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Electric Utilities (and owners of other large industrial facilities) must try to achieve a balance between maintaining high equipment reliability and controlling overall maintenance expenditures.  In many cases, maintenance costs are a significant portion of the operating expenses of the facility.  Also, poor equipment performance leads to facility downtime, which decreases the efficiency of operations.  Poor equipment performance can also lead to early component failure, and possibly impact on the safety of facility workers.

The proper use of Preventive Maintenance (PM) can increase equipment life and reduce maintenance costs in the long-term.  However, the excessive use of PM can increase system downtime, increase short-term maintenance costs, and increase the likelihood of maintenance-induced component failures (i.e., "fixing what isn't broken".)

Several techniques have been developed that can help a facility owner to identify a cost-effective PM program that is customized for the unique needs of that facility.  These techniques help to:

• Identify the equipment that has the greatest impact on facility operations
• Identify the equipment that would benefit most from PM
• Select the most appropriate PM tasks for that equipment (including both "traditional" maintenance tasks and predictive "diagnostic" monitoring tasks)

Maracor personnel have served as key participants in the development of several Maintenance Optimization methods and have supported a number of electric utilities (both for generation and transmission/distribution) in the implementation of such methods.  Maracor personnel routinely offer training courses in the application of these methods.  Maracor has also partnered with several other specialty firms with additional experience in the application of these techniques, so that the optimum combination of technical skills is made available for each project.   

Key Benefits of Performing Maintenance Optimization

• Reduction of maintenance costs through PM cost savings and the reduction of unnecessary, expensive corrective maintenance
• Improved understanding of the facility components most important to continued operations and the most likely failure mechanisms that will be encountered
• Cost-effective application of predictive maintenance technologies that can assess equipment "health" during operations and can help to reduce the need for periodic overhaul-type maintenance tasks

Corporate Capabilities

Maracor's staff can support many aspects of a maintenance optimization program, including the following:

• Selection of appropriate optimization methods
• Selection of the scope of facility equipment to evaluate
• Assessment of available Predictive Maintenance technologies that cost-effectively address the needs of the facility
• Training in Maintenance Optimization methods
• Software Development to support Maintenance Optimization activities
• Technical specialist support for the evaluation process
• Development of technical data to support the evaluation process (e.g., component failure information, available PM technologies to support equipment operation)
• Advice in the implementation of the Maintenance Optimization study results into the facility's Preventive Maintenance Program

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Last modified: March 17, 2004