Exploration on optimizing maintenance management by using condition monitoring on drilling platforms in COSL

Abstract

Taking a general investigation of maintenance activities in various industries, three maintenance philosophies are commonly applied, which are corrective maintenance, time-based periodic maintenance and condition-based predictive maintenance. Corrective maintenance which is implemented after breakdown of the equipment could lead to great losses in personnel safety, environment and assets. Therefore, the application and development on preventive maintenance – especially condition-based predictive maintenance – have been continuously optimized to reduce failures as much as possible so that equipment downtime and maintenance cost can be reduced while reliability and safety level of machinery enhanced. Besides, e-maintenance is an emerging maintenance management concept that makes use of information and communication technology (ICT) to assistant maintenance activities by linking supports from experts of different parties. By adopting such technique, advantages such as fast response, integration of resources, remote monitoring and decision making can be realized. Compared with first-class industrial companies where the relatively sophisticated maintenance philosophy covering both condition monitoring and e-maintenance has been applied, COSL until now is still in the primary stage in developing systematic maintenance system centering the importance of condition monitoring. Also e-maintenance is rarely employed. This study will discuss the development, characteristics, and relevant impacts of several techniques commonly used in condition monitoring as well as those of e-maintenance. Moreover, combined with current practices of maintenance methodologies in COSL, possible improvement in maintenance system will be explored.