Ship Maintenance Planning System
Authors: Stocking William B. 
Published: October 2008

The paper treats the subject of maintenance management as applied to ocean drillships. Certain comparisons between the operation and maintenance requirements of these special-purpose vessels and Government operated and maintained vessels are made because it is the latter group to which most intensive and comprehensive programs have been applied. Such programs are comprehensive in scope and are well supported at all levels with management and technical personnel, logistics, and industrial and intermediate repair activities. As extensive administrative organization designed to utilize the commercial repair capabilities country wide; an efficiently administered and staffed training organization; and, finally, a substantial financial base are integral to these programs.

INTRODUCTION

This paper describes a simple, effective, systematic approach to the complex problem of ship maintenance management, particularly as might be applied to drillships. The system contains a provision for cyclic maintenance which will tend towards the gradual elimination of outside assistance. The paper also contains the author's opinion drawn from involvement in a variety of existing maintenance methods and philosophies which have had varying degrees of success. In most cases, results have been below expectations, at least from the point of view of the onboard operator/maintainer.

The progress of time, technology and methodology has resulted in a reorientation of our society away from a broad distribution of basic mechanical skills and towards many narrow, highly developed skill disciplines. This has in turn resulted in a "use and throwaway" attitude rather than one oriented towards endurance and maintainability.

SHIP MAINTENANCE PLANNING SYSTEM

The ship maintenance and overhaul management system is designed to assist the ship operator in the management of corrective and routine maintenance, and in the orderly phase-in of modifications. Properly implemented, the system maximizes operating capability, minimizes shipyard costs, and optimizes personnel utilization.

The system consists of five elements or modules that define and pace the material condition of a ship along an orderly, planned path from one of some degree of degradation (corrective maintenance posture) to one of reliable and predictable operation (preventive maintenance posture).

Figure 1 is a flow diagram which shows the transition of work defined in the baseline survey through the planning modules to accomplished corrective or maintenance actions. The initial module in the plan accurately defines the existing material condition, updates the equipment inventory, identifies equipment essential to safety, and evaluates the supporting technical documentation. It is at this point that the collection of maintenance data begins. The condition baseline survey enables comparisons between conditions of maintenance urgency within a ship or between conditions among ships. Funding and scheduling can then be managed to bring about the Corrective Maintenance.

When maintenance deficiencies are corrected, the Preventive Maintenance Plan is implemented. On new construction, the overall plan would be initiated at this point. The objective of the Corrective Maintenance is to develop and sustain a posture of reduced corrective maintenance requirements. Once corrective action is completed, corrective repair requirements will become minimal and the ship will enter the preventive maintenance condition, and there begin the cycle from preventive maintenance planning to maintenance action to maintenance data collection.