Jayantha P. Liyanage

Towards a value‐based view on operations and maintenance performance management

Most of the North Sea oil companies have recognized the need to adjust their management processes, including those concerned with operations and maintenance, to the changed and changing business conditions in industry at large, particularly due to the volatile oil price. This has been a rationale to review organizational operations and maintenance policies by many. This paper describes findings from a research study on operations and maintenance performance conducted in the emerging operating environment with close cooperation of leading oil and gas organizations in the Norwegian continental shelf. An attempt has been made to develop an architecture for effective management of operations and maintenance performance linking results to performance drivers. This has further been extended to apply the balanced scorecard concept. The papers emphasize on the value rather than the cost of operations and maintenance in the emerging business environment, and stresses that there is a need to move from a plant‐based policy to a more or less long‐term business‐oriented approach.

Operations and maintenance performance in production and manufacturing assets

Purpose – Sustainable production and manufacturing is an emerging concept for commercially successful performance. A question is how core asset processes should be streamlined to ensure performance quality and to portray their business roles within sustainability requirements. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue from asset operations and maintenance (O&M) perspective.Design/methodology/approach – Issues discussed here are based on findings from a project launched during 2000‐2003 in Norway with major emphasis on performance integrity, consistency, and quality.Findings – Through the findings of the original study, the paper elaborates on the important “Business – Production or Manufacturing asset – Operations and Maintenance” performance architecture in sustainable business environments.Research limitations/implications – The paper aims at stimulating production and manufacturing cluster to initiate joint R&D efforts to further explore and research this interesting and important subject matt...

Mobile solutions for engineering asset and maintenance management

Purpose – This paper seeks to present an overview of current trends in employing wireless solutions to engineering asset and maintenance management.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews literature and technological advances in wireless technologies and their applications in engineering asset and maintenance management from the viewpoint of assessing their potential impact, use and penetration in industrial practice. Rather than attempting a literature survey, the paper highlights emerging opportunities, benefits and potential hurdles in the adoption of mobile application solutions for industrial assets.Findings – Despite the fact that the use of advanced application solutions in manufacturing, production or process facilities takes place at a different scale, the emerging trend has already shown that mobile technologies have a great potential to redefine and re‐engineer the conventional setting for industrial asset and maintenance management. They have already begun to form the basis for offerin...

Integrated E-maintenance and Intelligent Maintenance Systems

Development and acquisition of technological capabilities has become one of the major strategic requirements to excel commercially today in various business sectors. Front-end innovative technologies in conjunction with mass globalization and outsourcing of industrial operations has created a fruitful environment for technology-based growth and excellence. Different industries are in search for various technological solutions in their continuous efforts to improve performance in different parts of their businesses. Advanced solutions are often found implemented within range of application areas varying from corporate information management to logistics planning and coordination activities. In this setting, both industrial assets and business processes have been subjected to a technology-driven change process.

On the operation and maintenance practices of wind power asset

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the operation and maintenance practices within wind power applications and to clarify practical needs as gaps between researchers and practitioners.Design/methodology/approach – The paper collects, categorizes, and analyzes the published literature of both researchers and practitioners systematically.Findings – The paper defines significant issues in operation and maintenance of wind energy related to: site and seasonal asset disturbances; stakeholders’ requirements trade‐off; dependability and asset deterioration challenges; diagnostic, prognostic and information and communication technologies (ICTs) applications; and maintenance optimization models. Within each category, the gaps and further research needs have been extracted with respect to both an academic and industrial perspective.Practical implications – The use of wind energy is growing rapidly and the associated practices related to maintenance and asset management are still lacking. Therefore, the...

Sustainable value co-creation through mass customisation: a framework

Adopting sustainability considerations in businesses is no longer a choice for companies. Sustainable value co-creation by customers and producers collectively considering environmental and societal implications is essential to increase value to all stakeholders. Such opportunities are provided by mass customisation which involves producing individually customised products to meet specific customer requirements. During co-design, a key feature of mass customisation, customers and producers interactively determine the specifications of the product to meet customer needs, within the limits defined for the solution space. However, this co-creation of value (through co-design) in mass customisation has thus far been pursued without explicit consideration of environmental and societal implications, both important from a sustainability perspective. This paper presents an in-depth review of the mass customisation model and its potential as a platform for sustainable value co-creation. Approaches to integrate sustainable manufacturing practices for mass customisation, a preliminary model to optimise sustainable value co-creation and directions for further research are also discussed.

Application of intelligent technique to identify hidden abnormalities in a system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the application of neural network approach to analyze machines behaviour quantitatively.Design/methodology/approach – The model is developed based on real plant‐data from a variable speed drive centrifugal type pump. The best model settings are recorded and tested for another similar unit in the vicinity to check its generalization capabilities. Owing to the absence of faulty data, this model is tested against preventive maintenance data that show symptoms of abnormality that are seemingly undetected in existing monitoring and control systems. The paper systematically summarizes published literature and suggests suitable network architecture and its capabilities by illustrative example from oil export pumps from an oil and gas offshore production facility.Findings – Artificial intelligent techniques provide a robust platform in providing useful information about system health and sub‐optimal performance.Practical implications – In any industry, unexpec...

Road-mapping the business potential of sustainability within the European manufacturing industry

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the required changes, outline business potential and envisage the key steps that a networked manufacturing industry needs to take to reach more sustainably performing manufacturing in the future. Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilises a visionary road-mapping approach to study the required changes and the business potential related to sustainable development in the manufacturing industry. Findings – The results were summarised in three sub-roadmaps empowerment of stakeholders, increase efficiency and creation of new performance criteria. On the basis of the summary of the sub-roadmaps, the framework was configured to describe the opportunities and challenges of sustainable business development in the European manufacturing industry. Research limitations/implications – A clear implication of this study is that a more system-oriented approach, new models for collaboration between network actors and transparently shared network-level KPIs are requir...

A comparative study of maintenance data classification based on neural networks, logistic regression and support vector machines

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the effectiveness of different analytical approaches, namely artificial neural networks, logistic regression and support vector machines to assess the health of a strainer located at the suction side of the pump.Design/methodology/approach – Data used for simulation included exemplars from clean (represented by datasets after cleaning the suction strainer) and faulty conditions (represented by datasets prior to cleaning the suction strainer). The same datasets were used for modeling in order to compare how different techniques perform when fed with the same information.Findings – Principal component analysis‐based artificial neural networks proved to be better than other techniques in classifying maintenance datasets and predicting flow resistance from a clogged suction strainer.Originality/value – The work highlights the comparative effectiveness of three predictive analytical techniques in classifying real plant data from a suction strainer. This will pr...

Risk Modeling and Analysis for Sustainable Asset Management

Sustainability has become a key driver in defining how companies are expected to operate. To adapt to this new industrial setting, companies are now broadening their focus from emphasis on economical gains to include environmental and societal issues. Within the field of asset management, the application of sustainable practices, in a way, can imply adopting a total lifecycle approach; i.e. managing the activities of assets in pre-manufacturing, manufacturing, use and post-use stages. To ensure a competitive approach, this requires risk modeling and analysis to support decision making processes to maximize return and to avoid negative environmental and societal impacts. Though some considerable work has been done in the field of risk modeling involving developments within information management, much work is still needed to develop models that can provide effective comprehensive overview for decision makers. Such information is especially important when dealing with hidden risks. This requires risk management tools that capture, the factors that affect asset performance, the interdependence of these factors, their likelihood, and their possible impacts. This paper briefly presents a framework for sustainable asset management. This framework is guided by sustainability principles to improve the triple bottom line (economy, society and environment) perspective following a total lifecycle approach.