Assignment Scenario
Definition
Maintainability can be defined as “the degree of facility with which an equipment or system is capable of being retained in, or restored to, serviceable operation.
Background
The fundamental expectation from a customer’s point of view is for the product to work as expected. However, failure happens. How to anticipate and deal with failure are cornerstones to a successful reliability and maintainability (R&M) management program. R&M engineering pulls together resources from across many fields, including design, materials, finance, manufacturing, failure analysis and statistics. R&M management requires knowledge of product specifications, apportioning reliability, an understanding of feedback mechanisms and a consideration of maintenance requirements.
FMEA is a tool used to merge the ideas and knowledge of a team to explore the weaknesses of a product. To some, this may seem like a design review, to others it is an exploration of each designer’s knowledge of the boundary to failure. Depending on the team and amount of knowledge already known, FMEA may or may not be a fruitful tool to discover product failures. However, it nearly always has the benefit of effectively communicating, the most serious and likely issues, to the team.
Repairing a product presumes the product is repairable. Creating a product that is repairable is part of the design. Some products are not repairable simply because the repair process costs more than the value of the product. Products, such as an escalator or an automobile, have design features that make them economical to repair. The combination of the design, the supply chain for spare parts and tools, and the execution of repairs are all part of maintainability.
There are many metrics related to the time to repair, for example, diagnostic time, spare part acquisition, technician travel time, equipment repair time, etc. Combining mean time to repair (MTTR) and mean time to failure (MTTF) information provides a measure of availability. Availability is related to the concept that the equipment is ready to work when expected. Concepts of throughput, capacity and readiness are related to availability.
In the design process, the designer needs to consider access, disassembly, assembly, calibration, alignment and numerous other factors when creating a system that is repairable. For example, a car’s oil filter has standard fittings, permitting the use of existing oil filters as a replacement. The design of the system may involve tradeoffs between design features and aspects of maintainability, such as the cost of spare parts and the time needed to actually accomplish a repair. The designer must change his/her design solution if the maintenance tasks are difficult, or even impossible to be accomplished in the given conditions. Some of the important general design guidelines that maintainability professionals have developed are shown in Figure 1
Context and Scope
This will require the identification and analysis of the following basic information FMEA, MTTF, MTTR and adaptation of the model above in relation to a household front loading dish washing machine for which you have been assigned to investigate on behalf of the design engineer. Your focus will be on the investigation and development of enhanced maintainability in relation to common breakdowns/malfunctions
Assignment 1. Formulate and plan a project that will provide a solution to an identified engineering
problem
Note: Assignment 1 addresses the following Learning Outcomes P1, P2, M1 and D1.
Write a project Charter. The title of the project is as per cover sheet. A project charter outlines your plan for a project that will provide a solution to the identified engineering problem
Guidelines
i. Provide appropriate selection and reasoning
ii. Create a Project plan using a Gantt chart (include primary and secondary research)
iii. Undertake a Feasibility study, which justifies the project selection.
iv. Illustrate the effect of ethics and legislation on you choice of approach
Assignment part 2
Conduct planned project activities to generate outcomes which provide a solution to the identified engineering problem
Note: Assignment 2 addresses the following Learning Outcomes P3, M2 & D2.
Guidelines
i. Conduct the project the secondary research (literature on Manufacturing & Maintainability) & primary research (possible solutions) recording your progress. Elaborate on the Gantt chart you
provided showing progress made and some annotation.
ii. Explore alternative methods to monitor and meet project milestones, and justify selection of 2 chosen
methods.
iii. Consider how could you have planned better? Critically evaluate the success of the project plan making recommendations for improvements
Last Completed Projects
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