STP 221 THEORY

INTRODUCTION

Any electronic instrument or piece of equipment can be considered as a system.

A system is a group of interacting or interrelated entities that form a unified whole.
An instrument or piece of equipment can have sub‐systems made in blocks to perform specific
functions. These sub‐systems are made‐up of electronic circuits, which are forms of
electronic/electrical or electromechanical component parts.
The failure of a component in an equipment may lead to the failure of the system.
Failure is said to be the inability of a system to perform its required function. The need
for continuous performance of an equipment requires that it is given regular maintenance. It is,
therefore imperative that the meaning of maintenance is well understood.

MAINTENANCE
This is all the activities carried out on an equipment in terms of proper installation, good
servicing, routine checks, repairs and replacement of faulty parts in order for such equipment
to give off its best throughout its useful life.
Every item has its own operational characteristics which it must possess or exhibit in the course
of its use. A termination in the characteristics under working condition is considered as fault
and this may be due to lack of proper maintenance.
An equipment or instrument is considered to have failed under any of these conditions:
a. when it becomes completely inoperative
b. when it is still in operation but unable to perform the required function any longer
c. When it becomes unsafe for its continued use.

Classification of Maintenance
There are two major categories of maintenance and these are: preventive maintenance and
corrective maintenance.

Preventive Maintenance (PM)

Preventive maintenance refers to regular, routine maintenance to help keep equipment up and
running, preventing any unplanned downtime and expensive costs from unanticipated
equipment failure. It is performed while the equipment is still working so that it does not break
down unexpectedly.
Through scheduled cleaning, repairs, adjustments, and part replacements, a preventive
approach increases the availability and operational output of equipment and machinery.

The Advantages of Preventive Maintenance

i. Preventive maintenance will decrease business downtime and closures due to
unexpected equipment failures;
ii. Preventive maintenance will increase equipment life expectancy resulting in a lower
turnover rate;
iii. Fewer expensive corrective and emergency repairs;
iv. Preventive maintenance will significantly reduce safety risks for employees and
customers;
v. Preventive maintenance means less energy consumption for your assets and equipment
due to high levels of operational efficiency, which will reduce your utility bills.

Disadvantages of Preventive Maintenance

Although deploying preventative maintenance will reduce downtime, there are some
considerations when taking this approach. Disadvantages of preventative maintenance include:
i. Budget constraints and considerations, which may not be able to support all relevant
preventive maintenance procedures and inspections that ideally need implementation;
ii. Time-consuming scheduling and inspections, which may not be feasible given the
volume of customers, responsibilities, etc. on any given day;
iii. Staff time and resources, which may mean that certain employees work overtime, or
are taken away from their daily duties in order to focus on preventive maintenance
practices;
iv. Overkill of preventive maintenance, which can lead to unnecessary money spent on
precautions that aren’t needed.

Corrective Maintenance
Corrective maintenance (CM) is a maintenance task performed to restore a non- or under-
performing equipment to an optimum or operational condition. It includes troubleshooting,
disassembling, readjusting, repairing, replacing, and realigning equipment. This requires a
good understanding of system fault location methods in addition to an understanding of overall
system and circuit operation.
Advantages of Corrective Maintenance
 Reduced Need for Planning: It requires less planning compared to preventive
maintenance and CBM.
 Enhanced Simplicity: Due to its nature need-based, maintenance teams can focus on
other tasks until a breakdown occurs. The process is also simple and doesn’t require
complex tools to identify faults before they occur.
 Increased Cost Efficiency for Non-critical Assets: Instead of spending resources on
creating a PM plan for non-critical assets, corrective maintenance allows you to save
money by undertaking upkeep only when needed.

Disadvantages of Corrective Maintenance

Like anything else, this type of maintenance has its downsides. Some of these include:
 Increased Downtime: When serious problems arise, maintenance can be a slow and
expensive process. Periods of equipment downtime affect production, costing the
organization money.
 Higher Maintenance Costs: Without preventive maintenance, the condition of assets
can deteriorate more significantly before problems are discovered, requiring the repair
or replacement of more parts while also increasing labor costs.
 Safety Issues: When performed in response to a breakdown where money is being lost
every second, maintenance may be rushed, leading to a higher risk of unsafe or
improper work.
 Unpredictability: When emergencies happen, all other maintenance work is put on
hold until the problem is resolved, leading to a backlog of work orders. Maintenance
managers must also quickly identify the technicians and parts needed to address the
repair.

Maintenance Strategy
A maintenance strategy defines the rules for the sequence of planned maintenance work. It
contains general scheduling information, and can therefore be assigned to as many maintenance
task lists and maintenance plans as required. An effective maintenance strategy is concerned
with maximizing equipment uptime and facility performance while balancing the associated
resources expended and ultimately the cost. A maintenance strategy involves the identification,
resourcing and execution of many thousands of repair, replace and inspect decisions.
Benefits of optimizing your maintenance strategy include extending asset life, reducing asset
failures and downtime, minimizing repair costs, and improving health and safety.

Types of Maintenance
The maintenance style adopted in an organization depends on the equipment, nature of work
within the organization, availability of fund and spares and the presence of the required
technical personnel.
There are five different types of maintenance and these are as follows:

1. Fixed Time Maintenance

Fixed time maintenance refers to maintenance which is carried out at regular intervals of either
time, output, cycles of operation etc. 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.
2. Condition Based Maintenance (CBM)
Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is a maintenance strategy that monitors the actual
condition of an asset to decide what maintenance needs to be done. CBM dictates that
maintenance should only be performed when certain indicators show signs of decreasing
performance or upcoming failure. Checking a machine for these indicators may include non-
invasive measurements, visual inspection, performance data and scheduled tests. Condition
data can then be gathered at certain intervals, or continuously (as is done when a machine has
internal sensors).
3. Opportunity Based Maintenance
Opportunity-based maintenance (OM) gives the maintenance staff an opportunity to replace or
repair those items, which are found to be defective or needs replacement in the immediate
future, during the maintenance of a machine or component.
4. Design‐Out Maintenance
The Maintenance tactic whereby changes or modifications are done to the equipment to remove
a failure cause, or to allow other maintenance strategies to be applicable in managing the
consequence of the failure. The Design-Out Maintenance strategy can only be implemented
effectively if high maintenance cost items can be identified and the reasons for the high cost
understood. It is often the best strategy to take when breakdowns are too frequent or repair is
too costly.

5. Operate To Failure Maintenance

In this strategy, assets are deliberately allowed to operate until they break down, at which point
corrective maintenance is performed. No maintenance, including preventive maintenance, is
performed on the asset up until the failure event. However, a plan is in place for ahead of the
failure, so that the asset can be fixed without causing any production issues.
 PLANNED MAINTENANCE SCHEME
This is a strategy that is put in place to ensure that all equipment receive the most appropriate
type of maintenance at the right time. Planned maintenance refers to any maintenance activity
that is planned, documented, and scheduled. It is also the process of detailing what materials,
tools, tasks, and services are required to solve a problem. The aim of planned maintenance is
to reduce downtime by having all necessary resources on hand, such as labour and parts, and a
strategy to use these resources.

Establishing a Planned Maintenance Scheme

1. Take inventory of all items to be maintained. Reference each item with a letter to indicate
its location
A simple exercise book may be used with each item having its own page in the book, or a card
system may be employed with each item having its own card. The entry should include all
relevant technical details on the item.
2. Describe the maintenance tasks which are to be performed. This may be achieved by listing
the tasks to be completed at each scheduled maintenance point. This is normally done in a
Maintenance Record Card.
3. Finally, wherever any maintenance is carried out on a piece of equipment a record of what
has been done must be kept. This may be a form of job report specifying date, fault detected,
cause.

EQUIPMENT FAILURE
Equipment failure refers to any event in which any equipment cannot accomplish its intended
purpose or task. It may also mean that the equipment stopped working, is not performing as
desired, or is not meeting target expectations.
The failure rate of an equipment may be influenced by different weighting factors, depending
on the environmental and operating conditions, in which on equipment is put to use.

Environmental Stresses
Environmental stresses on equipment may be due to effect of factors which are external to the
equipment such as the weather (atmospheric pressure, wind temperature, humidity, e.t.c), sea
water and so on.
Any equipment which operates outdoors cannot escape the full effects of the weather in its
locality.
Most of the effects that are due to environmental conditions can be remedied by providing
adequate ventilation or through forced air-cooling.

Operating Stresses
These effects may be due to the operating conditions to which an equipment is exposed. Some
of the operating conditions that can cause damages to equipment are voltage surges, current
surges and frequency changes. These problems can be minimized by the use of protective
devices in the equipment.

Operator Failure
This is the inability of a person in charge of an equipment to operate it correctly so as to give
the required performance. This failure can be due to the person having an inadequate
knowledge of the procedures for operating such equipment. The incorrect operation of an
equipment can lead to its total breakdown.
Operator failure can be minimize by providing adequate training to a person in charge of an
equipment. Also, no any unauthorized person should be allowed to handle an equipment.
This is a period of time during which an equipment is not working.
Downtime occurs in an equipment due to conditions such as those of environmental stresses,
operating stresses and manufacturing defects. It may also be due to an equipment being shut
down for a routine maintenance.

MALFUNCTION
An equipment is said to be malfunctioning if it fails to work correctly. This may be due to
improper operation procedure, bad alignment of the parts, partial damage to some parts or
components and operational stresses.
Whenever this occurs a skilled person should consulted for advice and possible remedy.