TABLE OF CONTENTS Maintainability
Drawings
Tagging/identification
Equipment files
Manuals
Maintenance management systems
Vendor technical assistance
Direct vendor access
With today's complex and sophisticated systems, it is impossible for anyone to keep track of all the details in a facility. Many systems have documentation and other aids to help in troubleshooting. It is essential for most of these aids to contain detailed information about the system and its functions. For other aids, the key can be access to external knowledge. Knowing how to use these aids efficiently when troubleshooting can substantially increase your troubleshooting abilities and rate of success.
Maintainability is an inherent characteristic of a design or installation that determines the ease, economy, safety, and accuracy with which maintenance actions can be performed. This also includes ease of troubleshooting. The design of a system for maintainability is not often under a technician's control, but the maintenance department should have considerable input in design activities. Regular feedback should be provided to the design or engineering group regarding maintainability issues. In addition, field modifications may be made by the maintenance department to improve system maintainability. Safety should always be considered when making field modifications; significant changes should go through a management of change (MOC) process.
Systems should be designed to be accessible for safe and efficient work. They must also allow efficient testing and troubleshooting. Once the cause of a problem has been determined, well-designed systems allow the repair to be done efficiently.
Remember, maintainability is not only the responsibility...
