Concept of the FMEA method-based model supporting proactive and preventive maintenance activities

Proper planning of preventive maintenance (PM) is crucial in many industries such as oil transmission pipelines, automotive and food industries. A critical decision in the PM plans is to determine frequencies and types of maintenance actions in order to achieve a certain level of system availability with a minimum total cost. For any given interval, a decision must be made to perform one of the three actions on each component; inspection, preventive repair and preventive replacement. Any of these activities has different effects on the reliability of the components and the corresponding distinct costs based on the required recourses. The intention of the authors is to develop a concept of supporting the process of planning and scheduling of preventive and proactive activities using the FMEA method for failure analysis. According to the concept of sustainable production, the failure will be assessed from different perspectives, not only in terms of production, but also considering operators and process safety as well as threats to the environment. The concept developed and presented in the paper in combination with IT support is the basis for risk assessment and establishment of cause and effect relationships to prevent failures and / or minimize their consequences.