Ship maintenance plans
In the previous blog, we talked about the importance of a good maintenance plan and its effectiveness by combining the three types of existing maintenance. Corrective Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance, and Preventive Maintenance.
Well, this is not enough by itself, that is why the Class Societies, and the Flag Registries of the different countries carry out inspections on the ships, and one of the points to be inspected is the Ship’s maintenance plan, and the routines carried out.
Each manufacturer of equipment installed on board goes through rigorous inspections by the Class Societies in order to launch the certified equipment on the market. Within this type of inspection is the study of the materials used in the equipment for its construction, the manufacturing processes, and finally, the equipment testing stage.
The manufacturer, in the manuals or product information, places the recommendations for maintenance of the equipment with the hour intervals of the unit. They also recommend the type of lubricants of the different brands on the market that are to be used in the equipment according to studies and tests.
This type of manufacturer’s instructions, and the intervals that the different services must be performed on the equipment, must be included in the Ship’s maintenance plan, forming part of the equipment maintenance orders.
The essential equipment for the navigation and safety of the boat must go through routine inspections that must be included in the maintenance plan. The satisfactory results and any anomaly found must be documented in the service orders to demonstrate before the Class, Port State Control, or inspection of the Flag the different tests and maintenance carried out.
The Class requires an interval of five years for different types of maintenance on the vessel and inspections that must be carried out and are also included in the maintenance plan. For example, cleaning the different tanks, insulation of electrical equipment, service, calibration, and certification of the main Breakers and emergency generators. For these types of maintenance, the Class will require the reports of these in the different inspections carried out by the Surveyors on board the vessel.
For this reason, keeping the ship up to date with its maintenance plan is important, working together with the company’s technical office or department.
There are several maintenance plans, automatic, manual, and a combination. In automatic plans, the equipment is integrated into the machine monitoring system, and the service hours of the different equipment will automatically be uploaded to the system. Thus, the different service routines appear for execution.
In manual systems, the hours of the equipment must be loaded manually into the system. Thus, the system updates the different service orders.
We at Southern Ocean Marine Engineering Solutions install and adapt to each ship an effective maintenance plan containing all the necessary items for managing the different onboard departments.
In future blogs, we will explain the importance of Class Societies and the different types of Surveys carried out on board.
