey classification processes serve as integral pieces of machinery lifecycle management, from design review, construction and assembly, maintenance management verification, and culminating with surveys after construction.
ABS already offers several programmes to support and assist operators in minimising disruptions associated with maintenance and classification efforts which can help them achieve greater operational efficiencies.
In particular, as an alternative requirement to Special Survey, clients can enrol their equipment in a Preventative Maintenance Program (PMP) which allows the operator to execute planned maintenance and condition monitoring activities via an ABS-approved maintenance plan. Owners and operators can use the results of these programs to seek alternate crediting toward Special Survey requirements.
ABS has developed a specific Guide with requirements and Guidance Notes providing supplemental information on this topic including the ABS Guide for Surveys Based on Machinery Reliability and Maintenance Techniques, ABS Guidance Notes on Equipment Condition Monitoring Techniques, and ABS Guidance Notes on Reliability Centered Maintenance.
The ABS Guide for Surveys Based on Machinery Reliability and Maintenance Techniques offers methodologies for achieving ABS notations applied to machinery reliability and maintenance management programs. It describes the process and responsibilities for ABS review of design submittals, analysis processes and resulting maintenance plans as applicable throughout lifecycle stages of the vessel or asset. The methodology relies heavily on risk and reliability assessment techniques as a way of better understanding and anticipating machinery and operational issues related to these concepts.
Towards a New Mindset
Classification has never been a ‘one-size-fits-all’ process because of the need to manage risk on an individual vessel basis. The emergence of a data-centric approach to maintenance and compliance creates the opportunity to look at processes in the context of maximizing efficiency and minimising intrusion.
The industry is moving from a slow, compliance-based approach to adoption of new technologies to a mind-set that embraces new techniques in the cause of efficiency as well as safety. More improvement is needed, not just to demonstrate compliance to regulation and adherence to class requirements, but because greater efficiency can deliver improved margins and play a role in sustaining the viability of an asset.
It is clear that even if the industry has not yet fully adopted these concepts, it has accepted their inevitability. This is evident in the evolution of data capture from the unstructured noon report towards the collection and analysis of the increasing volume of data which are being made available to decision-makers.
Ultimately, this means Class will continue to have a prominent role to play in the evolution of the shipping industry. An understanding of the tools needed to effectively and safely manage performance analysis and what happens when remedial action is needed is a critical step towards development of a smarter shipping industry.