Maintenance Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

concepts for the optimization of equipment, procedures, and departmental budgets to achieve better

maintainability In engineering, maintainability is the ease with which a product can be maintained to: * correct defects or their cause, * Repair or replace faulty or worn-out components without having to replace still working parts, * prevent unexpected working ...

reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * High availability * Reliability (computer networking), ...

, and availability of equipment. Maintenance, and hence maintenance engineering, is increasing in importance due to rising amounts of equipment, systems, machineries and infrastructure. Since the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, devices, equipment, machinery and structures have grown increasingly complex, requiring a host of personnel, vocations and related systems needed to maintain them. Prior to 2006, the United States spent approximately US$300 billion annually on plant maintenance and operations alone.Dhillon, Balbir S. (2006
Maintainability, Maintenance, and Reliability for Engineers
CRC Press, 2006, , ; Maintenance is to ensure a unit is fit for purpose, with maximum availability at minimum costs. A person practicing maintenance engineering is known as a maintenance engineer.

Maintenance engineer's description

A maintenance engineer should possess significant knowledge of statistics,

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

, and

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

, and in the fundamentals of the operation of the equipment and machinery he or she is responsible for. A maintenance engineer should also possess high interpersonal, communication, and management skills, as well as the ability to make decisions quickly. Typical responsibilities include:{{cite web, url=https://mechanicalguy.com/, title= Mechanical Guy Wednesday, 27 February 2019 * Assure optimization of the maintenance organization structure * Analysis of repetitive equipment failures * Estimation of maintenance costs and evaluation of alternatives * Forecasting of spare parts * Assessing the needs for equipment replacements and establish replacement programs when due * Application of

scheduling A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things are i ...

and

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. T ...

principles to replacement programs * Assessing required maintenance tools and skills required for efficient maintenance of equipment * Assessing required skills for maintenance personnel * Reviewing personnel transfers to and from maintenance organizations * Assessing and reporting

safety hazard A hazard is a potential source of harm. Substances, events, or circumstances can constitute hazards when their nature would allow them, even just theoretically, to cause damage to health, life, property, or any other interest of value. The probabi ...

s associated with maintenance of equipment

Maintenance engineering education

Institutions across the world have recognised the need for maintenance engineering. Maintenance engineers usually hold a degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, ...

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information an ...

, or other engineering disciplines. In recent years specialised bachelor and master courses have developed. The

bachelor degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to si ...

program in maintenance engineering at the German-Jordanian University in Amman is addressing the need, as well as the master's program in maintenance engineering at

Luleå University of Technology Luleå University of Technology is a Public Research University in Norrbotten County, Sweden. The university has four campuses located in the Arctic Region in the cities of Luleå, Kiruna, Skellefteå, and Piteå. With more than 19,000 student ...

. With an increased demand for Chartered Engineers, The

University of Central Lancashire , mottoeng = "From the Earth to the Sun" , established = as Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledgere-established 1992 (University status granted) , type = Public , chancellor ...

in United Kingdom has developed a MSc in maintenance engineering currently under accreditation with the

Institution of Engineering and Technology The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871, and ...

and a top-up

Bachelor of Engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an academic undergraduate degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at an accredited college or university. In the UK, a Bache ...

with honour degree for technicians holding a

Higher National Diploma Higher National Diploma (HND), part of the Higher Nationals suite of qualifications, is an academic higher education qualification in the United Kingdom and various other countries. They were first introduced in England and Wales in 1920 alongs ...

and seeking a progression in their professional career.

References

https://web.archive.org/web/20110710024804/http://www.gju.edu.jo/page.aspx?id=36&type=s&lng=en&page=159 Industrial engineering Industrial occupations Maintenance Engineering disciplines Engineering occupations Reliability engineering Product lifecycle management Mechanical engineering

Maintenance engineer's description

Maintenance engineering education

See also

References