Smart Maintenance System Implementation for New Builds

By Vitalii Yeliashevskyi, Senior Engineer

A common mistake in the implementation of maintenance systems for asset-intensive industries is it being treated as a pure IT project. Oftentimes, only a few or no technical people with domain knowledge of the asset maintenance processes and hands-on experience are involved. As a result, the usage of the maintenance system causes a lot of frustration among the operation personnel. To make matters worse, the system becomes filled with inconsistencies, which requires further continuous cleansing.

While the Oil & Gas industry is continuously facing issues with the oil price, drilling companies have a unique possibility to buy an almost finished drilling rig/support vessel or any other maritime vessel at a shipyard at a much lower price compared to the price five years ago. 

To put this rig/vessel into operation, it is required to have an asset maintenance system in place, which means:

1. The data must be specific to the asset configuration;
2. Maintenance setup must be compliant with the relevant legislation;
3. Maintenance must be specific to the equipment type and model;
4. The spare parts must be registered correctly and assigned to the proper objects;

Usually, the first three steps take a huge amount of time and human effort to put this puzzle together and set the rig up and running. 

However, here is a smarter way, which saves approximately 50%-60% of the time required to prepare the asset maintenance system for operation. Here are these steps:

1. Create a Reference asset hierarchy;
2. Create a Maintenance library linked to the reference asset hierarchy;

Having done this, the process comes down to only comparing the asset configuration to the reference hierarchy and then choosing the right maintenance from the library.

Work smarter, not harder!

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