Author(s): Dutra, Frederico José Bessa
Date: 2016
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/20003
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Subject(s): TRIZ; Industrial maintenance; Substance-field analysis; Equipment Availability; Redundancy; Efficiency improvement; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Mecânica
The problems in steam systems installations in Africa have three main causes: lack of proper preventive and predictive maintenance actions; lack of awareness of the importance of availability and efficiency of the systems during design stage; and lack of care and misuse of the steam systems during operation due to the scarcity of specialized workforce. The present study, carried out during a one year trainee program within the scope of Bosch Industrial Business Development in Africa, is focused on identifying po-tential improvement points and problems related to maintenance and efficiency in Steam Systems in Africa. Maintenance services offered by the company were studied and after thorough analysis, improvement points were identified using TRIZ methodol-ogy in order to propose enhanced solutions further adapted to the African necessities. A detailed analysis was performed regarding the problems of equipment availability in Africa, thus enlightening the importance of redundant solutions in a market where qual-ified workforce and spare parts for equipment are not easily and readily available. A remote predictive and preventive maintenance solution was identified using Contradiction Matrix. An improvement to a maintenance contract was proposed using Substance-Field analysis. A suggestion to increase the availability of a steam system, and a proposal to increase the efficiency of a steam system were both also developed using Substance-Field analysis. In this way, the study was focused on using innovative methodologies in the development of improvement proposals in Africa, without disregarding the importance of certain aspects that are often not taken into account as much as they should.
