General

Since the late 1970’s, marine and offshore operators have increasingly applied various proactive maintenance techniques to prevent failures before they occur, detect the onset of failures, or discover failures before they impact system performance. There have been numerous advances in condition monitoring technology, trending, and increasingly more powerful planned maintenance software and machine diagnostics solutions as a result of increased computing power and networking. In 1978, the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) pioneered a new form of cooperation with vessel owners with the intention of developing and implementing preventative maintenance programmes that would incorporate condition monitoring techniques. This cooperation produced, in 1984, the Guide for survey based on preventative maintenance techniques with subsequent updates following in 1985, 1987, 1995. Since then, periodic updates have been ensured the theory and process of preventative maintenance is current with the latest technologies and maintenance procedures in the maritime domain. This is of course crucial as machinery systems continue to become larger and ever more complex, requiring operators with increasingly specialised knowledge of the machinery and systems onboard. Accordingly, the industry has and continues to progress towards reliability-centred maintenance which provides vessel and other marine installation owners, managers and operators with a framework for the development of maintenance programmes using techniques which have been successfully applied in other industries for machinery systems.