RAM Analysis for Unmanned Asset in a Remote Location

Running an unmanned asset in a remote area of the Amazon rainforest is a challenging endeavour, even when the asset design has been simplified and is well-proven. Despite the difficulties, MACH10 performed a Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) analysis of a new production facility, and related export system, for one of its customers operating in South America.

The facility was located in a remote area of the Amazon rainforest, only accessible by air or via the river. The main focus of the RAM study was to identify, and remove, production bottlenecks caused by the logistical constraints.

This task was performed using best-in-class RAM analysis software to model the process and assess maintenance plans, spare parts stock composition, warehouse location, maintenance staff composition and accommodation, transportation system and travel time to predict the asset’s up-time and production efficiency.

The study showed an overall production efficiency loss of 1.3%, caused equally by equipment failures, 50%, and maintenance team mobilization and spare parts availability, 50%.

The resulting overall production efficiency of 98.7% was in line with customer expectations.

However, a sensitivity-case was studied to assess the relationship between production loss and maintenance and logistics. The production loss events grouped by outage duration showed two major groups:

• the first group of events had an average duration of 24 hours and it is mainly related to the equipment repair time;
• the second group had an average duration of 350 hours that is mainly due to the spare parts logistics and OEM mobilization, when required.

The RAM model was used to set up a spare parts inventory in order to reduce the number of outages of the second group. The result was an increase of asset uptime by 0.5%. Furthermore, the original design of the warehouse was validated, according to the revised spare parts stocking levels to ensure a scenario where upgraded production efficiency could be achieved.