Mandatory Maintenace Driven by? 2

[BrianCNTFM]

The term mandatory maintenance has been bandied about in the office. Is "mandatory maintenance" specified by a regulating authority or is it identified and "self imposed" by the designer/operating authority.

We are discussing this in the context of UK Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000 Approved Code of Practice.

Any feedback would be appreciated

 

[SJones]

No mention of it here

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg261.pdf

which would suggest that it is self imposed by the duty holder

Steve Jones
Materials & Corrosion Engineer

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/8/83b/b04

 

[GregLamberson]

BrianCNTFM

Maybe it is the minimum recommendations suggested by the vendors?

Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website:

http://www.oil-gas-consulting.com

 

[racookpe1978]

Actually, "mandatory maintenance" is driven by the equipment, the piping, and the material.

It doesn't matter what the regulator, the owner, the operator, the vendors, the contractor or the fabricator "claims" or writes down, or says they want done.

The rotating and fixed equipment and piping and support steel and seals and brushes and filters and tanks and gaskets will fail over time if not maintained. You have no choice. You MUST maintain the equipment or it will fail. Maybe catastrophically. Maybe gradually just dropping out of spec. Maybe simply by not starting one day. Or not stopping. You can't know exactly when it will fail, nor predict exactly how it will fail, but it will fail.

Now, WHEN the maintenance is done to prevent failure is subject to a LOT of economic and risk assessment arguments: You are in exactly the situation of the insurance companies getting money to replace a Gulf Coast building and power plant: it WILL get hit by a hurricane, but how many times over the life of the building and how much damage each time and when ca only be assumed and approximated.

What the insurance company hopes is that they get enough money in insurance premiums to replace the building when it is destroyed or damaged by high winds and water.

What YOU hope to create in the plant is enough preventative maintenance applied to the eqpt at frequent enough intervals that failure mode repair shutdowns will not happen often enough to erode profits. Equally, you hope to delay PM long enough that you are not wasting profits fixing things and replacing good material too often when it is not needed. You must maintain spec's on your output product to remain in business: and you cannot do that if you don't maintain your eqpt and plant.

If a "contract lawyer" or administrator needs a written policy or "rules manual" that he can quote chapter and verse from to justify somebody's preventative maintenance clause - or if some contract administrator is trying to avoid a preventative maintenance clause, then that contract lawyer needs a little preventative maintenance applied to his back side in the parking lot.

 

[BrianCNTFM]

Thanks for responses gents, I've now obtained copy of Presssure Systems Safety Regulations 2000. It appears in the UK that mandatory maintenance is anything identified in the "Written Scheme of Examination" (WSOE)and this should include all items done to safeguard personnel.

It is implied in the Presssure Systems Safety Regulations 2000 that the WSOE is a seperate document to a maintenance schedule (a business tool). The intent appears to be to seperately identify anything which mitigates/prejuduces personel safety.

PS can someone advise how to close this thread?

Regards

 

[Ron]

No need to close the thread. If you want to stop your email notification of postings, just deselect your handle in the "Notify Me" (upper right) box beside your original post.