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Integrating reliability, availability, maintainability and supportability with

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Article  in  Applied Energy · February 2007

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2006.05.001

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 APPLIED
Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221
ENERGY
www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Integrating reliability, availability, maintainability

and supportability with risk analysis for improved
operation of the Afam thermal power-station
M.C. Eti a, S.O.T. Ogaji b,*
, S.D. Probert b

a
Mechanical Engineering Department, Rivers State University of Science and Technology,
PMB 5080 Nkpolu, Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
b
School of Engineering, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire MK43 OAL, United Kingdom

Available online 7 July 2006

Abstract

The ability to improve continually is desirable. In recent years, the reliabilities of power plants
have become increasingly important issues in most developed and developing countries. Reliability,
availability, maintainability and supportability (RAMS), as well as risk analysis, have become big
issues in the power industries. Major causes of customer dissatisfaction often result from unexpected
failures, which have led to unanticipated costs in the Afam thermal power-station. However, with
proper integration of RAMS and risk analysis in each maintenance process in the Afam thermal
power-station, the frequency of failures can be reduced and their consequences diminished. Taking
experiences from the developed world, an approach for the integration of RAMS and risk analysis
can be developed as a guide in maintenance policies for the Afam thermal power station. This paper
discusses the applications of failure mode effect analysis, failure mode effect and criticality analysis,
feedback information, supportive systems and risk analysis, in order to reduce the frequency of fail-
ures and maintenance costs.
Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Risk analysis; Reliability management; Customer satisfaction and needs; Afam thermal power-station

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1235 750 111; fax: +44 1234 751 232.
E-mail address: s.ogaji@cranfield.ac.uk (S.O.T. Ogaji).

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2006.05.001
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 203

Abbreviations and Nomenclature

A availability
AIAG Automotive Institute Action Group
ANSI American National Standards Institute
BSC balanced scorecard
C/B cost/benefit
CDM condition-directed maintenance
CM corrective maintenance
DFMEA design-failure mode effect analysis
EPRI Electric-Power Research Institute
ES enterprise system
ETA event-tree analysis
FMEA failure-mode effect analysis
FMECA failure-mode effect and criticality analysis
FTA fault-tree analysis
GUI graphical user interface
IEC International Electrochemical Institute
IEEE Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
JIT just-in-time
LCC life-cycle cost
LP low pressure
M maintainability
MAMT mean active maintenance time
MDT mean down-time
MORT management oversight risk tree
MTBF mean time between failures
MTBM mean time between maintenance (operations)
MTTR mean time to repair
MWh mega-Watt hour
NPRDSR Nuclear-Plant Reliability Data Systems Report
NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission
PM preventive maintenance
R reliability
RAMS reliability, availability, maintainability and supportability
RCA root cause analysis
RCM reliability-centred maintenance
REPs reliability-engineering principles
RPN risk priority number
SAE Society of Automobile Engineers
t time
TPM total productive maintenance
TQM total quality management
WOs work orders
k failure rate, i.e. number of failures per unit time
l maintenance rate
s restoration time or duration of the outage
204 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

1. The challenge

The Afam power-station experiences increased demands from customers for higher reli-
ability, greater availability and lower costs for electricity supplies. Historically, mainte-
nance activities have been regarded as a necessary evil by managers in the organization.
However, this attitude too often persists, and it needs a policy shift to replace this mindset
by one which recognizes maintenance as a strategic issue in the organization. Maintenance
is any activity carried out on an asset in order to ensure that the asset continues to perform
its intended function(s) [1]. The primary objective of planned maintenance is the minimi-
zation of total cost of (i) inspection and repair and (ii) equipment down-time (measured in
lost production-capacity or reduced production-quality). Plant failures are often caused by
inadequate maintenance and inability to predict problems that may occur later during
plant usage. However, with wise consideration of RAMS and risk in maintenance deci-
sion-making, the frequency of failures and their consequences can be reduced consider-
ably. If due attention is paid during maintenance planning and policy decision-making
to the maintenance needs of the system, considerable savings can be made in the operation
processes. Maintenance can gain much from improving the work processes involved in
maintenance functions by integrating the ‘‘maintenance’’ needs analyses at planning and
decision-making stages. RAMS risk analysis should lead to a balancing of the needs
and functional requirements against various constraints resulting from material, techno-
logical, economic, physical, functional, operational, environmental and legal factors.
The needs of the customer should be paramount.
Physical products and systems wear, tear and deteriorate with age and use. In general,
due to costs and technological limitations, it is almost impossible to design a system that is
maintenance free [2]. Breakdowns ensue mainly due to inappropriate designs. Other fac-
tors, such as human error, statutory requirements, unreliability and the required quality
of the end-product, influence the maintenance procedure that should be applied.
Product maintenance needs for a system are more or less decided by its design and man-
ufacturing procedure [2–4]. There exists a large volume of literature discussing RAMS anal-
ysis for various types of products and applications under varying conditions [e.g. [5–9].
However, there is a scarcity of literature regarding RAMS and pertinent risk-analyses. Bar-
ringer [10] studied mechanical integrity and risk analysis for refineries and chemical plants.
Warburton et al. [11] demonstrated a methodology for predicting mechanical-failure char-
acteristics. Moss [12] described how to design to achieve least maintenance-expense through
the use of life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis. Markeset and Kumar [2] considered the need to
compensate for product unreliability, loss of product performance, reduced product output
quality and lack of usability. The early space-programmes studied process failures in man/
machine systems. Root-cause failure analysis, risk analysis, failure evaluation, categoriza-
tion as well as oversight methods, such as management oversight risk trees (MORTs) along
with reliability analyses, have been developed. Failure-pattern recognition developed into
the identification and study of failure modes. Emphasis has shifted from performing repairs
– the traditional focus of maintenance – to understanding the cause of failure [13]. Key
aspects of the initial findings include (i) devising the technique known as stem focus; (ii) rec-
ognition of the complexity as an important attribute in modern failure classification by
modes; (iii) assessment of failure effects on systems; and (iv) numerical and statistical data
evaluation of large equipment populations [13]. Theoretical assessments of what mainte-
nance can and cannot do, the comprehensiveness of maintenance plans, and options for
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 205

equipment assessment were identified by this new approach. Reliability-centred mainte-

nance (RCM) provides a standard, common methodology for assessing, ranking, and eval-
uating the effectiveness of any maintenance procedure. RCM brings structure and order
into the strategy, which provides a resource map that identifies the roles that must be played
by the various working groups. Expertise from these groups can (i) help develop the strat-
egy and supporting tactics for existing plants; (ii) identify wise paths to achieve future goals;
and (iii) manage the emerging maintenance requirements of plants. Understanding condi-
tion-directed maintenance tasks is the general outcome of RCM, which provides the struc-
ture that binds together three activities: operation, maintenance and engineering. The key
points in RCM include strategic mission-oriented thinking; systems equipment approach;
function understanding; technology assessment; functional-failure focus; risk management;
cost-benefit consideration ; fact-based decision processes; failure understanding (especially
root causes); statistical failure analysis; profound process understanding; continual
improvement; failure-modes identification; classification; standardization; and identify-
ing strategies. The overall objective is to achieve mission goals – usually in the form of
costs; safety; risk; as well as reliability, availability, maintainability and supportability
(RAMS).

2. Rams

Reliability is the probability of the equipment or process functioning without failure,

when operated as prescribed for a given interval of time, under stated conditions [14]. High
costs motivate seeking engineering solutions to reliability problems for reducing financial
expenditures, enhancing reliability, satisfying customers with on-time deliveries through
increased equipment availability, and by reducing costs and problems arising from prod-
ucts that fail easily [15]. Reliability in power plants is affected by operating periods, i.e.
between scheduled outages; budget periods; and peak-production periods [11]. Measuring
the reliabilities of plant and equipment by quantifying the annual cost of unreliability
incurred by the facility puts reliability into a business context. Higher-plant reliability
reduces equipment failure costs. Failure decreases production and limits gross profits
[11]. Failure is a loss of function when that function is needed – particularly for meeting
finance goals. Failure requires a clear definition for organizations striving to make reliabil-
ity improvements [15].
Improving reliability involves reducing the frequency of failure. Reliability is a measure
of the probability for failure-free operation, i.e. it is often expressed as:
RðtÞ ¼ expðt=MTBFÞ ¼ expðktÞ ð1Þ
Also, reliability may be the product of many different reliability terms, such as:
R ¼ Rturbine  Rcompressor  Rcombustor  Rscrubber  etc: ð2Þ
for a gas-turbine system.
Long failure-free periods result in increased productivity, fewer spare parts need to be
stocked and less manpower employed in maintenance activities, and hence lower costs. To
the supplier of a product, high reliability is realized by completing a failure-free warranty
period under specified operating condition with few failures during the subsequent design
life of the product [16]. Increased availability, decreased down-time, smaller maintenance
costs and lower secondary-failure expenditures result in bigger profits.
206 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

While general calculations of reliability are based on considerations of the initial fail-
ure-mode, which may be termed ‘‘infant’’ mortality (decreasing failure rates then with
time) or wear-out mode (i.e. increasing failure rates then with time). Key parameters
describing reliability are mean time to failure, mean time between/before repairs, mean life
of components, failure rate and the maximum number of failures in a specific time-interval
[16]:
Reliability þ Unreliability ¼ 1 ð3Þ
High reliability (i.e. corresponding to relatively few failures) and ease of maintainability of
the system mean that it is effective. Availability is related to both frequency and duration
of outages as follows:
A ¼ 1=ð1 þ ksÞ ð4Þ

Thus, the availability goal can be converted into reliability and maintainability require-
ments in terms of acceptable failure rates and outage hours for each component as explicit
design objectives. The application of reliability and maintainability principles to power
plants usually requires that the system’s/component’s availability be defined in terms of
MTBF or MTTR.
Availability gives an indication of the duration of up-time for the operation. Availabil-
ity may be considered to be the product of many different terms viz:
A ¼ Ahardware  Asoftware  Ahuman  Ainterfaces  Aprocess ð5Þ
Davidson [17] pointed out three factors to achieve growing availability: increasing the time
to failure; decreasing down-time due to repairs or scheduled maintenance; and accom-
plishing the above two in a cost-effective manner. As availability increases, the capability
for making money increases because the equipment is in service for longer periods of time.
Ireson [18] defines three frequently-used terms:
inherent availability
Ai ¼ MTBF=ðMTBF þ MTTRÞ ð6Þ
achieved availability
Aa ¼ MTBM=ðMTBM þ MAMTÞ ð7Þ
operational availability
Ao ¼ MTBM=ðMTBM þ MDTÞ ð8Þ
Keywords for describing availability quantitatively are: on-line time, stream factor time,
lack of down-time and a host of local operating terms, including minimum value for oper-
ational availability [16]:
Availability þ Non-availability ¼ 1 ð9Þ
Maintainability is a consequence of design and installation expressed as the probability
that an item will be retained in, or restored to a, specified condition within a specified per-
iod of time. Maintainability is related to the durations of outages. Maintainability analysis
is used to evaluate the design and layout with respect to maintenance procedures and re-
source requirements. Maintainability deals with the duration of outages or how long it
takes and how easy it is to achieve the maintenance actions compared with a datum/
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 207

benchmark. The datum includes the consideration of maintenance (i.e. all actions neces-
sary for retaining an item in, or restoring an item to, a specified, good condition) and is
performed by personnel having pertinent skill levels, using prescribed procedures and re-
sources, at each prescribed level of maintenance. Maintainability characteristics are
usually determined by the equipment’s design, which should dictate set maintenance-
procedures and determine the length of period normally required for repairs. The key
figure-of-merit for maintainability is the mean time to repair (MTTR) [16]: it indicates
the ease with which hardware or software can be restored to a functioning state. Quanti-
tatively it is the total down-time for maintenance including all the time required for:
diagnosis, trouble-shooting, dismantling, removal/replacement, active repair time,
verification testing that the repair is adequate, logistic-movement delays and administra-
tive tardiness. It is often expressed as [16]:

MðtÞ ¼ 1  expðt=MTTRÞ ¼ 1  expð1  ltÞ ð10Þ

where l is a constant defined as the maintenance-rate and MTTR is the mean time to
accomplish the repair. MTTR is easier to visualize than the probability value. It is desir-
able to achieve short repair times so that the availability remains high.
Three main parameters concerned with down-time [16] are: active repair time (which is a
function of the equipment’s design, as well as the training, and skill of the maintenance
personnel); logistic time (i.e. time lost as a result of supplying the replacement parts from
elsewhere); and administrative time (a function of the operational structure of the
organization).

Maintainability þ Unmaintainability ¼ 1 ð11Þ

High availability (i.e. long duration of uptime), high reliability (i.e. few failures occur-
ring) and excellent maintainability (i.e. predictable and short maintenance periods) are
characteristics of effective systems if capability is also maintained at a high level.

2.1. Supportability

Strategic initiatives, such as multi-skilling, inter-trade flexibility, outsourcing, RCM,

TPM, as well as the redesign of work processes and structures often needed in proactive
maintenance may fail to deliver the expected benefits. The main reason for such failures
is that aspirations, management behaviours and support procedures (including informa-
tion, training, performance management and reward systems that align with these initia-
tives) were not in place when the change programmes were implemented. The concept
of supportability includes considerations of participation and autonomy, education and
training, reward and recognition, performance measurement and management-informa-
tion systems.

2.2. Participation and autonomy

Employee empowerment is an essential concept shared by those in the team, with the
expectation of creating internal commitment amongst all employees. To get internal com-
208 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

mitment, management must involve employees in defining work objectives, especially how
to achieve them and setting ambitious but achievable targets. If employees have little control
over their destinies, the organization only gets external commitment that is akin to contrac-
tual compliance. While autonomy should be like the core concept of empowerment, the
management retains control through information systems, processes and tools [19]. Thus,
employee participation and autonomy must be in place for empowerment to take root.

2.3. Education and training

Empowerment will have no meaning if employees fail to possess the right tools, as well
as receive appropriate training for their use, and support in wise implementation. Educa-
tion resources, which can include technical consultation as well as training, should be
available and examples accessible to employees with identified needs. Organizations
should offer pertinent training programmes for their employees and customers. All
employees need to be trained in maintenance activities, RAMS methods, as well as risk
analysis and evaluation. The training should not be limited to the transfer of technical
skills and knowledge needed for optimal task performance, but also cover generic matters
such as: business imperatives peculiar to the organization, e.g. what determines the value
of its product and services to customers; problem-solving techniques; team dynamics; and
facilitation skills. Additional training for managers should address issues such as leader-
ship, communications, coaching and resource provision in order to induce new manage-
ment behaviours that will align efforts and engender even greater commitments towards
achieving organizational goals [20].

2.4. Rewards and recognition

If an organization wishes to emphasise teamwork, the remuneration structure should

promote teamwork rather than undermine it. Meinoun [21] suggests the following factors
for achieving a successful reward-and-recognition system that encourages teamwork:

 top management commitment to teamwork and the concept of team-based rewards and
recognition;
 managers are always available and visible;
 employees are regarded as the organization’s most valuable asset;
 employees appreciate the introduction of empowerment and involvement as a form of
reward and recognition;
 the organization relies on well structured processes, policies and documentation;
 a strong network is in place for vertical, horizontal, diagonal, intra-team and inter-team
communications;
 performance measurements exist and the resulting conclusions are implemented; and
 employees participate in training.

Offering employees the ‘‘right’’ financial rewards alone is unlikely to produce sustained
empowerment. The effectiveness of such methods wears off with time (today’s privileges
become tomorrows rights). Involvement and autonomy are the lasting ingredients that
drive human energy and activate the human mind [19].
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 209

2.5. Performance assessment

Performance should be measured with reference to clearly-defined objectives. Campbell

[22] classified maintenance performance indicators as measures of:

 equipment performance, such as availability, reliability and effectiveness of use of the

equipment;
 cost performance, such as of labour and maintenance; and
 process performance, such as the ratio of planned to unplanned work.

Typically, these performance indicators should be tracked because [20]:

 they have been used previously by the organization;

 some of them are used for benchmarking relative to the performance of market leaders; and
 some of them are required by regulations issued by the corporate. office

Performance indicators should highlight any ‘‘soft spot’’, i.e. a weakness in an organiza-
tion. Further analysis can then be undertaken to find the problem that is causing the low
value of the indicator, and then ultimately point to a solution to the problem. Performance
indicators are valuable tools in highlighting those potential processes for benchmarking.
Simons [23] pointed out these diagnostic measures that determine whether the various
aspects of maintenance operations remain under control or compare favourably with coun-
terparts elsewhere. Thus, they are used predominantly to support operational control and
benchmarking purposes. Given their retrospective and introspective perspectives, these gen-
eric measures are inappropriate for trying to provide a holistic assessment of maintenance
performance. Further, they do not provide information for predicting the unit’s ability to
create the future value needed to support the business success of the organization. Tsang
[20] pointed out that, in order to achieve this purpose, performance measures must be
tracked. These are known as strategic measures. Tsang [24] described a process for manag-
ing maintenance from the strategic perspective.
Kaplan and Norton [25], proposed a process called the balanced scorecard (BSC)
approach that measures a strategic performance with respect to four perspectives: (i) finan-
cial aspects, (ii) customers, (iii) internal processes and (iv) learning and growth. By using the
BSC approach, the strategy is translated into something more tangible as actionable-long-
run objectives, the related performance measures and their targets, and an action plan.
The BSC method is a powerful communication tool for providing a sharp focus on factors
that are important in maintenance with respect to it making a worthwhile contribution to
the business success of the company. It enables an assessment to be made of performance
and guards against sub-optimization because the key measures that collectively dictate the
total maintenance programme are monitored [20]. Tsang and Brown [26] described an elec-
tricity utility’s experience of introducing the BSC approach to measure the performance of its
maintenance function. As deregulation progresses, generation reliability and cost per net
MWh expended take on greater importance, so the needs for risk analysis and RAMS will
increase. Measures should focus on risk and economic assessments. To quantify risks, con-
sider such things as forced outage data, equipment emergency work-orders, overtime, regu-
latory information audits, equipment emergency work-orders, overtime, regulatory
information as well as audit findings and experience.
210 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

2.6. Information systems

Managers formulate strategies, make decisions and monitor progress against plans by
collecting, retrieving and analyzing pertinent data. Management processes should allow
a seamless flow of information through the organization to support these managerial pro-
cedures. However, managers often find that their existing information systems fail to com-
municate with each other and their operating practices are inconsistent. This is because
these so-called legacy systems were developed at different times to serve their dedicated pur-
poses at those times with little, if any, consideration for integration with other systems [20].
The emergence of enterprise systems (ESs) – software packages, with fully integrated mod-
ules for the major processes in the entire organization, offers the promise of integrating all
the information flows in the organization. This has the following benefits [20]: replaces
many of the legacy processes with an integrated one so leading to significant cost-savings;
eliminating the expensive tasks of maintaining redundant data, and updating and debug-
ging obsolete software-codes; and managers can make better informed decisions because
data on multiple aspects of the operations are readily available for analysis. If the work-
order control system is incompatible with the inventory control and purchasing processes,
then maintenance jobs cannot be done efficiently, e.g. when the critical spares are not avail-
able. Fragmentation of information is a cause of incoherent decisions and wasted energy
and effort [20]. The required ES modules should have the following facilities for (i) main-
taining records of equipment history, (ii) support for integration with the other shop-floor
data collection, and (iii) knowledge-based diagnostics. Real-time decision-support infor-
mation should be able to be retrieved by managers employing user-friendly interfaces.
The following are necessary requirements in the relevant software-modules:

 functions to support modelling of life-time distribution inspections or PM schedules, or

equipment-replacement decisions; and
 support for documentation of failures and criticality analysis (FMECA).

A specified format emerges if the BSC approach is implemented and hence improved per-
formance results. The process-strategic objectives will be linked to their performance mea-
sures, which in turn, have their respective targets. The top-level BSC is deployed to lower
level ones in a cascading manner. This should be accomplished through a graphical user inter-
face (GUI) which allows the user to get through the high-level measures to reveal further
details provided by the lower-level measures they summarize. The information level should
be accessible in real time to all the employees who play a direct role in affecting the traced per-
formance. With strategic partners in the logistic system, huge benefits can be achieved by
establishing direct electronic links with their software systems. If the inventory control, pur-
chasing and account payable modules can communicate seamlessly with their counterparts to
the supplier, then provisioning of spares can be managed effectively with minimal human-
intervention and transactions can be processed with low human-error rates.

2.7. Tools, methods and models in RAMS and risk analysis

Blanchard et al. [7] described the many tools and methods available to assess RAMS
and LCC as well as to apply risk analysis during each product’s development. RAMS
tools, such as failure-mode effect and criticality analysis (FMECA), fault-tree analysis
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 211

(FTA) and event-tree analysis (ETA) are useful in assessing product characteristics and
product support. As the demand for shorter delivery-cycles increases, more effective and
efficient work-processes become more important than ever in order to examine factors
affecting product performance, maintenance, and support. The routines for integrating
such assessments in the earlier phases of maintenance-planning processes are important
in reducing costs and increasing both availability and reliability. To be able to compete
successfully, to deliver a superior product, and to continue gaining in strength, industries
need to focus on making their functions as effective as is feasible.
Higher plant-reliability reduces equipment-failure costs. Improved business perfor-
mance is the motivation for boosting reliability. Failures in the electric power-generating
industry are usually reported as production down-times.
The following measures will, if well implemented, facilitate achieving improved reliabil-
ity [14]:

 Start reliability-improvement programmes using simple arithmetic and spreadsheets:

quantify costs and failure frequencies.
 Develop motivational momentum by using good maintenance practices.
 Use RCA and other straight-forward reliability engineering tools to solve problems.
 Initiate improvement programmes by using statistics to quantify and understand scatter
in the results.
 Build a Monte-Carlo computer-model of the behaviour of the considered system to sim-
ulate the plant’s availability taking into account reliability, maintainability, capability
and life-cycle cost for the reliability strategy.
 Keep all reliability scores measured in a stable currency, e.g. in US dollars.

Work-process initiatives can be used such as:

2.7.1. Maintenance best-practices

Use best-in-class, practices and competitive index/analysis to benchmark. Most compa-
nies need to focus on the basics of maintenance if they are to achieve any type of best-in-
class status. Effective preventive maintenance (PM) activities enable a company to achieve
a ratio of more than 80% proactive maintenance to less than 20% reactive maintenance.
Once such a ratio is achieved, other practices in the maintenance process become more
effective. This requires having trained people at various levels, with a commitment to good
on-going maintenance practices.

2.7.2. TPM
This focuses on people and is an integral part of total quality management TQM. The
methodology was developed in Japan’s manufacturing industries, initially with the aim of
eliminating production losses due to machine breakdowns in just-in-time (JIT) produc-
tion-systems. According to Tsang [20], TPM redefines the organization of maintenance
work by applying the following procedures:

 Cultivate a sense of ownership in the operator by introducing autonomous operator

maintenance – the operator takes responsibility for the primary care of his/her plant.
The tasks involved include cleaning, routine inspection, lubrication, adjustments, minor
repairs, as well as cleanliness and tidiness of the operator’s work-space.
212 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

 Maximizing the operator’s skills and knowledge of his/her plant to increase operating
effectiveness. He/she is also encouraged to make suggestions for achieving improve-
ments in order to reduce/or even eliminate the losses due to breakdowns or sub-optimal
performances of the plant.
 Use cross-functional teams consisting of operators, maintainers, engineers and manag-
ers to improve peoples’ and equipment’s performance.
 Establish a schedule of clean-up and PM to extend the plant’s life-span and maximize
its uptime.

2.7.3. RCM
The maintenance approach best suited to a particular circumstance can be determined
using RCM methodology. It provides a structure to determine the maintenance require-
ment of any physical asset, with the primary objective of preserving the system’s function
effectively [27,28]. Identification of a system’s functions and functional failures, as well as
undertaking a failure modes effects analysis, are important elements in RCM. It requires
the involvement of the operators and the maintainers. RCM offers a powerful tool to justify
effective maintenance programmes – especially, when working for a distant, obscure or con-
servative vendor, or government, or trying to satisfy acceptable corporate guidelines other
than those of your own organization. In today’s environment, with its ever-more prescrip-
tive regulations and competitive pressures, RCM is a tool that organizations can use to
recapture the maintenance initiatives. RCM has a maintenance perspective in an opera-
tional context: it strives to understand plant goals, needs, and how equipment serves, ages,
and fails and so develops a maintenance strategy to optimize outcomes in the context of the
organization’s goals. It opens an operation-maintenance dialogue. Consistency comes from
knowing the job, following standard practices, working with close engineering support and
adequate training. Maintainers need to continuously focus in order to ensure that the main-
tenance performance is consistent, and continually improving.

2.7.4. Root-cause analysis (RCA)

This separates and classifies problems into categories under such headings as people,
procedures or hardware. Using RCA for achieving solutions will prevent the recurrence
of such problems as well as meet the organization’s goals.

2.7.5. Reliability engineering principles (REPs)

Reliability engineering applies scientific know-how to a component, assembly, plant, or
process so that it can perform its intended function, without failure, for the required dura-
tion when installed correctly, and operated in the specified manner. A high cost of unre-
liability motivates trying to achieve engineering solutions to reliability problems [20].
Enhancing reliability satisfies customers for on-time deliveries through increased equip-
ment availability and by reducing costs and problems from products that fail early.
Improved reliability requires the prevention and control of failures in order to reduce costs
and thereby improve customer satisfaction.
Mathematically, reliability is defined as a conditional probability that components,
equipment, and systems will perform their intended design functions without failure
[13]. Reliability engineering predicts a system’s overall reliability and applies engineering
methods to ensure that the required goals are achieved. When reliabilities are allocated
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 213

among the constituent components, and probable faults identified, more successful ‘‘mis-
sion completions’’ can be achieved for new designs with greater confidence. For existing
facilities, sources of unreliability can be identified and traced back to causes – poor design,
incorrect operation, inadequate maintenance or a combination thereof [13]. Two ways of
evaluating reliability are a priori (before the facts) and a posteriori (afterwards). Produc-
tion reliability engineering looks at a facility’s a posteriori performance, examining sources
of unreliability and their causes. By allocating unreliabilities to systems, equipment and
components, engineers can identify those areas with the greatest opportunity for improve-
ments. Resources are therefore allocated to where they are most needed.

2.7.6. Monte-Carlo models

These models use failure data statistics along with computer-generated random num-
bers to gain an insight into possible aspects of economic improvements in operations. Sim-
ple practical Monte-Carlo demonstration models are available in Excelä spreadsheets.
The demonstration models also show end-results for availability, reliability and cost of
unreliability when changes are made to components of the model [28]. Results from
Monte-Carlo models depend on accurate failure-data (either factual or engineering data),
good repair data, and a truly-representative system configuration by the modeller of how
the plant operates physically. Monte-Carlo reliability models can realistically assess plant
conditions when combined with costs, repair times and statistical events. Monte-Carlo
simulation models are helpful for considering approximate operating conditions in a plant.
Good simulation models help determine maintenance strategies and turn-around times for
equipment renewal as simulation models are usually based on simple heuristic rules. These
depend on observed behaviours of the involved components or systems. These rules are
easy to construct using computer-system knowledge-based software. Reliability models
offer scientific methods for studying actions, responses and costs in the virtual laboratory
of the computer, using actual failure data from existing plants. Monte-Carlo models aid in
evaluating the highest long-term cost of ownership.

2.7.7. Weibull plot

Probability tools are growing in importance with the use of personal computers, which
generate probability curves with ease [29]. Weibull probability charts are the tool of choice
for reliability problems because they often indicate failure modes (i.e. how components
fail). Weibull plots supports RCM decisions based on highly idealized bathtub curves
[30]. Weibull charts are particularly valuable for indicating the preferred direction for find-
ing root causes of problems using only a few data points. Knowing the odds for success/
failure is important for assessing risks. Probability charts are easily interpreted, and simple
plots of probabilities multiplied by costs can be plotted against time to quantify decisions
and consider alternatives. Weibull plots use relatively few data and help in the decision-
making process.

2.7.8. Age-to failure data

Abernethy [30] concluded that acquiring equipment failure data has some basic
requirements:

 define an unambiguous time origin,

 define a scale that would measure the passage of time,
214 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

 measure cost consequences for failure, and

 gain data-analysis expertise for using data.

Barringer [10] maintains that the workers in many plants often say they lack any data
when relevant data are all around them with various degrees of usefulness. Most industrial
plants have been acquiring equipment failure data for many years, but seldom is the data
analyzed in a scientific manner. Rarely do those acquiring the data see that data used to
solve their problems. The net result is vast data banks of nearly unless, almost unemployed
information acquired haphazardly and annotated poorly. Today’s task is to ‘‘mine’’
through piles of existing data while acquiring new age-to-failure knowledge in a careful
thought-out manner so it can be used easily. The field of reliability offers many technical
guidelines for how data should be acquired, annotated, and used for analysis. As reliabil-
ity-analysis tools become more capable, the availability of accurate and timely data for
analysis becomes the limiting factor in the ability to perform effective reliability-analyses.
For product manufacturers, who also undertake repairing their manufactured equipment,
down-time logs can be a valuable source of life data for reliability, maintainability and
availability analyses. In order to prepare the data for a reliability analysis, the analyst must
convert the information in the equipment down-time logs into time-to-failure and time to
repair. Equipment down-time logs may be constructed in a variety of formats and the type
of data in the log determines the process that must be used to convert the log entries to life
data (i.e. data that can be used for reliability analyses). Typically, an equipment down-
time log will contain the dates and times when the events occurred, the dates and times
when the system was restored to operation and an indication of the component that
was responsible for each event. The ‘‘events’’ can represent system failures as well as other
events of interest, such as user interventions or planned maintenance activities.

2.7.9. Failure modes, mechanisms and causes

When components fail, the failure mode describes how they do so. Mode and cause
together define a failure mechanism. A failure goal can be managed if the failure mecha-
nism is understood. The goal of FMEA analysis is to identify, concisely, the failure modes
and mechanisms of interest. Successful plant operations depend upon understanding
design failure modes and achieving full component-life [11]. FMECA and fault-tree anal-
ysis provide perspective risk-management tools. Overall failure ‘‘risk’’ for any major plant,
or integrated system could be assigned a numerical value at the equipment’s design stage.
For example, the overall ‘‘mission’’ success’’ goal for a system might be set at 0.95. From
this, a FMECA of all the system’s equipment – including supportive subassemblies and
components – could then be developed and the overall reliability calculated. If the calcu-
lated reliability did not achieve the mission’s established goal, then a criticality analysis
‘‘could identify the reliability loss contributors to the mission’s failure’’. These contribu-
tors could be re-evaluated and the largest risk re-apportioned as a design-risk tool. Sub-
assemblies or components in which the failure-risk is high, or which offer opportunities
for risk reduction, are improved until the design-risk goal is achieved. Risk allocation
looks at the desired final product and identifies an overall target failure-risk. It is broken
down to the system and component level, where FMECA identifies the main risk-drivers.
Design changes (i.e. substitution or redesign) can address and improve the overall mission
risk systematically and on a budget. FMECA ranks failure-modes based on their contri-
butions to failure. In this context, criticality provides a relative numerical rank. The
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 215

importance assigned to equipment design and use determines its criticality. FMECA and
fault-tree analyses assist troubleshooting by establishing relative probabilities of what can
go wrong. High-probability events can be checked first. They also provide failure symp-
toms that can validate actual failure causes. An FMECA indicates sources of failures, ben-
efiting future troubleshooting. Rare failures are hard to dictate and diagnostic aids, such
as fault-tree analysis, logic guides and FMECAs, are then very helpful. Effective diagnoses
of equipment failures require an understanding of the behaviours of the components, as
well as their interactions.

2.7.10. RAMS tools and methods

The most important in the efforts of integrating RAMS into work processes is the devel-
opment of a computerized design tool based on the FMECA methodology. FMECA is a
powerful analysis method involving two elements of risk, namely failure frequency and
consequences. Sometimes, the possibility for detecting the failure also is included.
FMECA analysis concentrates on identification of the events and frequency resulting in
failures and analyzing their effects on the components and systems. Information about
the possible ways that plant/equipment can fail and its weaknesses originates from expe-
rience, feedback from customers and suppliers, testing, analysis, spare-part usage, war-
ranty data and project review reports. If a failure mode is identified, its risk is predicted
by analysis of failure frequency, consequence and detectability. If the risk proves too high,
efforts are initiated either to reduce the frequency and/or consequence, or by increasing the
detectability to make it possible to avoid the adverse event, or at least to reduce the sever-
ity of the consequences. The analysis and design-out of the failure causes, or corrective
actions, have to be done during the product’s design-stage [25].The intention of the
FMECA tool is to formalize and standardize maintenance processes with respect RAMS,
to meet demands from customers with respect to documented reliability analysis, and to
make it easier to identify plant/equipment improvement opportunities. The computerized
tool is now used actively in maintenance processes like ReliaSoft. Xfmea software has been
designed to automate and facilitate the FMECA/FMEA process and provide flexible data-
management and reporting capabilities. Although FMECA analysis has been a major tool
in the industrialized and developing nations of the world for some time, there have not
been any efforts at the Afam thermal power-station to initiate, formalize and systematize
the analysis process, The results from the analysis can provide a basis for decision-making,
such as recommendations for PM, spare parts and maintenance tools (both during the
commissioning and exploitation phases), pertinent documentation (including procedures,
routines, and checklists for installation, failure diagnosis and maintenance) and LCC pre-
dictions. The analysis also serves as a basis for evaluating maintenance programmes, mod-
ifications and updating of plant/equipment operation/maintenance training and feedback.
The vision required is to predict plant/equipment characteristics leading to unplanned cor-
rective failures and maintenance costs. The whole effort is to improve plant performance,
reliability and predictability, as well as to reduce costs, increase profit margins and
increase customer satisfaction.

2.7.11. RAMS information-sources

There exist many possible sources of information that can be related to plant/equip-
ment and maintenance work process improvements. The problem is to identify and route
the interesting information to RAMS improvement activities, and to the RAMS tools and
216 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

methods. To make effective and efficient use of the information sources, demands must be
specified with respect to use and needs, information type and format, how it is to be
accessed and by whom as well as how the information is routed to fulfil the various pur-
poses. There is a great variety within industry as to specific implementation details for
individual FMECA/FMEA analyses. Several standards and guidelines have been devel-
oped to set the requirements for the analysis and some organizations have unique
approaches to the analysis.
Some common FMEA/FMECA guidelines/standards include the USA’s Department
of Defense’s MIL-STD-16292 [28], SAE International’s J11739 [29] and ARP 5580 docu-
ment (for automotive and non-automotive application, respectively) and the Automotive
Industry Action Group (AIAG) FMEA-3. In addition, some practitioners distinguish var-
ious types of FMEA–FMECA analysis based on the item or process that is being ana-
lyzed, the stage in the manufacturing/development process when the analysis is
performed on the hardware or the functions that the item is expected to perform [26].
Component failure rate and repair-time data can be obtained from available sources or
estimated for the use in the quantitative analysis of the system’s availability. The data sources
include electric utilities, manufacturers, laboratories, as well as experts in many disciplines.
Help may be provided by government agencies, industries, and professional institutes, such
as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Electric-power Research Institute (EPRI),
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE), Nuclear-Plant Reliability Data
System Report (NPRDS), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Even though much of the information may be focused on plant/equipment, often the
root cause of a plant’s problem can be traced back to the maintenance-work process,
incompetent human activities, inadequate procedures, poor routines, or inappropriate
checklists in use.

2.7.12. RAMS training

Many manufacturing problems are caused by a lack of awareness or a misunderstand-
ing of the purpose and goals. RAMS training should motivate the various employees to
take part in improving the plant’s performance and to use the available tools more effec-
tively. The aims should be to (i) improve understanding and knowledge of the issues
involved, (ii) improve motivation, attitude and teamwork abilities and (iii) create a holistic
view of the plant and maintenance work processes. With better training, those involved in
maintenance and operation should be able to design a RAMS programme early in the pol-
icy making and maintenance planning. Maintenance risk may thereby be reduced. To
improve the maintenance function, with respect to reliability and maintainability, the
operation and maintenance staff need to be trained in the use of RAMS tools, methods
and terminology.

2.7.13. Risk analysis

The IEC 60300-3-9 [31] standard defines risk as the combination of the frequency or
probability of occurrence and the consequence of a specified hazardous event. Nowlan
and Heap [32] and Moubray [33], maintained that, in order to identify risks in terms of
where these are located in a system and how serious they are, the risk analysis should pro-
vide detailed guidance as to what specifically the maintenance actions should be directed.
RCM uses function analysis, in combination with risk analysis, in prioritizing mainte-
nance actions. Bucklund [34] and Townsend [35] pointed out that there are many different
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 217

opinions regarding what risk analysis implies and how it should be used. Bucklund and
Hannu [36] maintained that, since risk analysis is used in the identification of risk sources
in terms of their locations and magnitudes, it can form the basis for maintenance decision-
making. In risk analysis, the total asset is further scrutinized by identifying the largest risk-
source in each subsystem. The percentage of each risk-source that contributes to the risk of
each subsystem is computed. For example, with respect to a gas-turbine, the percentage of
total estimated asset risk in subsystems, such as scrubbers, turbine, compressor and com-
bustors, should be deduced.
A preliminary hazard analysis and a systematic understanding of initial consequences
are desirable. The operator and maintainer, who are experienced with the systems, should
be taught risk analysis, Operators and maintenance staff must have excellent risk percep-
tions. Industrial experience is also an excellent guide to quantifying risks. Knowing how
the plant runs, and what fails, helps to predict risk patterns. Pre-planned, on-line mainte-
nance periods can usually be planned so that there is less risk of a component’s outage.
In the absence of a ‘‘near misses’’ programme, one method of identifying a system’s
risk-level performance is to track two measures that correlate the system’s risk are work
orders (WOs): overtime incurred will indicate how unplanned maintenance influences
the system’s performance. Cost measures, including total man-hours worked, total costs,
and how these are allocated between and among various work categories, need to be fol-
lowed through at the component level. These should be displaced in Pareto fashion.

2.7.14. Risk management

Ultimately, improved performance comes from better maintenance selection, timing
and performance. RCM helps in selecting timing and provides tools to raise awareness.
As maintenance programmes improve, two things become evident, crises decrease, but ini-
tially maintenance costs rise. As crises decrease in frequency, overtime, low productivity
work, material parts expenses, and service expenses fall and then, unit costs drop. This
decrease in unit production cost is due to increased availability and reliability.
The first risk-management question to be asked is what could happen if the event under
consideration did occur? The second is how likely is it for the event to occur? The answers
to these two questions will provide a measure of the degree of risk containment. The third
and the often the most contentious question is whether this risk is tolerable.
When more people have access to pertinent information that supports achieving better
maintenance, wiser decision-making will ensue. More dialogue and development of trust
between and among workers, maintenance schedules and analysts, is desirable. The adop-
tion of the RCM-based PM format reduces the uncertainty in all time-based maintenance
(TBM)/condition-based maintenance (CDM) tasks. For power plants, many inspection
tasks need to be performed based on time and risk. Overhaul activity requires plant/equip-
ment dismantling and re-assembly. An effective overhaul requires using both TBM and
CDM risk management. For example, rotor-bore cracking is a low probability event,
but one with disastrous consequences. The utility, risk profile for such an event and cost
factors are major risk-factors. Manufacturers recommend performing inspections on every
overhaul. This adjustment provides risk management, but also substantially reduces the
overhaul cost. Overhaul tasks can be time based or condition based. For example, perfor-
mance efficiency, loading behaviour and main-bearing vibration trends are on-condition
indications. Time-based mechanisms include blade-root tie cracks, tip wrap tracks and
control-valve deposits. Instruments can convert time-based tasks into condition-based
218 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221

tasks. Blade deposits can be monitored by careful stage efficiency-tests. This necessitates
instrumentation maintenance, such as calibration. Overhaul timing can be improved using
a combination of knowing the aging-performance history since the last overhaul, and con-
dition monitoring as an on-going risk-control practice.

3. Integration of RAMS and risk analysis in the maintenance function in the Nigerian electric
power-industry

Work processes involved in wise maintenance functions have become increasingly com-
plex and integrated, To stay competitive, it is necessary to have plant and equipment deliver
what they were designed to do, with documented quality, reliability, availability and compet-
itive LCC. Therefore, RAMS and risk analysis should be integrated into the maintenance
systems. RAMS and risk analysis will greatly improve work processes and cross-functional
activities in electric power-stations. This will reduce the focus on interdepartmental optimi-
zation, and instead create a holistic view on proactive maintenance and improvements.
Efforts should be made to focus coordinating efforts, on integrating RAMS tools and meth-
ods, utilization of information-sources data, and experience can be used to improve the reli-
ability and, not least, the training of the employees in respect of these issues. The goal will be
to systematize and formalize the maintenance methodology in respect of RAMS, as well as to
focus production and work process improvements, and to make plant failure more predict-
able. When the failure mode and effects are identified, the goal is to find the root cause and
prevent it from reoccurring. At least it should be possible to reduce the problem conse-
quences by making the fault predictable and by including proper maintenance-support. Effi-
cient and effective use of a testing laboratory is also part of the RAMS implementation
activities. The goal is to have precision/proactive maintenance, to reduce costs and lead-
time, to improve both reliability and availability and hence reduce down-time and increase
customer satisfaction. By top-management involvement and changing of the mindsets of
recalcitrant employees, the focus on integrating RAMS and risk analysis in the maintenance
system will be greatly rewarded.

4. Conclusions

This study emphasizes the importance of RAMS characteristics and risk analysis in
trying to ensure failure-free operations of plant and equipment in the Afam thermal
power-generating station. It suggests that RAMS and risk-analysis characteristics should
be considered during policy decision-making and maintenance planning in order to increase
the reliability and reduce the risks associated with power-station maintenance. A need for
effective and efficient controls of the information flow and work processes involved in main-
tenance functions have been identified as critical factors in the pertinent integration of
RAMS and risk analysis.
From the RAMS and risk analysis, systems or components which have reliabilities or
availabilities below those desired are identified and the appropriate weakness or fault elim-
inated. Components, which have excessive failure rates, long repair times or high degrees
of uncertainty associated with these values, are identified. Maintainability analysis has
been used to evaluate the design and lay-out with respect to maintenance procedures,
and resources. On the basis of the potential impact on plant availability, a spare-part list
may be determined and stores kept accordingly. Availability goals can be converted into
 M.C. Eti et al. / Applied Energy 84 (2007) 202–221 219

reliability and maintainability requirements, in terms of acceptable failure rates and out-
age hours for each component as explicit design-objectives.
The Nigerian electric-power generating industry implements TBM in PM programmes
yet still has high down-time and high maintenance costs. There is a need to integrate
RAMS and risk analysis in the maintenance processes. This could be implemented grad-
ually with feedback to monitor the effects. It will reduce risk, improve reliability and
increase availability which are lacking at present. There will be a need for effective and effi-
cient control of information flow and pertinent analyses. The organization needs to imple-
ment training programmes with a focus on the integration of RAMS and risk analysis in
maintenance processes. The Nigeria electric-power industry needs to initiate measures to
coordinate RAMS implementation in different sections and departments. It is likely that a
successful integration of RAMS and risk analysis will provide a competitive edge to the
industry and the successful implementation will mainly depend on the organization‘s abil-
ity to create awareness and understanding of the issues involved. The employees need to be
trained to use the appropriate tools and methods, and an infrastructure needs to be in
place to make these tools and information resources available when needed. It is impor-
tant to consider the coordination between work processes, tools and information services
to achieve the optimal result. Procedures, routines and checklists need to be in place where
they are needed; they need to be clear, concise, concrete and precise to be efficient and
effective. The organization needs to be updated regularly to reflect the changes in mainte-
nance needs and tools. However, major causes of down-time and low availability and
hence customers’ dissatisfaction are often traced back to unexpected failures, leading to
increased maintenance down-time, and high production costs. In general, plant and equip-
ment failures are often caused by inefficient and ineffective maintenance as well as the
inability to predict problems that may occur subsequently. However, with proper consid-
eration using RAMS and risk analysis in maintenance, the frequency of failures can drop
and their severities and consequences reduced considerably. If due attention is paid during
the strategic planning to the ‘‘maintenance needs’’ of the system, considerably savings can
be made in the operation and maintenance phases. This paper has discussed possible ways
that the Nigerian electric-power industry can improve maintenance efforts and move from
reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance. The industry has witnessed major erratic
power failures during the last decade. Dissatisfaction has arisen from the demands for reli-
ability, availability, maintainability and LCC for the plans to be of competitive advantage
as a result of deregulation of the industry.
The maintenance processes need to be better organized. Suitable organizational systems
and high-quality leadership therefore have to be in place to manage the maintenance pro-
cesses. It is important to integrate customers’ needs and preferences into the management
policies as early as possible. This paper argues that the integration of RAMS with risk
analysis in combination with LCC in making the maintenance decision is fundamental
in accomplishing the success of the organization in this deregulation era.

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