A simplified numerical decision making toolbox for physical asset management decisions

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The management of physical assets has become a populareld ofstudy over recent years and is being acknowledged in multiple disciplinesworld wide. In this project, research on Physical Asset Management(PAM), maintenance and decision making are presented. PAMis a complex subject and requires the participation of multiple disciplinesin order to successfully manage physical assets. Moreover, themanagement of maintenance makes a big contribution in achievingsuccessful PAM. Decision making is a core element to manage maintenancee ciently, both on strategic and operational level. Variousmethods and techniques can be used to aid the decision making processsuch as, using past experience,xed decision making techniquesand techniques involving numerical calculations, to mention only afew. However, using numerical calculations to make decisions are notvery popular. This is due to various reasons, for example the inherentcomplexity of the mathematics and the time required to execute suchcalculations are disliked. People tend to avoid complex numericalcalculations and rather rely on past experience and discussion of circulatingopinions to make decisions. This is not ideal and can lead toinconsistent and inaccurate decisions. In this project, the importanceof numerical decision making is researched, especially in maintenancerelated decisions. The focus is placed on the simpli cation of numericaldecision making techniques with the aim to make it easy and quickto use to support operational PAM decisions.Di erent decisions regarding PAM, especially decisions with regardsto managing maintenance in order to achieve PAM, are discussed by means of a literature study. This is done to clarify the applicabilityof using numerical decision making techniques to support thistype of decisions. A few di erent available numerical techniques arehighlighted that can be used to support the decision making process.The decisions together with numerical decision making techniques areevaluated in order to combine the most appropriate techniques in asimpli ed manner. The purpose of this is that it can be used by anyonewith the necessary knowledge of a speci c system or operation.As a result a simpli ed numerical decision making toolbox is developedthat can support maintenance related decision. This toolbox isapplied to a real life situation by means of a case study, made possibleby Anglo American Platinum Limited (Amplats). An evaluation andvalidation of the toolbox is done through the case study to concludewether it has value in practice or not.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University