The goal of the course is to introduce the student to the role of industrial asset management and maintenance (within asset management) in order to guarantee the reliability, availability, quality, safety and costs in the operations of complex engineered systems. In particular, the course will consider industrial production systems (built based on equipment for discrete manufacturing and process industry), service systems (including, e.g., air conditioning, power and heat generation, etc.) and infrastructures (e.g. transport infrastructure). The course fits into the overall program curriculum pursuing some of the defined general learning goals and, in particular, contributing to the development of the following capabilities:

• Understand context, functions and processes of industrial maintenance and asset management, as well as their impacts in terms of asset-related performances, costs and risks;
• Identify trends, technologies and key methodologies to support decision-making to manage industrial assets along their lifecycle;
• Design solutions for industrial maintenance and asset management based on the application of a scientific and engineering approach to face problems and opportunities in a business and industrial environment.

The main expected learning outcomes of the course, achievable through lectures and exercise sessions, consist of knowledge and comprehension of the main criteria and methods to support engineering and management decisions for industrial maintenance and asset management, as well as of the practical abilities to analyze performances, costs and risks to support the asset-related decision-making. In particular, the course will allow students to achieve knowledge and comprehension in order to:

• Name and define, with precise terminology, context, functions, processes and decisions within the scope of industrial maintenance and asset management;
• Recognize and discuss the role of industrial maintenance and asset management in terms of their impacts in terms of reliability, availability, quality, safety and costs;
• Describe and explain the main performances and costs impacted by industrial maintenance and asset management;
• Describe and explain the main criteria, modeling techniques and methods, and methodologies/approaches to support engineering and management decisions for industrial maintenance and asset management;
• Identify, describe and analyze the key trends in information systems and automation, relying on key enabling technologies for information management and decision-making support in industrial maintenance and asset management.

The course will also allow students to be able to practically apply the acquired knowledge and comprehension in specific problem settings, proposed during the exercise sessions and requiring abilities of analysis and synthesis, leading to:

• Distinguish different contexts and requirements identified in specific problem settings, eventually being able to understand problems and opportunities in a given business and industrial environment and to formulate the goals in terms of performances and costs addressed by the industrial assets;
• Analyze the data sets provided within specific problem settings, to estimate the related performances, costs as well as the risks due to uncertainties in attainment of the goals;
• Design solutions for industrial maintenance and asset management, considering the contexts and the requirements due to specific problem settings, the targeted performances and costs, and the requirements for risk mitigation.

The goal of the course is to introduce the student to the role of industrial asset management and maintenance (within asset management) in order to guarantee the reliability, availability, quality, safety and costs in the operations of complex engineered systems. Amongst the issues to be solved, the management of the entire life cycle of physical (i.e. industrial) assets and required resources plays a key role. Indeed, asset lifecycle management is becoming increasingly important to meet the demands of efficiency and effectiveness in the use of physical/industrial assets, and to ensure company competitiveness and sustainability through minimizing the total cost of ownership (i.e. total cost throughout the entire life cycle).

This new vision in the management of assets can also completely redefine the role of maintenance, which becomes the key component of a much more complex and integrated management concept along the asset lifecycle. From the traditional, but raw, vision in which maintenance must solve unpredictable failures resulting from deficiencies in design, construction or operation of the asset, we switch to a vision in which the design, construction or operation phases of the asset life are closely connected and interdependent to ensure the best use of available resources. Besides, end of life management may assume an important role to manage ageing and obsolescence of the assets, with the final purpose to support company competitiveness and sustainability. Asset management then becomes the decisive factor for: reducing costs; optimizing the service provided by the assets; guaranteeing safety, quality and sustainability; maximizing the value obtained from the assets use, thus improving company competitiveness.

This view was confirmed by the recent introduction of ISO 5500x body of standards on asset management that will certainly give a strong impetus also to the modernization of maintenance management. This change is also due to the recent introduction of technological and organizational changes, such as:

i)     availability of advanced ICT and automation that allow to enhance asset-related decision-making support;

ii)    availability of new diagnostic and prognostic technologies that allow to assess and predict the health state of the asset; 

iii)   the development of new organizational forms of management of the maintenance service that enable companies to delegate to third parties the maintenance activities through the establishment of contracts also related to performances.

Considering the all developments and expected trends related to industrial asset management and maintenance (within asset management), the following topics are presented during the lectures and practically tested by means exercise sessions:

· Role of maintenance management and asset lifecycle management for competitiveness and sustainability 

· Basics of reliability, maintainability, availability and maintenance costs

· Maintenance policies and cost optimization

· Condition based maintenance program development: monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics

· Condition Based Maintenance and Data analytics

· Methodologies, methods, techniques for Reliability and Maintenance Engineering, including Reliability Centered Maintenance and Total Productive Maintenance

· Spare parts and material management

· Maintenance outsourcing, Product Service Systems applied to Service in Maintenance

· Maintenance organization and maintenance processes

· Maintenance planning and scheduling

· Budget and cost control in maintenance

· Maintenance performance measurement

· Computerized Maintenance Management System and Reliability and Maintenance Engineering System

· Smart/Intelligent Maintenance and Asset Management based on Key Enabling Technologies in Industry 4.0

· Maintenance strategy and optimization of asset lifecycle

· Asset lifecycle management and total cost of ownership

The examination consists of a written examination on the content of the lectures and exercise sessions and of an oral examination.

Overall, the students will have to demonstrate, during the exam, his/her learning outcomes as knowledge and comprehension of the main criteria and methods to support engineering and management decisions for industrial maintenance and asset management, as well as of the practical abilities to analyze performances, costs and risks to support the asset-related decision-making.

In particular, during the exam, the students will have to:

• be able to name and define, with precise terminology, context, functions, processes and decisions within the scope of industrial maintenance and asset management;
• be able to recognize and discuss the role of industrial maintenance and asset management in terms of their impacts in terms of reliability, availability, quality, safety and costs;
• be able to describe and explain the main performances and costs impacted by industrial maintenance and asset management;
• be able to describe and explain criteria, modeling techniques and methods, and methodologies/approaches to support engineering and management decisions for industrial maintenance and asset management;
• be able to identify, describe and analyze the key trends in information systems and automation, relying on key enabling technologies for information management and decision-making support in industrial maintenance and asset management.
• be able to distinguish different contexts and requirements identified in specific problem settings, eventually being able to understand problems and opportunities in a given business and industrial environment and to formulate the goals in terms of performances and costs addressed by the industrial assets;
• be able to analyze the data sets provided within specific problem settings, to estimate the related performances, costs as well as the risks due to uncertainties in attainment of the goals;
• be able to design solutions for industrial maintenance and asset management, considering the contexts and the requirements due to specific problem settings, the targeted performances and costs, and the risk mitigation.

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