[Themaintainers] Maintenance engineering coursework?

Mon Apr 5 22:28:36 EDT 2021

Hi Jonathan,

So excited for you and this curriculum! I hope some of the below is helpful
to you and your students.

You may be familiar with John Sterman's @ MIT Capability Traps and his work
re-engineering MIT's campus infrastructure to avoid such traps. It's
summarized in a nice video here
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv6vyf8AFD8>

Resonating what David Albrecht mentioned earlier, "American Cities are run
like Ponzi schemes" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0> is a
great explainer of how maintenance is often deferred in lieu of  growth
narratives.

My own work over the past 6 years has centered around interrogating our
commons (physical and digital) through a lens of leaks, cracks, and holes
and designing systems that prioritize proactive maintenance.
I've worked with local governments through Project SQUID
<https://www.hackster.io/argo/squid-street-quality-identification-a43367>
an attempt to show how low-cost and frequent digital surveys of street
distress (potholes) could change the paradigm to proactive maintenance.
Here's the former commissioner of NYC DOT, Lou Riccio explaining Pothole
Analytics <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ohbduvVrM>

For the past 2 years, I've worked with US Gas Utilities on the maintenance
of Underground Gas Infrastructure.
I've encountered a broad range of maintenance positions - ranging from
those who take immense pride in performing regular leak surveys to those
who operate on a "what we don't know won't hurt" viewpoint of criminal
ignorance.
Some other interesting facts from the Gas Industry. Some of NYC's Gas Pipes
built in the late 1800s are in better condition than those in the 1960s. As
an anonymous commenter on this NYT article states, "the bean counters" of
yore are partly responsible for the sorry state of our infrastructure." and
he's right (to an extent)
The McNamara effect of bringing management science into civilian
infrastructure operations did result in relatively more brittle
infrastructure.
Interestingly, I've also encountered how Weibull analysis (from Reliability
Engineering?) a method of forecasting failure in aviation systems has found
itself in forecasting breaks in Gas Pipelines.
Your local Gas utility (Boston Gas) may have some amazing first hand
knowledge.
Last point re: Underground Infrastructure is how maintaining a National
Underground Asset Register saves Japan upto $10 Billion / year in avoiding
underground damages.

The Civilian Conservation Corps <https://vimeo.com/150192017> was touted as
FDR's Tree Army but really started out educating the public about proper
soil maintenance
Nadia Eghbal's explanation of Open Source Stewards and the work it takes to
maintain critical open source infrastructure is wonderful
<https://youtu.be/5wLKnN3To-k>
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CAfACI7LBY> is a
wonderfully made and heart wrenching documentary that tells the story of
how one of the largest public housing projects in the country was set up to
fail in part because no funds were allocated for operations and maintenance.

Lastly, in the "wake" of the recent blockade of the Suez, my father sailed
the high seas for 30+ years, mostly within the noisy engine rooms
maintaining 50-100,000 horsepower engines in the middle of nowhere.
His maintenance stories are magnificent and over the pandemic, we recounted
one of his more illustrious tales
<https://vr00n.medium.com/a-breach-in-the-forecastle-d9c0d3ec0da8> on the
high seas.

PS: I presented a Guild of Leaks, Cracks, and Holes
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14pU0qJ4CCwsRyT6t0aKOrO7WxJ8pPV10UAXDAYZMLRM/edit#slide=id.g620b1c1846_0_0>
at the last Maintainers conference where I cheekily appropriated JFK's 1962
Moon speech to focus on "the other hard things" than the fabled moonshot.
It also has some references to solid articles in the Economist that
highlight the importance of Maintenance.

On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 8:40 PM Rollie Cole <rolliecole at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have several relatives who were accountants, one even a professor of
> accounting. I am all in favor of getting everybody to understand some
> accounting concepts.
>
> But the example below I find problematical. A $1M road with a 20-year life
> SHOULD not require zero maintenance for 20 years, then a sudden $1M (plus
> whatever inflation has done) to replace. Instead, IF it is maintained, it
> should last not 20 years, but decades beyond that. In the process, the road
> "owner" might well spend roughly $1M each 20 years, but it should be spread
> over maintenance all during each 20-year period.
>
> I do agree, however, that many, many (far too many!) cities defer
> maintenance year after year until replacement is the only option.
> Accounting is a way to track how bad a practice that is, but does not
> itself cure the bad practice. It is perhaps necessary, but never sufficient.
>
> On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 5:59 AM David Albrecht <albrecht.dr at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Rental property operator and software engineer here.
>>
>> I don't think a course like this is complete without some discussion of
>> accounting. At the risk of stating the obvious, accounting is the
>> accumulated body of knowledge on how to quantify economic activity.
>> Probably half if not more maintenance problems are ultimately rooted in
>> poor accounting, specifically focusing too much on cashflow and not enough
>> on the balance sheet.
>>
>> Simple but obvious example to illustrate the point. A municipality spends
>> $1 million on a new road with an estimated lifetime of 20 years. Next year,
>> they collect $500k in tax revenue and spend $475k. Yay, a surplus! Cut
>> taxes! Except the simple math of $1 million/20 years for our road shows you
>> need to be tracking the $50k annual wear and tear...somewhere. Most
>> organizations -- many municipalities and unsophisticated rental property
>> operators -- don't do this well, and are caught short when a major capital
>> item hits end-of-life, causing them to scramble to get a loan and fall
>> farther and farther into debt they have no way to service.
>>
>> I think the solution is to emphasize a culture of continuous, incremental
>> capital replacement in an organization. I haven't seen too many
>> organizations (especially in the public sector) with the discipline to
>> accumulate huge piles of cash for lumpy capital spending, without
>> shenanigans taking place that cause the money to get redirected for other
>> short-term uses. I'd love to know if I'm wrong about this.
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 5:02 PM Melinda Hodkiewicz <
>> melinda.hodkiewicz at uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Jonathan,
>>>
>>> I am a maintenance engineer and for many years have taught university
>>> and executive education courses on maintenance, asset management,
>>> reliability, risk and safety. I was Australia’s representative on the
>>> development of the ISO55000/1/2 set of Asset Management Standards.
>>> Maintenance is one of the major elements of asset management. A good
>>> reference to all things AM is the GFMAM sute (Global Forum on Maintenance
>>> and Asset Management) https://gfmam.org/global-collaboration. Their
>>> publications page is a useful source of teaching materials.
>>> Can I suggest, all found (for free) on this page.
>>>
>>> ·       The AM Landscape,
>>>
>>> ·       The Maintenance Framework, and
>>>
>>> ·       The Value of Asset Management.
>>>
>>> The Maintenance Framework book will be particularly helpful for
>>> engineers-in-training as it covers the maintenance management process
>>> (identify work (maintenance strategy)-schedule-planning-execution) that
>>> they are most likely to be exposed to when they graduate if they work for
>>> an asset operating organisation.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> About 7 years ago I was asked to develop a one semester class for final
>>> year engineers of all disciplines (process, mech, civil, elec, software,
>>> chemical, mining) on risk, reliability and safety. Maintenance is covered
>>> in detail as it is one of the main ways we manage risk. Attached is an
>>> overview of the unit if you are interested. Below is a brief overview:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> “*The unit aims to provide a holistic an integrated overview of the
>>> theory and practice in the fields of risk, reliability and safety, to
>>> prepare our engineers for professional practice. The unit develops
>>> students' technical and statistical skills and covers the social and
>>> organisational contexts, extending the students’ field of view beyond the
>>> technical to consider the customer and the organisation’s needs. The unit
>>> is taught to all engineering disciplines in one class to reinforce the need
>>> for cross-discipline collaboration and accommodation of different
>>> stakeholders and perspectives in risk and safety management*.”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The class is huge >300 students and taught twice a year. It is co-taught
>>> with a statistician and my part (the engineering part) in taught using
>>> flipped learning and case study based interactive workshops.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Very happy to share what we have learned over the last 7 years, ideas
>>> and materials. We have taught this unit to over 4000 students.
>>>
>>> Regards Melinda
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Professor Melinda Hodkiewicz
>>>
>>> BA Hons (Oxon), PhD, CEng, FTSE
>>>
>>> BHP Fellow for Engineering for Remote Operations
>>>
>>> Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
>>>
>>> University of Western Australia
>>>
>>> M050, UWA, Crawley, Perth, WA 6009
>>>
>>> Melinda.hodkiewicz at uwa.edu.au
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu <
>>> themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> *On Behalf Of *Jonathan Krones
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, 3 April 2021 3:39 AM
>>> *To:* themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
>>> *Subject:* [Themaintainers] Maintenance engineering coursework?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Maintainers,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> First time caller, long time lurker. I'm starting work on a new syllabus
>>> for an upper-level undergraduate general engineering elective tentatively
>>> called "Maintenance Engineering" (although I'll probably need to snazz it
>>> up to get any enrollment). The idea is to cover concepts from a variety of
>>> engineering fields (e.g., civil, software systems, materials,
>>> manufacturing, product design) that relate to issues of maintenance,
>>> repair, and other types of life extension of engineered systems. I'm still
>>> in early stages and am interested in learning about any similar courses
>>> that folks in this community might know. I'm also open to suggestions on
>>> topics or concepts that you think should go into a course like this. It
>>> will likely be a combination of probability/statistical models, systems
>>> engineering concepts, and the engineering science bases of inspection,
>>> preventative maintenance, repair and remanufacturing, etc.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> *Jonathan S Krones, PhD*
>>>
>>> Core Fellow / Visiting Assistant Professor | Boston College
>>>
>>> Research Affiliate | MIT Olivetti Research Group
>>>
>>> jonathan.krones at bc.edu | 301.788.4206
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> +1 (217) 721-4258
>> http://davidralbrecht.com/
>>
>> weniger, aber besser
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>
>
> --
> Rollie Cole
> Author of WHOLESALE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/wholesaleeconomics
> 5902 Westslope Drive
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-- 
Thank You,
Varun Adibhatla
ARGO
347-815-3383
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