Design for Maintainability

Design for Maintainability, RT-142, is the gift that keeps on giving. It will improve project return on investment, allows for a smoother project startup, realizes less project rework, produces a less costly maintenance investment, and results in a lower life cycle cost. It will help designers and contractors by illustrating methods of integrating maintainability knowledge into project design and construction. Similar to constructability, this topic emphasizes the importance of timely integration of design and construction knowledge into project designs at an early stage.

Design for Maintainability is the first step of an effective maintenance program, linking maintenance goals to the design process. If adequate measures for cost-effective maintainability are not integrated into the design and construction phases of a project, the risk increases that 1) reliability will be adversely impacted and 2) total life cycle costs will increase significantly. Appropriate levels of maintainability seldom occur by chance. front end planning, setting objectives, disciplined design implementation, and feedback from prior projects are all required. It is vital to identify critical maintainability and reliability issues and integrate them into facility project designs to achieve long-term facility owning and operating benefits.

Design for Maintainability is an Owner driven process and a corporate-level best practice that will assist all projects in contributing to improved profitability. Implementing design for maintainability is the start of a process journey toward improved return on project investment. RT-142 is a comprehensive package comprised of maintainability best practices, a model process, and tools to help the user implement these best practices and achieve the model process. Design for maintainability integrates downstream experience and knowledge regarding cost-effective facility/plant operations and maintenance into project design parameters with the goal of reducing the costs to operate the facility for its expected life. Effective design for maintainability is achieved though the integration of maintainability practices with the corporate-level best practice of the continuous improvement process.