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Original Date: 04/24/2007
Revision Date: / /
Information : World Standard Hierarchy of Equipment Boundaries
Standardization of reliability, availability, and maintainability performance data is a key element to obtain useful shareable information for use in the improvements of ship design and operation. The University of New Orleans, College of Engineering is currently attempting to establish a standard that will help plan and design teams handling reliability, availability, and maintainability objectives.
In an attempt to identify standard equipment boundaries within the maritime industry, the University of New Orleans, College of Engineering (UNO COE) investigated and performed research of existing standards and its applicability to this effort. Capturing high-quality reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) performance data requires careful and consistent collection of equipment failure and repair data, operating hours, and repair time. One important link that is currently lacking in the universal analysis and application of RAM equipment performance data is a well-defined standard of equipment nomenclature, boundary definition, taxonomy, and systems hierarchical data structure. Establishing this standard is the next step in ensuring that the reliability and maintainability data collected will be consistent across both commercial and military applications. Without agreed-upon boundaries and equipment identifiers, it becomes difficult – if not impossible – to share equipment data among organizations, benchmark equipment performance, perform modeling and simulation of current and proposed systems, or use performance data to improve operations of commercial and naval vessels. Creating consistency on the largest possible scale will produce accurate information for the improvement of shipbuilding and ship operations.
The objective of this effort is to propose and agree on standard equipment boundaries with the maritime industry, the U.S. Navy, and any other maritime organizations willing to participate and establish a worldwide set of standards for use by government and industry in operational data collection and reporting. Applications for this data include modeling and simulation of complex systems for new ship design, tracking of commercial and naval equipment performance, bench marking equipment performance across commercial and military applications, condition-based monitoring, overhaul planning, and preplanned product improvement using commercial-off-the-shelf and mission- specific equipment.
The following current equipment identification systems were reviewed:
Norwegian SFI Group system
Expanded Ship Work Breakdown Structure System of the U.S. Navy
North Atlantic Treaty Organization codification system
Draft Marine Safety Evaluation Program System of the U.S. Coast Guard
ISO/Final Draft International Standard 14224 - petroleum and natural gas industries guidelines
Draft ISO Standard for the Exchange Product (STEP) Model Data/Application Protocol (AP) 226 - Ship Breakdown Structure
The advantages and disadvantages of each system were identified. Requirements for potential compliance with ISO 13584 were also investigated. An object-oriented approach was selected since it offers higher efficiency as well as the best potential for compliance with existing standards. It was decided to use the draft ISO STEP AP 226 as the basis for the development of a generic list of objects.
A draft ship breakdown structure was developed for mechanical products. The proposed breakdown uses an object- oriented approach similar to the approach recommended by ISO 10303. Four levels of indenture from the ship to the maintenance part are proposed. A definition is provided for each object along with a list of properties for identification and RAM data exchange. The draft breakdown structure is currently being reviewed by the project advisory board.
The immediate objective is to turn the proposed draft into an official draft with the American Society for Testing and Materials. A further objective would be to expand the scope of the standard. In particular, advisory board members expressed the need to include software applications, which are becoming a critical element in modern ship design with respect to RAM assessment. This project is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research’s Navy Manufacturing Technology Program through the Gulf Coast Region Maritime Technology Center at the UNO COE.
For more information see the
Point of Contact for this survey.
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