Reliability Analysis of Polyurethane (PU) Machine

Abstract

This study evaluated the reliability of an aluminium production line. It utilized the Root Cause Analysis as a maintenance tool to determine the reliability of units of the production line. The maintenance method assigned to a production line depends on the criticality of the root cause of the equipment failure. The root cause, direct cause and instrumental causes of failure were evaluated. Polyurethane production machine was chosen for the analysis. Results showed that equipment/maintenance problems made up the major causes of failure in the production line while management, personnel, procedure error and critical spare parts delays constituted the least. It was also shown in the work that the production line has high availability, reliability and quality. Excel spreadsheet and Matrix Laboratory “MATLAB” programme were used to analyze the results. If a good maintenance approach is adopted; it will decrease equipment failure, decrease production line downtime, better product quality, and an improvement in workers’ morale, environmental safety, energy savings and customer satisfaction. The research also guides choosing the best root-cause analysis strategy depending on the requirements of a particular equipment and application.