It's quite common that when new equipment is specified, the first time the maintenance team see it is when it's installed, and yet the maintenance of it, throughout its life cycle, can be one of the plant’s most significant operating costs. That's changing though, and it's becoming more common for maintenance and design engineers to work together to make the reduction of maintenance a design priority.
Additionally, reducing maintenance isn't always just about cutting costs. Sometimes there are other factors that demand a significant reduction of maintenance. Like when maintenance engineers at the London Underground were forced to look at ways of reducing the maintenance on the networks’ escalator drive systems to comply with tight limitations on downtime.
On the London Underground there is just a four-hour window at night for general maintenance, and there are severe penalties if escalators are out of service beyond this permitted time frame.
Read the full article in the May issue of DPA