Maintenance impacts on • The condition of a company’s assets • The output of a company’s assets Ideally all equipment should have a maintenance strategy which details why and how that equipment is to be maintained, what failure modes are to be addressed by preventative maintenance (if applicable) and, at high level, what preventative maintenance will be carried out at what frequency in order to prevent unacceptable levels of corrective maintenance. The strategy is then used to develop a preventative maintenance routine which tells the maintenance technician exactly what he is required to do and check. Preventative maintenance (PM) routines can be developed through extensive Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) studies or based on knowledge of equipment operation. Over the years many operating assets have carried out both types of PM development and there is a wealth of information available. These have been developed largely in isolation although the base equipment is very similar across the oil and gas industry.
