Caterpillar Marine Asset Intelligence and SpecTec will work to develop a joint solution that facilitates improved predictive maintenance, extend service intervals and reduce maintenance and repair costs.
According to Caterpillar Marine Asset Intelligence, this joint accomplishment promises to reduce ship maintenance costs by enabling unnecessary maintenance to be deferred for shipboard equipment that is operating properly and identifying potential issues for action before a failure negatively impacts operations.
By means of the integrated solution, onboard sensor data that is automatically gathered and analysed by the Cat® Asset Intelligence onboard predictive analytics platform, can also be integrated into SpecTec’s computerised maintenance management system, AMOS.
When deemed necessary – as a result of component analytics– a work order can be automatically generated requiring service either at the next convenient time, or immediately if necessary. The plan is to make this available for propulsion and other critical onboard systems for both Cat and non-Caterpillar equipment.
“It is well-known that unnecessary maintenance can be detrimental to the long-term performance of components on board a vessel and that many failures are not strictly related to the passage of time or operating hours,” said Ken Krooner, Caterpillar Marine Asset Intelligence Technology and Operations Manager.
“There have been several studies that have found that up to 80% of equipment failures are not-time-based by nature and that a significant percentage of these are caused by human factors including unnecessary interventions during inspections or maintenance of components that are operating perfectly well.” Continue Krooner.
Krooner explained that by implementing predictive analytics on a vessel with Cat Asset Intelligence, they are able to automatically and continuously analyse for random failures, along with degraded performance, and then notify ship’s crew immediately when those conditions begin to manifest themselves through their performance data.
With the collaboration with SpecTec in place, the crew can be automatically notified via the AMOS work orders, to take action based on actual condition. This will allow ship operators to transition to more proactive operations and maintenance strategies rather than rely strictly on a time based strategy.
“These unnecessary interventions drive added maintenance cost and the failures drive more downtime. Our cooperation with SpecTec should help make the maintenance of shipboard equipment more efficient. It could help cut costs both by preventing or deferring unnecessary maintenance for equipment that is operating correctly and identifying potential issues before catastrophic failure. It’s a win-win all round,” Krooner added.
Ship Efficiency Review News
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