Background
Vessels need regular maintenance such as oiling, greasing, cleaning, routine check-ups, spare part inventory planning, and reporting and documentation of maintenance jobs. As daily, weekly and monthly logs and reports need to be updated to facilitate the entire vesselʼs physical and mechanical maintenance, proper on-board maintenance systems must be implemented. In this case the client case did not have a proper maintenance system and so experienced certain challenges in terms of vessel maintenance.
Challenge
- Difficulty in maintaining inventory or stock levels
- Difficulty in keeping track of actions from the logs
- Advanced spare parts ordering was practically impossible
- Difficulty in streamlining and monitoring purchases
- It was hard to check the efficiency of maintenance jobs as no organized records of past maintenance activity existed
- Planning and regular job updates between the land office and vessel were nearly absent
Solution
NEG has designed and developed an intelligent application called Machinery Maintenance (NMM) using .Net with SQL Server 2008 / SQLlite for both Web & Windows (Standalone) applications to run in a LAN as well as an Internet environment, with both local and centralised databases.
NEG recommended that the client install this application to efficiently handle the challenges they were facing in regards to maintenance.
Outcome
- The inventory for all spare parts can now be controlled automatically by defining minimum and maximum levels of stock
- Implementation of exhaustive log files kept track of all maintenance records. These files can be viewed for instant perusal and reference and ensure better maintenance planning
- Efficient planning of preventive maintenance now reduces the costs of unexpected maintenance
- The maintenance details of vessels can be shared with all users, and regular job updates can be viewed by both vessels and land offices
- At any given time, the Chief Engineer can view the status of maintenance, spare parts and all equipment in order to conduct advanced planning
- The application keeps track of all purchases, which allows for better streamlining and control of spare parts
- The application can create auto-alerts to take care of preventive repairs, control stock levels, and critical breakdown rectification on a calendar or running hour basis
- Full compliance with the mandatory International Safety Management (ISM) code
- No human intervention is required to integrate data between the vessel and office
- Risk-based job evaluation ensures more optimal maintenance schedules as the incorporation of risk yields a better understanding of expected costs
- Window-version user data can be converted into XML files and be automatically integrated in the central database using low bandwidths at lower cost
- The application has drill-down dashboards that give users the possibility to delve down into the data to the desired level of information
- The application can automatically check the integrity of entries and report back in the event of unusual numbers (e.g. data duplication, missing or wrong data). This ensures better data integrity and error reduction for users as human errors are easily detected
- The Minimum Inventory Level re-order alerts and the real-time tracking of store and spare part orders has improved the performance of the clientʼs existing Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory system and minimises the costs associated with inventory control and maintenance
Scope
This application can be universally implemented in any shipping/maritime organisation. It has been thoroughly designed and developed to handle the Management Information System (MIS) needs for vessel maintenance for any vessel manager and/or operator.
