MKBF, MKTR: NEW INDEXES FOR THE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT IN TRANSPORT


Domenico Falcone, Alessandro Silvestri, Vincenzo Duraccio
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Cassino, 03043 Cassino (FR)-Italy
E-mail: falcone@unicas.it

ABSTRACT: In the modern society, the transport sector is very critical. The transport demand is constantly increasing in a society characterized by “mobility”. Public and private transport companies have to maximize the quality of the services offered and to reduce costs, in a very competitive market. In order to improve the efficiency of the means of transport, their safety, and the storage management (management of spare parts), it is necessary to improve the maintenance management. By studying a railway transport company, the present work proposes a new preventive maintenance logic, that, starting from the respect of general maintenance norms, wants to exceed their limits, making them more suitable for the company growth. So, a new definition of “availability” (RAMS parameter) has been proposed, shifting from the traditional conception based on “time”, to a new one based on “kilometer”. We have introduced two new indexes: MKBF and MKTR, a different vision of traditional MTBF and MTTR. They permit to define the availability of the means of transport referring to the kilometers covered. This new definition of RAMS parameters tries to join the RAMS analysis to the maintenance norms. Then, the introduced maintenance logic has been translated into a data-processing and informative instrument to support the company choices. It presents general characteristics that allow to apply it to every transport company, public and private.

KEYWORDS: Preventive maintenance, inherent availability, railway transport, RAMS.

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