| dc.description.abstract | The thesis explores the intricacies of maintenance spend in the tail-end phase of offshore installations. The analysis relates to three different platforms, platform A (≈ 20+ years in operation), platform B (≈ 5-20 years in operation), and platform C (≈ 0-5 years in operation). These installations show the difference and similarities in maintenance spend, resource allocation, and maintenance practices. Through the literature review, data analysis, and further deduction of the maintenance spend, tail-end installations have clear improvement potential in terms of lower cost, extending the design life, and asset management. The findings of the analyses show that the maintenance spends on tail-end installations is upwards of twice as large as the maintenance spends on new installations. It also demonstrates that corrective maintenance becomes a larger portion of that spend as the installation ages, mostly due to deterioration of materials as well as the obsolescence of aging equipment, and the need for replacements. Corrective maintenance causes instability in the maintenance budgets and is the main cause of unexpected downtime and emergency shutdowns. This needs to be at a minimum, due to the lowered yield in the production of older fields and platforms. The maintenance work rated by risk or priority demonstrates irregular inconsistent resource allocation towards high risk and high priority maintenance work. Tail-end platforms need to emphasize their resource allocation towards the systems and equipment with the highest criticality and priority, in order to minimize emergency shutdowns in production. Increasing the focus can alter the profitable outlook of such a platform. Fabric maintenance spends increases with the age of the installation from 2.1% to 17.6% of the total maintenance spend, with average maintenance related to fabric maintenance of 10.5%. Fabric maintenance often has a lower priority than other categories, meaning fabric maintenance is often sidelined and requires extra attention later in the life cycle. Instead of postponing fabric maintenance is should be performed on an opportunistic and preventive schedule. The analysis demonstrates that resources, in terms of workers, heavily favor generalized personnel in the tail-end phase, with better distribution of these resources on younger installations. Caused partly due to the increased maintenance spend on corrective maintenance, as well as the increase in fabric maintenance spend. However, this high reliance on one set of generalized personnel can lead to higher maintenance spend in terms of overtime and unscheduled personnel transportation. The final aspect is related to life-cycle maintenance, where the analysis shows that for different maintenance, the execution schedule is the same regardless of age. This can be caused by standards, rules, and regulations. Further examination is required to figure out if these systems can have a life-cycle approach towards maintenance, which can allow for lower average maintenance spend across the lifetime
of the asset. The traditional approach to achieve a lowered maintenance spend can be found through the implementation of various maintenance tools and methodologies. The focus should be on life cycle maintenance in order to decrease the average maintenance spend across the life of the asset. Through the use of RCM and campaign maintenance, tail-end installations can minimize downtime and increase reliability and availability. Further, through the avoidance of unexpected and immediate corrective maintenance, operators will increase the stability and profitability of tail-end installations. Innovative suggestions and recommendations can be derived from the implementation of IMS and various organizational changes. Through IMS, the ability to plan and schedule maintenance based on risk, criticality, and data-driven decision-making can dramatically increase the reliability and availability of the system. The IMS would require a platform of machine learning in order to be able to generate the underlying work need for it to be fully operational. Other organizational changes that can increase the maintenance spend stability of tail-end installation include performance-based contracts and alliances. Subcontractors on performance-based contract can greatly increase the stability in maintenance spend towards tail-end installations by basing one of the performance criteria towards availability. Long-term alliances between operators and subcontractors can also increase stability by sharing the risk within the alliance. Both these factors mitigate a large portion of the risks related to the uncertainties of tail-end production. | |