Maintenance optimization: application of remanufacturing and repair strategies

Abstract

Power plant facilities located in remote and difficult to access regions often experience significant production losses due to failures, inaccurate remanufacturing, maintenance activities in addition to prolonged lead time delays while procuring critical spares. This is especially the case given unanticipated power plant failures which could portend significant power generation losses besides outages that could lead to significant societal disruptions, for instance, off grid hospital facilities. This study uses a discrete event simulation model to analyze the effect of remanufacturing and maintenance as part of circular economy strategies, on power plant availability and maintenance time. The proposed study is demonstrated through the use case of a thermal power plant located in a remote region, where findings suggest replacing components upon failure has the most significant impact and effect on system availability as well as maintenance time. Moreover, a reduction of mean time before Overhaul (MTBO) seems to lengthen the component's usage-life, hence reduces the maintenance time, and at the same time, increases the system availability. Reuse activity also yields a better mean time to recovery (MTTR), while repair has the highest amongst the evaluated recovery strategies. The study adds value by developing a framework, further applying a simulation modelling approach for evaluating the effects of remanufacturing and maintenance strategies on plant availability.