Maintenance Management Planning in the Wake Of Industry De-regulation

Presented at: AESIEAP (the Association of the Electricity Supply Industry of East Asia and the Western Pacific) CEO Conference held in Cebu, Philippines on 16-19 November 1999

Jointly Authored by:

Ir. Bob Chee and Ir. Loh,L.H.

ABSTRACT: Around the world, the electricity supply industry (ESI), beginning with generation, is being de-regulated. In response to changes forced upon by the de-regulation process, power plant management is beginning to move away from the traditional practice of corrective and preventive maintenance to one based upon a better and more complex system of predictive and Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM). The continued viability of owning and operating power plants becomes an extremely important business strategy in facing increased competition from other power plants and new generators. Plant owners will not be paid if the capacity of their plants is not utilised by not being dispatched. The key to being successfully dispatched lies in being able to reduce the cost of producing electricity. A major cost item, besides fuel, is that of maintenance. If this is brought down through optimizing the maintenance work and, hence, the resources used, without having to sacrifice plant reliability, the plant will be able, not only to compete in the new environment but to make good profits. For this to happen, maintenance planning must be developed properly. Maintenance practices have to be changed to address issues such as insufficient pro-active maintenance, repeat failures, erroneous maintenance work, and unnecessary and conservative preventive maintenance. Maintenance programmes also fail to have sufficient traceability, insist on blind acceptance of Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) input, need to comply with outdated regulations, suffer from paucity of predictive maintenance and RCM practices, or fail to take into account instances of past operation beyond design plant limits. To effect changes will not be straightforward. It will very likely require costly shutdowns and lots of co-operation from all staff who will have to accept 'culture' changes. It is envisaged that this change will have to evolve through a transient stage. This paper draws upon the authors' many years of operating and maintaining power plants. The paper outlines specific strategies viewed as necessary to be implemented in a more competitive business environment in which the costs of generation will be more transparent and generators need to demonstrate that theirs are the cheapest electricity source and therefore are to be dispatched. The ideas in maintenance management planning presented here may be of benefit to new plant management that has just acquired power plants, or operators of new plants. It is the authors' view that, only upon complete change in paradigm of how maintenance is viewed, as well as accepting a suitable maintenance philosophy, will owners of power plants be able to match their costs to the lower electricity prices in a more de-regulated industry.

Note: If you want a copy of the complete Paper, please e-mail author, with your name and address, at hk970701@hotmail.com

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