Education In Maintenance & Reliability Engineering

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Education In Maintenance &
Reliability Engineering
By Ray Beebe
We recently learned about Monash University and its distance education programs for
Maintenance and Reliability. We asked Ray Beebe to put together some details so we
could bring that story to you. Here is what Ray sent us:
“Without my qualifications from your course I would not have achieved this career
move…Just being enrolled was enough to help me get my latest job….. Courses of study
as offered by Monash afford people in industry an expanded horizon with which to view
and manage their assets….I want to thank you for your time and effort in helping solve
my crisis. I know that you have many students, but you seemed to understand what
this problem meant to me, as an individual. It is thought and consideration like that,
that makes distance learning work. Even through the time zones, you have made an
effort to phone me and discuss my problem… I really enjoyed the courses. I thought
that the instructional materials were excellent and that the program was run extremely
well. I will definitely recommend the program to others”.....so say the students.
Many industrial assets are being required to not only remain in service for beyond their
intended design lifetime, but also to improve in performance. The focus of asset
management has therefore moved beyond merely keeping plant functioning into the
area of reliability improvement. A clear impact on the bottom line of a business must
be shown.
The term “maintenance” unfortunately implies a reactive role, and until recently it was
seen as such. Today it is increasingly seen as an investment in production capacity
rather than just a cost to be borne somewhat grudgingly! Maintenance Engineering is
therefore clearly a professional engineering role offering great career challenge and
excitement.
Reliability Engineering is well developed in the military and in some technical areas
such as electric power transmission. For the above reasons, these techniques are now
relevant to industry in general.
Some universities have seen this need, and developed programs to suit. In Australia,
there have been two city-based programs operating, but in a large country with
sparsely spread engineering population, distance education is the only practicable way
of providing continuing professional development. It matches the needs of engineers
wherever they live anywhere in the world.
Monash University in Australia has conducted postgraduate programs in each stream
since 1985. In 1998, they were integrated to offer progression through Graduate
Certificates (open to non-graduates), to Graduate Diploma to a Masters degree. Some
hundreds of people have completed the programs, and their feedback is
overwhelmingly positive. This article describes the development and operation of the
programs. They are now offered in North America through collaboration with the
maintenance and Reliability Center of the University of Tennessee
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MONASH UNIVERSITY AND DISTANCE EDUCATION
Monash is Australia’s largest university, with about 43 000 students on 10 campuses
and centers in Melbourne (population 3.5M), overseas, and in Gippsland, about 100
miles east of Melbourne. Local industries in this rural area include mining, power
generation, forestry, paper and pulp, timber processing, and smaller activities, even
small aircraft manufacture.
Gippsland has huge lignite deposits first exploited for power generation in 1924. Sir
John Monash, a distinguished engineer and citizen soldier (World War 1 Lt-General),
was the foundation General Manager of the State Electricity Commission. At its peak
nearly 23 000 people were employed in mining, power generation, transmission and
distribution, with 10 000 of these in Gippsland. The power assets have now all been
privatized, and companies from the UK and USA are major shareholders.
Monash University’s Distance Education Centre at Gippsland Campus provides study
materials for 85 courses of study, totaling over 400 subjects. In 2000, there were 7500
students in over 50 countries.
ORIGIN OF THE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT COURSES
The Graduate Diploma was developed with input from industry in the mid-1980s by Len
Bradshaw, now publisher of MAINTENANCE Journal. Following his Master’s degree from
the University of Manchester, he worked in maintenance engineering in the UK and
overseas.
Len and other staff at the independent college that is now Monash University Gippsland
Campus wrote the subjects. The program was designed for graduate engineers, but also
to admit a proportion of non-graduates. Many of these were of high caliber, and some
went on to gain their Master’s degree elsewhere.
In 1989, another Gippsland academic, Yousef Ibrahim, developed the Graduate
Certificate in Reliability Engineering, which is taught entirely by practicing reliability
engineers. It has a narrower appeal than the engineering maintenance management
programs, and has been completed by relatively few. Some reliability engineering
material with an asset management focus is included in the engineering maintenance
management program, and duplication was avoided when the programs were
integrated to form the Master of Maintenance and Reliability Engineering.
MONASH UNIVERSITY
Monash University was formed in 1958 as the second university in the State of Victoria
(Australia’s second most populous State, now with about 4M people). Monash Faculties
are well-recognized internationally for excellence in teaching and research.
In the late 1980s, the Australian Federal Government decided that the independent
colleges should amalgamate with universities, or become universities in their own
right. Among 4 colleges, gained a regional campus - Gippsland.
The universities accredit their own post-graduate courses. The maintenance
management course is under the oversight of the Faculty of Engineering and higher
level committees.
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MONASH MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT & RELIABILITY ENGINEERING
PROGRAMS TODAY
In the continuing education field, it is becoming accepted that a Graduate Diploma
requires one year of full-time study or equivalent, with a Graduate Certificate half of
that. Requirements for Master’s degrees vary. Distance education is usually considered
to be half the study workload of on-campus students. The Monash programs in this field
are:
Graduate Certificate in Maintenance Management (GradCertMaintMgt)
Graduate Certificate in Reliability Engineering (GradCertRelEng)
Graduate Diploma in Engineering Maintenance Management (GradDipEngMaintMgt)
Master of Maintenance and Reliability Engineering (MMaintRelEng)
To ensure that the applicant has sufficient background preparation to cope with
university level study, admission into the Graduate Diploma is only available to
graduates in engineering or similar professions. Direct admission into the Master’s is
available to graduate engineers with Honors degrees. Others may articulate following
completion of the Graduate Diploma with high grades.
There are many non-degreed engineers and others working in maintenance, often
holding great responsibility for staff management or planning of maintenance. They are
eligible for admission into either of the Graduate Certificates. After achieving high
grades, they may articulate into the Graduate Diploma and later the Master’s degree.
Outlines of the subjects (called “courses” in some countries) are given in the Appendix.
STUDY MATERIALS
Most study materials are print based. They are updated each year and rewritten as
appropriate. Considerable research by our Distance Education Centre shows that while
multi-media has its place, most students prefer the print-based materials. Advanced
teaching technologies will be adopted where proven to offer advantages. Most subjects
require a textbook. One exception to this arrangement is a subject where material is
issued on a CD-ROM, with the resource text also on CD-ROM.
There are three parts:
Subject Guide, containing information about subject administration and the
assignments and other assessment detail;
Subject Book, containing the Study Guides, that are detailed guidance to the subject
matter, referring to the textbook and Reader.
Reader, comprising selected papers.
Attendance at one Residential School of 4 - 5 days in each year is required. These have
activities from 9 am until 9pm, and usually have a day allocated to each subject.
Contents include lectures, specialist guest speakers, group activities, and relevant site
visits. These Schools take place during the on-campus breaks, and students stay in the
on-campus accommodation. The Schools are regarded as essential, with networking
being a highly valued component.
TEACHING STAFF
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Subject Advisers comprise full-time academics, who also have other teaching and
research commitments, and sessional staff, who are practicing engineers. Some have
international reputations in their field.
Students maintain contact with the Subject Advisers via by e-mail, and to a decreasing
extent, by phone and fax. Assignments are returned with comments by the Subject
Adviser after grading. Some subjects have an examination, and some have
assignments done in groups at the Residential School.
The program is not a “correspondence” course as such. What it offers is a graded
coverage of subject matter, designed to provide students with knowledge, skills and
attitudes in each subject area. Students are expected to read widely, and present
responses to assignments which indicate their understanding and appreciation of the
application of the material. Sometimes there are no clear right or wrong answers!
The library stocks a range of texts in the field, and students are encouraged to use its
distance services that include access to an increasing array of web-based resources.
APPENDIX: subject outlines
GEG 7014 Terotechnology and Life Cycle Costs Introduction to asset management and
terotechnology. Application of terotechnological techniques to increase profitability. Life
cycle costs and the costs of ownership; assets as the profit generators; impact of
maintenance on profitability. management. Maintenance budgets and cost control.
Terotechnological aspects of engineering economics and accountancy, including risk
analysis. Job estimating. Terotechnology and maintenance control ratios. Introduction
to asset purchase/ replacement policies and those techniques concerned with decisions
to buy or replace major units of plant. Design/re-design of plant to improve
maintainability and reduce life cycle costs; design maintenance techniques. Application
of CAD/CAM to maintenance. Introduction to the effect of installation and
commissioning practice in the maintenance cost and life cycle of an asset, installation
and commissioning standard procedure.
GEG7024 Maintenance management Maintenance planning and control, objectives of
the maintenance department, availability of plant, types of failures, types of
maintenance and maintenance strategies. Structures of maintenance departments, job
descriptions of maintenance personnel, communication within the maintenance
function, use of multi-skilled maintenance personnel to reduce resourcing difficulties.
Documentation and computer control systems, selection of appropriate manual or
computerized control systems for a maintenance department depending on size and
type of organization. The implementation of maintenance planning systems, including
plant inventories, coding, asset registers, scheduling, resource planning, work order
control, history and feedback.
GEG7044 Industrial Techniques in Maintenance Management Motivation and control of
the maintenance workforce; industrial relations in a maintenance environment;
problems associated with the production/maintenance interface; leadership styles and
managerial assumptions about maintenance tradespeople. Work measurement, method
study and activity sampling applied to maintenance activities; time management. Stock
control of materials and parts within the maintenance function design of stores layout;
establishing stores coding inventories, stock levels, re-order levels and purchasing
procedures. Planning of shutdowns and major maintenance project activities using
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Gantt Charts and critical path networks.
GEG7044 Maintenance Techniques Responsibilities and liabilities in Maintenance
Management. Safety and industrial hygiene. Emergency procedures in maintenance.
Noise control and vibration isolation of plant and equipment. Quality assurance and the
maintenance function. Value analysis and value engineering. Design for maintainability.
Reliability Centered maintenance (i.e. RCM). Total Productive Maintenance (i.e. TPM).
GEG7034 Quantitative Techniques for Asset Management Introduction to the
techniques applicable to the analysis of feedback data obtained in the maintenance
planning system, statistical techniques applied to maintenance activities, the need for
data analysis, methods of presenting analyzed data; Weibull Analysis; Pareto Curves.
Mathematical modeling of maintenance data; Monte Carlo simulation; Queuing theory;
Determining optimum frequencies for fixed-time maintenance activities/shutdowns.
Determining optimum spares holding/reorder levels for maintenance activities.
Reliability and application of reliability data. Introduction to risk analysis.
GEG7054 Machine Condition Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis What CM is and its
benefits. Techniques. Visual Inspection techniques. Non-Destructive Testing. Analysis
techniques for wear debris/contaminants in lubricants; CM of electrical machines.
Performance analysis and obtaining data; application to pumps, boilers, heat
exchangers, steam turbines, air compressors. Vibration analysis: overall level,
assessment of severity, frequency analysis, phase angle. Appreciation of balancing
methods. Getting the condition monitoring program going: justification, resources
available to help. Effect of hostile environments on materials and the monitoring of
subsequent deterioration: corrosion, wet and dry. oxidation, fouling, creep, fatigue.
Monitoring. Prediction of remaining life. Fault diagnosis techniques applied to
maintenance activities. Adaptation to civil engineering structures.
GEG7074 Computer Applications in Terotechnology Introduction to computer system
hardware. Database and spreadsheet applications. Maintenance management
packages-an overview. Programming and system analysis. Simulation and investigation
tools. Artificial intelligence techniques.
GEG7094 Research Project The research project gives the student an opportunity to
assume personal responsibility for the solution of a maintenance problem, or study of
improvement in plant or maintenance management practices. It therefore enables the
student to gain confidence in their ability to apply the techniques, skills and knowledge
acquired in the structured course work subjects, while still having academic staff
available to provide guidance and constructive criticism.
This is an opportunity to take on a problem which lies outside the student’s expertise,
and thereby increase and broaden capability. Projects usually benefit the student’s
employing organization also. The student will be required to review the literature
relevant to the project. The result is to be presented in the form of a formal technical
paper on their research project. This is to be presented at a conference at their second
residential school.
GEG 7154 Risk Engineering Human perception of risk. Risk terminology and system
modeling and analysis. Uncertainty. Loss forecasting and estimation methods for fire,
explosion, machine breakdown. Design principles to prevent loss. Human element in
risk management programs. Fire, flame, heat and smoke detection and suppression.
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Flammable substances: handling and storage. Protection against natural hazards: fire,
flood, windstorms, earthquake. Determination of risk reduction per dollar spent.
Optimisation of risk.
GEG7114 Basic Quantitative Skills for Reliability Engineering Introduction to reliability
mathematics. Introduction to reliability data analysis. Computer applications. Planned
maintenance and replacement analysis. Financial analysis of equipment logistics.
Maintainability.
GEG7124 Understanding reliability. Introduction to reliability. Reliability in
management and quality control. Reliability procurement impact on equipment
selection. Reliability, availability and maintainability. Reliability prediction and
modeling. Reliability testing.
GEG7134 Advanced reliability. Special areas of prediction and definition. Designing
reliability into safety critical systems. Practical techniques for reliability improvement.
Synthesis of fault trees and critical analysis. Human reliability modeling. Reliability
optimisation techniques. Knowledge engineering.
GEG7144 Reliability applications Reliability application case studies. Reliability
projects.
Minor thesis. Master’s students are required to submit a thesis, which is considered to
require effort equivalent to three of the above subjects.
Click here to email Ray Beebe
Click here to visit the Monash Web Site
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Education In Maintenance & Reliability Engineering

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