What is 'Terotechnology'

Terotechnology is a practice that leverages management, engineering and

financial expertise to optimize installation, operations and upkeep of
equipment. Terotechnology is derived from the Greek root word "tero" or "I
care," which is used with the term "technology" to refer to the study of the
costs associated with an asset throughout its life cycle from acquisition to
disposal. The goals of this multidisciplinary approach are to reduce the
different costs incurred at the various stages of an asset's life and to develop
methods that will help extend its life span. The discipline of
terotechnology may also be known as "life-cycle costing."

At the core of terotechnology is keeping assets maintained at an optimal level

so as to perfectly manage the life-cycle costs of a physical asset. The
discipline of terotechnology is primarily concerned with maintainability and
reliability of physical assets. Terotechnology was developed in the 1970s in
the United Kingdom. It may be applied to machines, equipment, plants,
buildings and structures and includes the revenues and expenses of the
organization that acquires them.

The practice of terotechnology is a continuous cycle that covers the entire

lifespan of an object. It starts with the design or selection of a givenobject then
proceeds to its installation or construction, commissioning, operations and
upkeep. Terotechnology also accounts for the end of an object's useful life,
such as its decommissioning or retirement, its dismantling, or its removal,
sale or disposal. Terotechnology then will start the cycle again with the
consideration of the object's replacement.
Terotechnology in Example

Take this example scenario: An oil company is attempting to map out the costs
of an offshore oil platform. They would use terotechnology to forecast the
exact costs associated with assembly, transportation, maintenance and
dismantling of the platform, and finally a calculation of salvage value.

2.1 Introduction

The purpose of maintenance is to ensure the maximum efficiency and availability of

production equipment, utilities and related facilities at optimal cost and under
satisfactory conditions of quality, safety and protection for the environment.

Maintenance was long considered as a subordinate function, entailing an inevitable

waste of money. There was a tendency to lump it together with troubleshooting and
repairing machinery that was subject to wear and obsolescence. However, enterprises
today are realizing that maintenance is not merely a ‘partner’ in production: it is an
indispensable requirement for producing. Its relation with equipment performance is a
question of integrated strategy at senior management level. As such, the maintenance
function becomes a management responsibility.

2.2 Objectives of maintenance management

The more specific objectives of maintenance management are as follows:

- to optimize the reliability of equipment and infrastructure;

- to ensure that equipment and infrastructure are always in good condition;

- to carry out prompt emergency repair of equipment and infrastructure so as to secure

the best possible availability for production;

- to enhance, through modifications, extensions, or new low-cost items, the

productivity of existing equipment or production capacity;

- to ensure the operation of equipment for production and for the distribution of
energy and fluids;
- to improve operational safety;

- to train personnel in specific maintenance skills;

- to advise on the acquisition, installation and operation of machinery;

- to contribute to finished product quality;

- to ensure environmental protection.

2.3 Forms of maintenance

Maintenance has three major forms:

a) design-out maintenance;

b) preventive maintenance, which includes systematic (periodic) maintenance and

condition-based maintenance;

c) corrective maintenance.

These are illustrated in figure 21.5.

Figure 21.5: The forms of maintenance

Maintenance can also be divided into planned and unplanned maintenance (or
scheduled and unscheduled). The following chart highlights the relation to the
previous chart.
 Figure 21.6: Planned and unplanned forms of maintenance

Below is a brief explanation of the terms used in the two charts.

Maintenance Maintenance is the function whose objective is to ensure the fullest

availability of production equipment, utilities and related facilities at
optimal cost and under satisfactory conditions of quality, safety and
protection of the environment.

Design-out This is also known as plant improvement maintenance, and its object
maintenance is to improve the operation, reliability or capacity of the equipment in
place. This sort of work usually involves studies, construction,
installation, start-up and tuning.

Preventive The principle of preventive maintenance is anticipation. It is put into

maintenance practice in two forms: systematic (periodic) maintenance and
condition-based maintenance.
Also called breakdown maintenance, palliative or curative
Corrective maintenance. This form of maintenance consists of:
maintenance
- troubleshooting on machines whose poor condition results in
stoppage, or in operation under intolerable conditions;

- repairs.

Systematic This consists of servicing equipment at regular intervals, either

maintenance according to a time schedule or on the basis of predetermined units of
use (hours of operation or distance travelled). The aim is to detect
failure or premature wear and to correct this before a breakdown
occurs. The servicing schedule is usually based on manufacturers’
forecasts, revised and adjusted according to experience of previous
servicing; this information is recorded in the machine file. This type
of maintenance is also called periodic maintenance.

Condition-based This type of maintenance, also called predictive or auscultative

maintenance maintenance, is a breakdown-prevention technique which requires no
dismantling, as it is based on inspection by auscultation of the
equipment involved. It requires continuous observation of an item of
equipment in order to detect possible faults or to monitor its
condition.

Planned Maintenance which is known to be necessary sufficiently in advance

maintenance for normal planning and preparation procedures to be followed.

Unplanned This is maintenance which is not carried out regularly as the need for
maintenance it is not predictable; it is sometimes called unscheduled maintenance

What does Breakdown Maintenance mean?

Breakdown maintenance is a form of material or equipment remediation that is
performed after the equipment or material has lost its functioning capabilities
or properties. Breakdown maintenance is often the last resort in an attempt to
restore or extend the life of a given asset.
Breakdown maintenance is performed on equipment that is unusable due to
any of several reasons ranging from severe corrosion to physical factors that
have directly impeded the regular functioning of the equipment. The
maintenance may be either scheduled or not.
Run-to-failure maintenance is a type of scheduled breakdown maintenance,
while examples of unplanned maintenance include corrective maintenance
and reactive maintenance. Breakdown maintenance is often avoided because
it can cost more than preventative maintenance.
The maintenance procedure involves:
1. Generation and review of usage records
 2. Maintenance scheduling
3. Lubrication and cleaning
4. Wear and tear visual inspections
5. Proper housing and component storage

What does Corrective Maintenance mean?

Corrective maintenance is a maintenance task or operation done in order to
identify, isolate or separate and rectify a particular fault. This is performed in
order to restore the failed machine, equipment or system to an operational
condition. Corrective maintenance can be either planned or unplanned.

Corrective maintenance can be subdivided into:

 Immediate corrective maintenance - in which work starts immediately
after a failure
 Deferred corrective maintenance - in which work is delayed in
conformance to a given set of maintenance rules

Corrosionpedia explains Corrective Maintenance

Corrective maintenance is a form of maintenance that is performed after a
fault or problem emerges in the system, with the goal of restoring operability.
In some cases, it can be impossible to predict or prevent a failure, making this
type of maintenance the only option.
Corrective maintenance refers to action only taken when a system or
component failure has occurred. It is thus a retroactive strategy. The task of
the maintenance team in this scenario is usually to effect repairs as soon as
possible. Costs associated with corrective maintenance include:
 Repair costs
 Lost production
 Lost sales

Corrosion maintenance costs represent a significant portion of operating

budgets in most industrial sectors, particularly where aging structures/plants
are involved.
The process of corrective maintenance begins with a diagnosis of the failure
to determine why it occurred. The diagnostic process can include:
 Physical inspection of a system
 Use of a diagnostic computer to evaluate the system
 Interviews with users
 Numerous other steps

FIXED TIME MAINTENANCE (FTM)

Maintenance which is carried out at regular intervals of either time,
output, cycles of operation etc. is known as Fixed Time Maintenance.
To minimise disruption Fixed Time Maintenance is, where possible,
carried out off-line i.e. when production has stopped.
Fixed Time Maintenance will only be effective where the failure
characteristic is time dependent with the failure occurring within the
life of the equipment, and where the total cost of the repair is
substantially less than the cost of allowing the equipment to
breakdown.
Unfortunately, time dependent failures are a relatively uncommon
characteristic in a complex plant, resulting in FTM having a
negligible or occasionally detrimental effect on improving equipment
performance.
Fixed time maintenance refers to maitenacne that is carried out at fixed
intervals. These intervals are more often than not defined by manufacturer of
the equipment/machine after carrying out research on the component's
behavior in laboratory or from past experience. Example, replacing oil/air filter
after a fixed period of time i.e.3 or6 monthly or after a certain mileage has
been reached i.e.10,000 miles etc.

What is preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance is a procedure designed to prevent failures and prolong

the life of infrastructure, facilities, machines, software and other entities such as
documents. The term is used to distinguish regular or precautionary maintenance
from fixing things that are broken. The following are illustrative examples of
preventive maintenance.
Opportunistic maintenance can be defined as a systematic method of
collecting, investigating, pre- planning, and publishing a set of
proposed maintenance tasks and acting on them when there is an
unscheduled failure or repair "opportunity".

Goals and Objectives of Maintenance Organizations

The goals and objectives of the maintenance organization determine
the type of maintenance organization that is established. If the goals
and objectives are progressive and the maintenance organization is
recognized as a contributor to the corporate bottom line, variations on
some of the more conventional organizational structures can be used.

The typical goals and objectives for a maintenance organization are

 Maintain the capability of the company's assets to perform their

designed function thereby increasing shareholder value by maximizing
the company's return on assets.

 Maximizing production or operational throughput

 Identify and implement cost reductions

 Provide accurate equipment maintenance records

 Collect necessary maintenance cost information

 Optimize maintenance resources

 Labor, materials, contract

 Optimize capital equipment life

 Minimize energy usage

 Responsibility for Environmental, Safety, and Health compliance.

What is 'Zero-Based Budgeting - ZBB'

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method of budgeting in which
all expenses must be justified for each new period. The process of zero-based
budgeting starts from a "zero base," and every function within an organization
 is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built around what is
needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether each budget is higher
or lower than the previous one.

ZBB allows top-level strategic goals to be implemented into the budgeting

process by tying them to specific functional areas of the organization, where
costs can be first grouped and then measured against previous results and
current expectations.

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is an approach to making a budget from

scratch. The budget is not based on previous budgets. Instead, the
budget starts at zero.

With zero-based budgeting, you need to justify every expense before

adding it to the official budget. The goal of zero-based budgeting is to
reduce spending by looking at where costs can be cut.

Zero-based budgeting process

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified
for each new period. The process of zero-based budgeting starts from a "zero base," and every
function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built
around what is needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether each budget is higher or
lower than the previous one.

There are a few different steps in zero-based budgeting to keep in

mind. The process of zero-based budgeting follows the same basic
steps:
1. Identify business goals
2. Develop and analyze new ways to achieve goals
3. Discover new ways to fund business processes
4. Prioritize funds
SPARES PARTS MANAGEMENT

Spare parts are the lifeblood of operational reliability and plant capacity. No plant
can operate at a high level of output without a reliable supply of functional spare
parts.
Yet, spare parts are also the most overlooked contributor to reliability outcomes.
Many organizations routinely operate without properly implementing even the most
fundamental aspects of spare parts management at their sites. Often these
organizations have storerooms with neat shelves and clear labels but this is not
enough for highly reliable spare parts management. Effective spare parts
management is essential for making a difference in the operational reliability.

Superficially, achieving best practice spare parts inventory management looks

simple because spare parts can appear to be just like any other inventory. But in
reality they are different from other inventory types and this is reason why best
practice (or even good practice) can be so hard to achieve.

In reality, the spare parts management brings together the diverse disciplines of
maintenance management, inventory management, storeroom management,
supply chain, procurement and logistics. This adds a layer of complexity that is
usually not found with other inventory types.

The solution to these problems lies in the systematic spare parts management. The
objective of spare parts management is to ensure the availability of spares for
maintenance and repairs of the plant and machinery as and when required at an
optimum cost. Also, the spares are to be of right quality. Some of the benefits by
utilizing a systematic approach to spare parts management include the following.

 Reduced inventory costs

 Justified basis for carrying inventory

 Reduced probability of running out of stock

 Addressed ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ (TCO) for supply chain management

 Improved condition of spares

 Linkage of spare parts levels to actual criticality of assets

 Organization is to proceed systematically for establishing an effective spare parts
management system. Codification of spare parts and preparation of a spare parts
catalogue helps the organization in minimizing the duplication of spare parts
stocking thereby reducing inventory, aids the accounting process and facilitates the
computerization of spare parts control systems. There are many systematic actions
are needed to ensure the effectiveness of the spare parts management. These
systematic actions for managing spare parts are given below.

 Identification of spare parts

 Forecasting of spare parts requirement

 Analysis of spare parts inventory

 Formulation of selective control policies for various categories

 Development of spare parts inventory control systems

 Stocking policies for capital & insurance spares

 Stocking policies for rotating spares or sub assemblies

 Replacement policies for spare parts

 Spare parts inspection

 Indigenization of spares parts

 Reconditioning of spare parts

 Establishment of spare parts bank

 Computer applications to spare parts management

How will IT Impact Maintenance Management in the Future?

Many companies that are in the business of producing quality products are moving
towards implementing reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) and condition-based
maintenance (CBM).

One of the most exciting prospects for the future of IT in maintenance management
is the adoption of Industrial Internet of Things.

IIoT holds the potential to transform maintenance and save costs because it can:

 Provide real-time health statistics of equipment.

 Issue work orders based on current conditions by interfacing with the CMMS
 Identify and reorder parts needed for condition-based maintenance
requirements
 Provide detailed feedback to operators to support total productive
maintenance (TPM)
 Provide follow-up on maintenance activity to verify it was completed correctly
and on schedule
 Cut down product losses due to equipment failure and/or unplanned
maintenance downtime
 Accelerating defect elimination and financial gains identified from the
reliability-centered maintenance program.

Improving Maintenance Management through IT

From its humble beginnings, information technology was developed with a purpose
of streamlining and automating our personal and professional tasks. Its role in
improving maintenance management is not much different.

The prime example can be found in facilities management.

Information technology (or in this case a maintenance software) equips facility

managers with the tools they need to identify individual tasks, due dates, and task
progress – ensuring nothing is overlooked.

It can provide both a bird’s eye view of the whole building maintenance system as
well as drill-down views.

One of the biggest benefits of maintenance software is increased labor productivity,

since the system can help plan and track the work that needs to be done.

This allows technicians to complete their tasks without interruption and significantly
speeds up the information flow between the maintenance team.

We can spend the whole day listing the advantages of introducing IT into
maintenance management.

From inventory management and asset tracking to communication flow and

maintenance schedule management, the applications of information technology in
this field seem endless.

Reliability
Reliability is defined as the probability that a component (or an entire system) will perform its
function for a specified period of time, when operating in its design environment. The elements
necessary for the definition of reliability are, therefore, an unambiguous criterion for judging
whether something is working or not and the exact definition of environmental conditions and
usage. Then, reliability can be defined as the time dependent probability of correct operation if
we assume that a component is used for its intended function in its design environment and if
we clearly define what we mean with "failure". For this definition, any discussion on the
reliability basics starts with the coverage of the key concepts of probability.

A broader definition of reliability is that "reliability is the science to predict, analyze, prevent
and mitigate failures over time." It is a science, with its theoretical basis and principles. It also
has sub-disciplines, all related - in some way - to the study and knowledge of faults. Reliability is
closely related to mathematics, and especially to statistics, physics, chemistry, mechanics and
electronics. In the end, given that the human element is almost always part of the systems, it
often has to do with psychology and psychiatry.

In addition to the prediction of system durability, reliability also tries to give answers to other
questions. Indeed, we can try to derive from reliability also the availability performance of a
system. In fact, availability depends on the time between two consecutive failures and on how
long it takes to restore the system. Reliability study can be also used to understand how faults
can be avoided. You can try to prevent potential failures, acting on the design, materials and
maintenance.

Reliability involves almost all aspects related to the possession of a property: cost management,
customer satisfaction, the proper management of resources, passing through the ability to sell
products or services, safety and quality of the product.

Availability
Availability may be generically be defined as the percentage of time that a repairable system is
in an operating condition. However, in the literature, there are four specific measures of
repairable system availability.