Methodology for development of condition-based maintenance program for surface drilling equipment

Abstract

Maintenance is the essential part of production process in today’s industry. There are several philosophies (e.g. corrective maintenance and preventive maintenance) and concepts (e.g. overall equipment efficiency and reliability-centered maintenance) that are applied in industry. The challenge here is to choose the proper ones for the specific operation conditions and equipment. The solution to this challenge can be found through implementation of a reliability-centered maintenance (RCM). This concept implies application of combination of different maintenance policies. The author determines a condition-based maintenance (CBM) as one of the most challengeable policy among them. The development of CBM program needs an application of several complex tools. It is sometimes difficult to use these tools in combination with each other. The main aim of the thesis is to set up a comprehensive methodology intended to develop the CBM program and ensure its continuous improvement. It is done by using the specific group of equipment (drilling equipment) as an object of case study in order to test and modify the constituents of the methodology. Methods used during the work with thesis are: interviewing, making observations, literature review, questioning, statistical and analytical methods. The application resulted in identifying of the drilling equipment, which is mostly preferable for monitoring. Different techniques and approaches (e.g. reliability assessment tools) aiding in establishment of the complete CBM program are analyzed and adapted. The International and Norwegian standards related to condition monitoring are assessed according to their possibility of application. There are two aspects that are critical to success of the CBM program development: implementation of the program into the company overall maintenance strategy and availability of data sources (e.g. reliability data).