Through-life Engineering Services

Investing in all operational management aspects is of great importance to the proper management and maintenance of capital assets. The primary maintenance processes are to be up to the task and to have the organization of the production plants, statements of work, planning and work preparation well in order. Continuous improvement presupposes an atmosphere where presenting improvement proposals, reporting, and removing unsafe working conditions is encouraged as a matter of course. By conducting the technical management of trains in maintenance close to the workshop floor, staff members are able to improve on the performance of the trains. Correct and proper information and the related necessary information systems allow for the analysis of performance and the implementation of improvement measures wherever required. Over the past few years, NedTrain has implemented major improvements to the performance of rolling stock in the Netherlands. Plans to perform maintenance activities closer to the transportation process and more closely attuned to dynamic maintenance demand await implementation in the near future.

Faults cause system downtime and require resolution before the system can be put back into service. When the fault cannot be replicated or diagnosed successfully, the effort causes wasted man-hours and reduced availability of the system. The fault is then designated by any number of descriptors such as No Fault Found, Re-Test OK or Cannot Duplicate. The diversity of the taxonomy is a problem in itself which often masks the true costs of fault resolution and maintenance. The situation, whether real or perceived therefore has a cost for organisations, but often these costs are not evident either at the operational level and certainly not usually throughout the supply chain or the support organisation. This chapter will highlight the problems caused by faults that cannot be resolved and the many causes which are varied and diverse. It will cover the impact and the through-life costs of the No Fault Found problem and show the hidden costs and the impact they cause to operations. The chapter will not seek to be a comprehensive treatise on the problem as it is a vast and complex one; it will be an introduction to the problem and seeks to lead the reader to the more detailed publications on the subject that are now in preparation at the EPSRC Centre. Whilst examples of best practice and solutions will be covered, the chapter will describe the complexity of solutions and mitigations, and highlight the research that is necessary to produce design solutions in the future.

Prognostics is the determination of condition and remaining useful life (RUL) at any time in a machine’s operations. Prognostics are based in probability, and best practice would be to provide the forecast of UL with indications of certainty where the population of similar prognostic events allows. It is also best practice to describe the impact and effects of loss of function, along with the estimated times for recovery, along with the resources which are required. Prognostics are often misunderstood with several approaches being possible to calculate RUL for machinery. This chapter describes and extends a known model (Hines 2008) for prognostics, covering all of the approaches in the model and describes how prognostics should be measured (Saxena et al. in Int J Prognostics Health Manage 2153–2648, 2008, Int J Prognostics Health Management 1:20, 2010). A brief treatment for the difficulties of validation is illustrated due to lack of failure data, along with an outline of how these deficiencies might be addressed with the advent of the information revolution and big data.

Ultra Low Carbon Vehicles (ULCVs) include fully electric and hybrid vehicles utilising various combinations of battery systems and hydrogen based technologies. ULCVs offer many organisations with large vehicle fleets an opportunity to reduce the cost of their operations. One of the major concerns regarding the operation of ULCVs is uncertainties relating to the ongoing cost of vehicles due to issues such as replacement of major parts e.g. traction batteries, and ensuring the vehicles’ lifespan is maximised. Telematic monitoring equipment is widely used in fleet vehicles but is rarely used to its full potential and does not match the benefits exhibited by remote condition monitoring systems used in other sectors. Such technology has the potential to address many of the concerns relating to ULCV operation. A number of barriers exist, however, to the wider use of telematic systems including integration with other vehicles systems, management of large volumes of data and issues relating to the effect on the finite power supply of an idle vehicle. In this chapter we will examine the underlying technology of vehicle tracking and monitoring systems and investigate the technical, organisational and operational enablers which are required to exploit fully the benefits of telematic monitoring.

This chapter presents studies on the enhanced detection of characteristic signals from critical mechanical components such as bearings by the nonlinear effect of stochastic resonance (SR). In the past decades, classical stochastic resonance (CSR) method has been extensively studied to enhance the fault detection of these critical mechanical components such as bearings and gears. Based on CSR theories, the main content of this chapter includes two parts. The first is aiming at identifying the component characteristic frequencies in the spectra, SR normalized scale transform is proposed based on parameter-tuning bistable SR model, which leading to a new method via averaged stochastic resonance (ASR) to enhance the result of incipient fault detection. Then, rather than achieving the improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by increasing the noise intensity, a new approach is developed based on adding a harmonic excitation with a frequency based on the system’s Melnikov scale factor to the system while the noise is left unchanged. The effectiveness of this method is confirmed and replicated by numerical simulations. Combined with the strategy of the scale transform, the method can be used to detect weak periodic signal with arbitrary frequency buried in the heavy noise. In addition, the chapter also presents the case study of applying these methods for the enhancement of fault characteristic signals in detecting incipient faults of roller bearings.

With the increased use of high-value components in aerospace industries, there is huge emphasis on reliability as their failure in service could lead to catastrophic failure of the system. Thus, there continues to be increasing dependency of such high-value components to undergo critical maintenance routines in order to reduce the probability of failure. The prediction of Remaining Useful Life (RUL) is a critical factor in estimating the service cost. It has direct impact upon product and service pricing. With increasing maintenance costs, manufacturers have adopted a range of techniques such as non-destructive testing (NDT) to help assess the serviceability of these high-value components, where a component is inspected for quality without causing damage to the part. This allows for inspection of entire batches, instead of sample subsets. In service-focussed business models such as the aerospace sector, high-value components are required to perform for an optimum life cycle, balanced between maximising operation hours and a confidence in its safety. NDT has become a key process in determining the current state of degradation during the component’s use, allowing estimation of remaining life and determination of repairs required. Detection of defects and anomalies is still a major challenge in the development of NDT practices in advanced manufacturing processes even more so with the introduction of new materials for higher reliability and performance. This research looks at expanding the NDT practices in maintenance by identifying the emerging challenges and suggesting areas of research for a robust development of NDT techniques and improved component degradation analysis. Active thermographic NDT is a recent technique that has become more widely included in NDT processes over recent years. However, due to its shallow depth and lower resolution limitations, it has not been exploited to its full potential in maintenance routines. Current challenges involve the further development of thermography as a quantitative technique as opposed to its traditionally qualitative implementations. This chapter focusses on the detection of damages caused due to component degradation using the pulsed active thermography technique. It also presents a novel approach on carrying out maintenance using an automated inspection system together with damage characterization of near and sub-surface damages on high-value components.

Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) is acquiring increasing commercial and socio-economic significance. For products and goods with high investment costs and a long lifespan, especially in the sectors of energy and transportation, a considerable portion of commercial profits are generated by after-sales services. In the field of research and development, not enough attention has been paid so far to tasks and approaches involving MRO. The field thus has a limited scientific background, despite a high potential in the business sector for technological and scientific optimization. The challenges and chances of MRO for sustainable enterprises will be explained with reference to the Fraunhofer Innovation Cluster Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul in Energy and Transport. The developments and project results of the four fields of innovation »Cleaning«, »Repair and Overhaul«, »Condition Monitoring and Diagnosis«, as well as »MRO Planning and Digital Assistance« will be explained.

The reliability of a repairable system depends on the system age and the number of repairs it experienced. When these effects are considered, predicting the system reliability metrics, such as the cumulative number of failures and failure intensity in the future, becomes a challenging problem. Many existing models utilize Monte Carlo simulations to do prediction but this entails significant computational efforts. This chapter presents a modified Proportional Failure Intensity model to analyze repairable systems. By further modification (approximation) to the model, the system reliability metrics and the associated confidence bounds can be effectively predicted without conducting time-consuming simulations. Moreover, to make repair/replacement decisions, most research assumes the repair model of the system is available beforehand. In practice, however, the model needs to be estimated based upon failures and sequential repair/replacement decisions must be made based on the predicted system reliability metrics. The proposed model is utilized in this decision-making paradigm considering a short-run cost rate criterion. Unlike the widely used long-run cost rate, this criterion emphasizes the economic impact of a repair/replacement decision on the next fail-and-fix cycle of the system. Two benchmark data sets are analyzed to demonstrate the model in practical use.

Cold spraying is a coating technology on the basis of aerodynamics and high-speed impact dynamics. In this process, spray particles (usually 1–50 mm in diameter) are accelerated to a high velocity (typically 300–1,200 m/s) by a high-speed gas flow that is generated through a convergent-divergent de Laval type nozzle. A coating is formed through the intensive plastic deformation of particles impacting on a substrate at a temperature below the melting point of the spray material. It can be considered a safe and green technology because of the absence of a high-temperature gas jet, radiation, and explosive gases. The coatings formed using the cold flow deposition processes are dense and oxide-free. The cold flow deposition process has emerged as an important alternative to other thermal spraying processes. An example of a key application of the cold spray process is the recovery of costly aircraft parts during overhaul and repair. Cold spray also can be used in the development of unique materials and for the production of actual parts. Cold spray can be used to produce a new class of materials that could not be achieved by conventional ingot metallurgy. The cold spray process represents leading edge technology and provides superior performance over conventional technologies. Even if it has great application potentials in aerospace, automobile manufacture, chemical industry, etc., there are still many fundamental aspects to be uncovered. Because adhesion of the metal powder to the substrate and deposited material is achieved in the solid state, the characteristics of cold spray deposits are quite unique. Cold spray is suitable for depositing a wide range of traditional and advanced materials on many types of substrate materials, especially in non-traditional applications that are sensitive to the temperature of the process. Cold spray is capable of potentially providing restoration, sealing, surface modification, wear resistance, thermal barriers, heat dissipation, rapid prototyping, aesthetic coatings, fatigue resistance and many other applications without the undesirable effects of process temperatures or metallurgical incompatibilities among materials. It can also be used to increase the heat resistance of a material. Research into improving the cold spraying technology is still being conducted worldwide today.

The paper, which is based on a literature review, concerns which potential through-lifecycle aspects are relevant to consider for Functional Products during development and later operation until end-of-life. The aspects which are already proposed as part of the current definition of Functional Products are corroborated. Additionally, the additional new potential aspects found should be further verified prior to being proposed to extend the Functional Products definition—and in particular the service-support system and management of operation constituents. An additional seven potential new aspects have been found, whereof some may be relevant for the concepts of Through-life Engineering Services, Product-Service Systems and Industrial Product-Service Systems as well.

This chapter contributes with theoretical and practical insights on maintenance decision making during acquisition of capital assets. We give theoretical insights about maintenance decision making by reviewing the literature, while our practical insights come from examples of the decisions made at a maintenance organization for rolling stock: NedTrain. We find that strategic maintenance decisions are more relevant before contracting than tactical or operational decisions, and they have the largest potential to impact Life Cycle Costs. The research on strategic maintenance decisions is too broad to review individual decisions, and therefore we review papers that structure decisions in the form of frameworks. We find that according to the literature, assets and their maintenance services should be developed concurrently. However, we find in practice that NedTrain’s approach is to fit new assets into the existing maintenance services, while there are parallel continuous improvement processes for those services. From practice, we conclude that strategic maintenance decisions are not concurrent to rolling stock design decisions. We also conclude that there is a need for methods and tools to support strategic maintenance decision making during early stages of acquisition, especially before contracting.

In machines a broad range of operational and failure information, like hours of operation, temperatures of components or information about surrounding conditions are available. However, this information is barely used for failure prediction or maintenance planning. At the same time, product life cycles shorten and machine variants increase, making estimation of replacement instances challenging. Stochastic models offer the opportunity of integrating operational and failure information and thereby utilize them for more accurate planning. Within this chapter, a literature overview about existing stochastic prognosis methods and an approach for cost minimal replacement are presented. Within that method data pre-processing, interpretation and utilizing takes place. It can be applied to any system exposed to mechanical wear. The novel planning approach is applied to wind energy turbine data and verified by comparison to established methods.

Efficient operation and maintenance management for industrial facilities is one of the key issues of social infrastructure systems. This chapter describes some technology trends of integrated maintenance system, especially about monitoring, parameterizing, predicting, and control. Firstly, a trend from Time-Based Maintenance (TBM) to Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) is discussed. TBM-based agreement between operation owner and maintenance provider is common one, but uncertainty of facility degradation requests CBM application as future service model. Secondly, this chapter describes an optimization method for facility maintenance scheduling, which focuses on the subject that the conflict between maintenance operations and net operations reduces system efficiency.

Long-lived complex electromechanical systems, such as vehicles or industrial machinery, often need to be adapted for new uses or new environments. Adapting the design for such a system is frequently complicated by the fact that they are often tightly integrated, such that any change will have consequences throughout the design, and must take many different aspects of the system into consideration. Functional blueprints simplify adaptation by incorporating the reasons for design decisions and their consequences directly into the specification of a system. This allows a human designer to be supported by automated reasoning that can identify potential conflicts, suggest design fixes, and propagate changes implicit in the choices of the designer. This chapter presents the functional blueprints approach in detail, including both review of prior work and new results.

Rapid technological advances in component electronics driven by the consumer market are forcing acceleration in such components becoming obsolescent. For sectors that employ long life assets the situation is becoming costly, estimated at $750 m per annum for the US Navy alone. In this chapter mitigation and resolution solutions for this problem are explored as well as how to approach estimation of its cost. Skills shortages and cost estimation problems are identified as key issues.

Purchases of major long-life assets such as rolling stock, planes, wind turbines etc., represent a substantial investment by companies or governments, from which the owner needs to ensure maximum return over the asset’s economically viable operational life. A big question facing industry is: “What tools and techniques could be used when planning to introduce a major long life (40+ years) asset, to extend the design life and could this be achieved in a cost effective manner?” This chapter discusses one particular example of how a customer explored the potential to extend the life of their asset purchase by approximately 50 % and the methods they were using to achieve this. Of particular interest is the creation of a decision support tool in the form of a Whole Life Cost Model. What this provided was a method to assess the affect of various factors, such as degradation, inflation, additional load (e.g., 2012 Olympics, extended running hours) to determine the circumstances under which life extension would be financially viable, or early replacement would be a wiser investment. The reader will also be introduced to Lifecycle Reliability Engineering and how it links to Asset Management through tools such as Reliability Centred and Risk Based Maintenance. How lessons learnt and problem solving processes link to Reliability Growth Plans.

Risk-averse actors, in combination with a lack of trust between the actors, hinder development. An increased level of trust between them could make the process more effective. Allocation of risk, lack of information, renegotiations and supply chain management are all aspects that affect risk. Most of the risks and uncertainties identified are due to lack of experience; other uncertainties are inherent in long-term contracts. Obstacles for change also lie more in the culture and attitude of the actors than in technical complications. The current contracting forms for rail infrastructure in Sweden have low incentives for development at the same time as large amounts of materials are used, resulting in high costs and significant environmental impacts. The concept of the Integrated Product Service Offering (IPSO) has the potential to increase cost efficiency and quality from a life cycle perspective by providing incentives to optimize the use of energy and material. This chapter aims to identify if IPSO contracts could improve the management of rail infrastructure, and to identify potential risk aspects for both the provider and buyer. The empirical data is based on interviews with actors in the industry.

Many systems that must be manufactured and supported for long time periods lack control over critical portions of their supply chains; these systems include: military, avionics, industrial controls, and rail infrastructure. During the long lifetimes of these systems the components, technologies and resources that the systems depend on become obsolete (and potentially unavailable) before the system’s demand for them is exhausted. The life-cycle (or through-life) cost associated with managing obsolescence can be prohibitive if the problem is ignored. This chapter describes the obsolescence problem, methods of forecasting obsolescence and management solutions applied to hardware, software, and human skills.

The chapter explores those areas of activity where service innovation can most directly contribute to the design and implementation of engineering services where a number of actors within the service eco-system must collaborate to “co-create” value in use from long-life physical assets. This perspective on through-life engineering services (TES) is then used in order to consider how formal standards may be tailored and used in order to promote performance improvement and innovation in these engineering services. Standards can help promote innovation by codifying and communicating best practice, but have generally been developed to date to suit the conventional, transactional business logic rather than the collaborative, adaptive, outcome-based approach needed for a service-dominant logic. This means that there are gaps in the availability of framework and process standards suitable for engineering services, and that those extant technical standards that are applicable in areas such as dependability and reliability engineering need some tailoring to suit the new business paradigm.

Maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) of high value systems is expensive, time consuming and relies heavily upon back-to-base repair and overhaul activity. Autonomous maintenance of repairable systems is a rapidly developing area in through-life engineering services that specifically aims to reduce both mean time to repair and frequency of preventative maintenance. Modern engineering systems must perform reliably in the event of random upset events that threaten to induce malfunction or unpredictable behavior. These requirements are fuelling the integration of fault-tolerant and self-repairing techniques into electronic systems at design time. This chapter investigates emerging techniques being utilised in electronics that bring new self-repair capability to high-value applications such as aviation, land vehicles, renewable energy and space exploration. The cost/benefit trade-off of self-repair strategies is analysed in terms of redundant resource allocation and key performance metrics. The potential for future uptake is discussed in the context of current and next-generation platforms.

This chapter looks at the overall theme of automating maintenance practices with a particular focus upon the application of robotics within this field. Covering the current state of the art in automating maintenance processes this chapter also looks at the current challenges to moving beyond simple inspection and diagnosis to the design and construction of fully automated platforms for undertaking maintenance. This includes methodologies for capturing and classifying maintenance task processes so that they can be automated in some way and how to link this task classification with some level of automation. The chapter ends with a discussion on how the design process can be adapted to aid automated maintenance, self-healing and no fault found applications.

European shipbuilders are facing a strong, worldwide competition. Innovation is often discussed as the key to increase the competitiveness of the European maritime industry. However, the market penetration of innovative technologies is difficult due to higher investment costs and uncertainty regarding functionality, reliability and reparability of the new technology resulting in an overall higher risk. Consequently, new approaches for through-life asset management have to be established to achieve a successful market introduction of innovative technologies. Therefore the European funded research project ThroughLife pursues the development of promising and innovative new technologies on the one hand and the identification and elaboration of new approaches for through-life asset management with the overall goal to optimise the lifecycle performance of vessels on the other hand. One of the most promising ThroughLife asset management approaches is to transfer the concept of comprehensive after sales services, like a “worry free” service package established in the automotive and the aeronautic industry, to the maritime industry. It is expected that the implementation of this business model would lead to significant lifecycle cost savings for the ship operator and arises the opportunity to enhance the business area of repair or new building yards. Moreover the holistic lifecycle services would also foster the market introduction of new technologies by reducing the uncertainty about proper maintenance and repair of innovations. As a result, the business model implementation could end up in a win-win situation for all involved stakeholders. However, in the assessment of the full service business model implementation barriers like difficult cost calculation and the dependency of the lifecycle cost from the vessel treatment have been identified. The application of comprehensive condition monitoring offers the opportunity to control the vessel treatment and to gather relevant information about the vessel to optimise the expected lifecycle costs and the corresponding service fee. Moreover applying condition monitoring enables additional benefits like the potential to optimise the maintenance and repair scheduling based on the actual and predicted condition of the component/system on the vessel. The chapter introduces the mythology of how the combination of the full service business model with comprehensive condition monitoring adds value for all involved parties and leads to an overall improved lifecycle performance of vessels to strengthen the European maritime industry.

This chapter presents the challenges and opportunities which were identified from a review of the literature and during several key events which brought academics, researchers and industrialists together to discuss the way forward. It presents opinions and insights taken from comments made by stakeholders and from event transcripts and of discussions and presentations. From the findings presented the chapter gives insight into the way forward and the benefits that can be obtained with the successful adoption of TES. Drivers and inhibitors are also identified.