Maintenance for Industrial Systems

New, global and extended markets are forcing companies to process and manage increasingly differentiated products with shorter life cycles, low volumes and reduced customer delivery times. In today's global marketplace production systems need to be able to deliver products on time, maintain market credibility and introduce new products and services faster than competitors. As a result, a new production paradigm of a production system has been developed and a supporting management decision-making approach simultaneously incorporating design, management, and control of the production system is necessary so that this challenge can be effectively and efficiency met.

'Maintenance Engineering and its Applications in Production Systems' meets this need by introducing an original and integrated idea of maintenance: maintenance for productivity. The volume starts with the introduction and discussion of a new conceptual framework based on productivity, quality, and safety supported by maintenance. Subsequent chapters illustrate the most relevant models and methods to plan, organise, implement and control the whole maintenance process (reliability evaluation models and prediction, maintenance strategies and policies, spare parts management, computer maintenance management software - CMMS, and total productive maintenance - TPM, etc.). Several examples of problems supported by solutions, and real applications to help and test the reader's comprehension are included.

'Maintenance Engineering and its Applications in Production Systems' will certainly be valuable to engineering students, doctoral and post-doctoral students and also to maintenance practitioners, as well as managers of industrial and service companies.

Dr Riccardo Manzini is a professor of Logistics and Reliability & Maintenance in the Department of Industrial and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bologna, Italy. His academic research principally deals with planning, design and control of production systems with particular reference to reliability modelling and maintenance system management and optimisation. He has carried out several research projects in co-operation with - and funded by - private and public companies on logistics, industrial plants and maintenance problems. He is the author of about 70 published papers on production systems, logistics and reliability, and a referee of several ISI journals.

Dr Alberto Regattieri is a professor in the Department of Industrial and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bologna, Italy. He received his PhD from Parma University. His current research interests include the optimal design of complex production systems; reliability modelling of production systems; and the maintenance of industrial plants. In 2005 he received the Williamson Award Emerald Literati Club for his studies. He has authored or co-authored several books and over 70 technical publications. He manages a Masters course in Maintenance Engineering at the University of Bologna and has carried out several research projects in co-operation with - and funded by - large private and public companies on maintenance problems in Italy.

Dr Hoang Pham is a professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rutgers University, Piscataway. Before joining Rutgers, he was a senior engineering specialist at the Boeing Company and the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. His current research includes system reliability modelling; maintenance; and environmental risk assessment. He is the author of three textbooks, 30 book chapters and has published more than 150 papers. He is the editor of two handbooks and more than 10 books; the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Reliability, Quality and Safety Engineering; associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics Part A; editor of Springer Series in Reliability Engineering; and a fellow of the IEEE.

Dr Emilio Ferrari is a full professor in industrial logistics in the Department of Industrial and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bologna. His current research mostly includes industrial logistics and industrial plants maintenance, design and management. He is the author of more than 70 publications. At the Faculty of Engineering he is currently chairman of the undergraduate course in Engineering and Management, director of the Masters degree in Integrated Logistics, director of the international summer school Francesco Turco and director of the Department of Industrial and Mechanical Engineering.