Analysis of the Maintenance and Reliability System in the Production Plant: A Case Study of the Polyvinyl Chloride (Pvc) Pipe Extruder

Abstract

Many manufacturing businesses are set up with the dual goals of making a profit and satisfying the demand for a certain system or product. In order to do this, significant expenditures are being made in a variety of areas, including startup funding, machinery, and equipment. A number of issues need to be resolved in order to maintain the anticipated regular returns on this investment, including how to preserve the investments made, what steps are taken to maintain the units' effectiveness, reliability, efficiency, and availability, and how the organization's mission can be achieved This study concentrated on analysis of the maintenance and reliability system in the manufacturing plant, with a focus on the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe extruder. Firstly, structured questionnaire was developed to investigate the maintenance strategies in practice, maintainability, repairability, availability and reliability of the machine. Using the critical evaluation technique, the components were identified and characterized according to their criticality so as to determine the appropriate and effective maintenance strategy for each critical component. Finally, a comparative study of cost of maintenance (COM) of maintenance strategy in practice (MSP) and the proposed alternative strategies were carried out. The results obtained shows that six major components (heating unit, cooling unit, bearings, screw and barrel, pulling effect and die head) of PVC pipe extruder were discovered critical among which three (10.20 cooling unit; lowest in AMRR, 20.85 screw and barrel; highest in COM, and 24.77 die head; highest of PBM) were rated highly critical based on results drawn from criticality analysis by considering three major criteria. Die head 46.52 % of AMRR, PBM and COM shows that it is not always available, not easy to maintain, cannot be repaired and not easy to replace. Also, the period of breakdown and maintenance is high in which the cost of maintenance is also high. Therefore, die head is seen as the most critical component of PVC pipe extruder based on the scope of this study. Preventive Re-placement (PR) and Corrective Maintenance (CM) will be suitable for a component with characteristics such as die head in this study because it is better to replace a failed component of a complex system such as PVC pipe extruder than incurring so much expense on repair that may likely breakdown within short time interval. The developed maintenance strategies will serve as a valuable tool to maintenance Engineers in any manufacturing companies or continuous processing plants.