Search results

Examines the preventive maintenance practice at four Japanese transplant operations in the USA. Illustrates the application of the total productive maintenance concept, kaizen, employee training and employee empowerment. The benchmarking of Japanese practices serves to enhance quality management practices everywhere. The philosophy underpinning the effort at the Japanese transplants is the key to understanding the role of preventive maintenance in quality manufacturing.

To examine the need to develop, practice and implement such maintenance practices, which not only reduce sudden sporadic failures in semi‐automated cells but also reduce both operation and maintenance (O&M) costs.

A case‐based approach in conjunction with standard tools, techniques and practices is used to discuss various issues related with TPM implementation in a semi‐automated cell.

The findings indicate that TPM not only leads to increase in efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing systems, measured in terms of OEE index, by reducing the wastages but also prepares the plant to meet the challenges put forward by globally competing economies to achieve world class manufacturing (WCM) status.

The paper presents an interesting investigation of TPM implementation issues which may help the managers/practitioners to prepare their plants/units to meet the challenges of competitive manufacturing in twenty‐first century by adopting and implementing TPM.

The purpose of this paper is to identify various risks in the power distribution supply chain and further to prioritize the risk variables and propose a model to the power distribution industry for managing the interruptions in its supply chain. To accomplish this objective, a case of a major power distribution company has been considered.

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) analysis has been done to identify the potential failure modes, their severity, and occurrence and detection scores. Then an interpretive structural model (ISM) has been developed to identify and understand the interrelationships among these enablers followed by MICMAC analysis, to classify the risk variables in four quadrants based on their driving and dependency powers.

The results of this study exhibit that technical failure in the information and technology system, the use of improper equipment, poor maintenance and housekeeping in the internal operations are the major risk drivers. Exposure to live wires and commercial loss in power supply has strong dependence power.

This study is limited to a single power distribution company and not the whole power distribution sector.

This study suggests the managers of the power distribution company develop an initial understanding of the drivers and the dependent powers on the supply chain risks.

Through prioritization, identification of drivers and the dependent risks, the losses in the power distribution supply chain can be minimized.

Various failures in the power distribution have been studied in the past, but they have not investigated the supply chain risks in the power distribution of a power distribution company.

Heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and cooling (HVAC) systems are crucial in daily health-care facility services. Design-related defects can lead to maintenance issues, causing service disruptions and cost overruns. These defects can be avoided if a link between the early design stages and maintenance feedback is established. This study aims to use experts’ experience in HVAC maintenance in health-care facilities to list and evaluate the risk of each maintenance issue caused by a design defect, supported by the literature.

Following semistructured interviews with experts, 41 maintenance issues were identified as the most encountered issues. Subsequently, a survey was conducted in which 44 participants evaluated the probability and impact of each design-caused issue.

Chillers were identified as the HVAC components most prone to design defects and cost impact. However, air distribution ducts and air handling units are the most critical HVAC components for maintaining healthy conditions inside health-care facilities.

The unavailability of comprehensive data on the cost impacts of all design-related defects from multiple health-care facilities limits the ability of HVAC designers to furnish case studies and quantitative approaches.

This study helps HVAC designers acquire prior knowledge of decisions that may have led to unnecessary and avoidable maintenance. These design-related maintenance issues may cause unfavorable health and cost consequences.

To obtain first‐hand data on the main challenges in preserving digital resources in libraries, archives and information centres in China.

The data in this paper have been acquired by e‐mail questionnaire. The conclusions are based on feedback from 57 respondents, distributed in 14 provinces in China, who work in libraries, archives and information centres with rich digital collections and long‐term experience in preserving digital resources.

The authors consider that the long‐term preservation of digital resources in China faces two critical difficulties: firstly, the pressure on preserving digital resources has not been fully recognised and so the relevant training in the management and operation of digital preservation is absent; secondly, government departments attach little importance to this field and lack uniform guidelines. Therefore, the paper suggests that relevant international conferences or workshops should be held in China, and that a working group led by the National Development and Reform Commission of China should be set up to plan the construction, sharing and maintenance of Chinese digital resources.

This research is limited to Chinese administration systems. Although the data in this paper are authentic and representative, nevertheless it is a small sample of the numerous document collection organisations in the country.

The data and analysis in this paper should greatly help international colleagues understand the status regarding the preservation of digital resources in China.

This research is the first of its kind undertaken in China and will provide a new vision for international peers and organisations involved in digital documentary heritage around the world.

Arsenic contamination in shallow groundwater aquifers in the lower Gangetic basin constitutes a major health hazard in the Bengal basin extended over Bangladesh and India. It has been estimated that at least 35 million people in Bangladesh and 6 million people in India are severely affected by arsenic-contaminated water. More so, about 57 and 9 million people in Bangladesh and West Bengal, respectively, are exposed to arsenic-contamination risk. The use of hazardous, arsenic-bearing groundwater for drinking, cooking, and irrigation in West Bengal and Bangladesh has led to what has been described by the WHO as the worst case of mass poisoning in human history. In case of West Bengal, the problem of arsenic contamination was discovered in the 1980s; since then several mitigation measures were adopted by the provincial and federal governments, community organizations, and NGOs. Yet, poor infrastructural arrangements, dire poverty, lack of awareness, and education increased the risk of arsenic exposure over the decades. In this chapter, an effort has been made to critically analyze the extent of mitigation measures adopted so far in the state of West Bengal. It discusses in detail the chronological responses of the provincial government in arsenic risk mitigation, implementation of adopted mitigation measures, and the consequent response and actions of arsenic-affected communities in West Bengal. The chapter also highlights the emerging challenges of arsenic risk mitigation in West Bengal and proposes a “system-based” framework for risk mitigation.

The purpose of the research discussed in this paper is to ascertain the perception, from the project manager's viewpoint, of factors affecting construction productivity in the State of Queensland, Australia.

The research was conducted by a structured questionnaire that was sent to 89 randomly selected construction project managers in Queensland, Australia. This questionnaire requested background information about the respondents and then sought a score, using a 0-4 Likert scale, from each of them with respect to the importance of 47 factors identified from the literature that were considered likely to affect construction productivity. The factors were stratified into primary factors and secondary factors contributing to three of the primary factors. There were 36 responses. These factors were rated by the respondents and then ranked using a relative importance index approach.

The research evaluated the relative importance of the primary factors with respect to their effect on construction productivity. The 15 highest ranking factors are discussed. Three factors – rework, poor supervisor competency, and incomplete drawings – were ranked as having a strong effect on construction productivity. There was also an analysis of the secondary factors in relation to three of the primary factors.

The research focused on the State of Queensland in Australia. It had a response rate of 40 per cent. It provides insight into the factors affecting productivity on construction projects in Australia. Further research to investigate the identified factors in depth, using targeted interviews of expert project management professionals, is currently being undertaken.

The construction industry can use the findings in this paper as a basis for improving the productivity of construction projects.

This research is original research, which has highlighted a number of key areas of which construction productivity can be improved.

ASRS maintenance reports from 1996 through 2000 (n = 937) were subjected to posterior probability analysis to determine the probability of causal factors leading to a specific maintenance‐related event. Unintentional release of an unairworthy aircraft into revenue service was found to be the most frequent maintenance‐related event (40 per cent). The top three maintenance errors leading to such an event were improper documentation (33 per cent), improper installation (27 per cent), and sign‐off of work not performed (13 per cent). The probabilities of certain causal factors responsible for each of the maintenance errors were as follows: (a) For documentation errors – lack of awareness (22 per cent), poor procedures (15 per cent), and lack of training (4 per cent); (b) For improper installation – complacency (21 per cent), lack of awareness (21 per cent), and poor procedures (15 per cent); and (c) For sign‐off of work not performed – maintenance management (27 per cent), complacency (21 per cent), and poor procedures (14 per cent).

One of the findings of the research looking at the application of integrated logistics support (ILS) to the existing building stock carried out by the authors was that many factors have an effect on maintenance cost. In an attempt to uncover the underlying factors, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 50 local authority and housing associations throughout Scotland. The aim of the questionnaire was to identify the extent to which 24 factors impede the optimum application of maintenance cost. This paper describes the objectives of building maintenance and the principal elements of housing maintenance cost. The study revealed that maintenance cost is greatly influenced by factors which can only be evaluated subjectively, such as high expectations of tenants and improper use of the property.

In general, maintenance management is considered as part of the construction sector for the larger service of post-construction activity and process. However, as green building (GB) construction projects grow in scale and complexity, interconnections between the mentioned activities and processes can be noticed in a problematic planning performance management to monitor the GB components for the corrective and preventive maintenance action. Issues often arise during construction activity and pose a problem for the society due to the poor and improper maintenance execution, such as the recent fire in the Grenfell Tower (14 June 2017, about 80 fatalities).

The concept of maintenance management practices of GB and main features of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and techniques were based on analysis of number of literature reviews in GB scenarios.

The research results described are concerned with an integrated system to analyse information and building a decision-making support in maintenance planning in GB based on robust data collection about concrete failures and causes, provide appropriate planning decision and reduce risks of GB failure throughout the lifetime.

The paper concludes that implementing a research framework for developing such a system can help improve the performance of maintenance planning of GB design, construction and maintenance operations.