Productive maintenance's autonomous maintenance in achieving effectiveness: Case study

The research study investigated the prospects of using Autonomous Maintenance to improve maintenance effectiveness advantage for the thermal power plants. Through plant audits, critical equipment was identified using Nowlan and Heap's risk analysis method and confirmed using the criticality function (SAQM). The identified critical equipment were boilers, turbines, pumps, condensers, supeheaters, grate and belts. Autonomous Maintenance implementation procedures were developed for the plant and, the cause and effects of failure of each critical component were analysed using fishbone diagrams. Autonomous Maintenance checklists for each critical equipment were developed basing on the implementation strategy. The maintenance database checklists, KPI data and software were used as the end user interface for accessing the procedures and inputing KPI data in to the system for storage. The implementation were based on continous improvement as a cycle incorporating real time monitoring system in the plant.