Critical Equipment Identification Approach for Condition-Based Maintenance Planning in a Beverage Plant

A critical equipment identification approach for condition-based maintenance (CBM) planning in the beverage plant is presented. In this study, critical equipment in a beverage industry was identified for effective condition based maintenance planning. The approach involves multiplying four generic factors namely; probability of failure, losses in in-process materials, mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) and mean cost of repairs. The score for the probability of failure was estimated as a function of cumulative failure rate (CFR) of respective plant equipment. Four grades of equipment failure probability were used: very low probability of failure, low probability of failure, medium probability of failure and high probability of failure. MTTR was determined from the identified probability distribution described by the repair data of the reference equipment. Losses in in-process materials were computed from a comparison of the total throughput and the lost brews. The results show that the Dust aspirator, Weighing bin, Mash filter and Chain conveyors with average criticality index of 0.2712, 0.2199, 0.1350 and 0.1563 respectively, are the most critical equipment in a beverage plant. This implies that planning and control of maintenance on the identified critical equipment based on condition monitoring will help improve the production efficiency in the brewing process. Keywords: Critical equipment, Condition based maintenance, Cumulative failure rate, Mean time to repair, Mean cost of repair