The raison d’être of maintenance

The effective management of risk is the characteristic feature of a successful organization. The risk may be relating to safety, the environment, or one affecting profitability. This paper discusses failures and the mechanism by which they escalate into serious incidents. A generalized model is used to illustrate the method by which such escalation may be prevented. A hypothesis is then postulated to relate the frequency of serious events, minor failures and the availability of protective barriers. The methods that can be used to optimize the barrier avilability are then explored. A practical way to compute the test intervals in order to obtain the required barrier availability is suggested. The role of maintenance planning to achieve this objective is discussed briefly. The paper attempts to provide a unified approach to manage maintenance and thus reduce risks to an acceptable level.