Research of Equipment Maintenance Support Analysis Based on the Expanded ESD
Authors: Huang Jian Xin , Bian Ya Qin , Li Shu Bin 
Published: October 2013

The Event Sequence Diagram (ESD) is a visualized method to describe sequences of related events. It has the characteristics of simple and powerful description ability which has great value in engineering application. According to the requirement of modeling and analysis in equipment maintenance support process, this paper introduces the basic factors of existing ESD framework, and generalizes the basic thought of establishment of ESD model; combining the characteristics of maintenance support system and resources, the expanding of ESD and its canonical definition were discussed. Based on it, this paper gives further research on the analysis method of maintenance support based on ESD, and the basic scheme of analyzing maintenance time and maintenance resource are provided. To some extent, it can solve the problems existing in traditional modeling method of equipment maintenance support process.With the rapid development of modern science and technology, many equipment performances improve constantly, at the same time, the overall complexity increases rapidly. Any changes could bring big impact on the reliability, safety and maintenance supportability of the system[1]. Maintenance support process is not only a simple static process, but a complex process which involves factors that interacts each other such as personnel, equipments, resource and external environment as well as those dynamic factors such as time, process variables and behavior of management and operating personnel. Although there are many maintenance support models at home and abroad, which include PERT, random network, Petri and IDEF3[2], etc, most of them establish related analytical models and simulation models in terms of cost and supportability parameter, which only focus on certain part of the maintenance support system or one aspect of its analysis. It has its characteristic as well as its limitation. Actually, as a complex system engineering process, it is more scientific and reasonable to establish process model completely and comprehensively according to the maintenance support process，which can not only complete the maintenance support analysis that traditional model does, but also can describe the support process accurately, and it can give maintenance support problems, such as support resource and maintenance activity, a bottom-up and detailed analysis.As a graphical simulation method to describe sequences of related events, ESD can be regarded as generalized event tree which characterized by visual, descriptive, manageable qualitatively and quantitatively, and can describe system accident scene truly as well as the relationship between event and personnel,resources, management and the other events [3]. At the same time, it can provide enough structure information for the system, which makes it being understood easily and applied in modeling research. This paper put forwards basic thought for ESD modeling based on the existing model frame, then, it is expanded and applied in equipment maintenance support process modeling and can complete the related analysis.