Guest editorial

Citation

Kumar, U. and Parida, A. (2009), "Guest editorial", Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 15 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jqme.2009.15415baa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Volume 15, Issue 2

About the Guest Editors

Uday KumarProfessor in the Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering of the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.

Aditya ParidaAssistant Professor in the same Division in the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.

The role of condition monitoring and information and communication and technologies (ICT) is recognised by academia and industries as an important area of research as it facilitates an effective management of the operation and maintenance process. Therefore, more and more researchers have undertaken R&D activities in these two multi-disciplinary areas in search of innovative solutions to the challenges encountered by various industries. To ensure high level of quality, reliability, availability and performance of the plant, machineries it is essential to adopt the most suitable condition monitoring techniques systematic identification and elimination of plant and machinery health deterioration at an early stage and help engineers to prolong service lives of machinery and equipments. The theme of this special issue on condition monitoring and application of ICT is appropriately relevant for the health management system of the manufacturing, transport, infrastructure and process industries under present scenario.

There are seven papers included in this special issue covering the following multi-disciplinary areas of condition monitoring and application of ICT:

1. 1.

   The first paper by Ramin Karim, Peter Söderholm, and Olov Candell discusses development of ICT-based maintenance support services and presents a taxonomy for an eMaintenance management framework based on a service-oriented approach. The proposed framework facilitates identification of critical information essential for enhancing the effectiveness of maintenance process.

2. 2.

   The second paper by Aitor Arnaiz Irrigaray, Eduardo Gilabert, Erkki Jantunen, and Adam Adgar describes a flexible architecture concept to provide a ubiquitous computing framework where condition-based maintenance data and information can be easily accessed for dynamic maintenance management solutions.

3. 3.

   The maintenance management framework, a practical view to maintenance management, by A. Crespo Márquez, P. Moreu de León, J.F. Gómez Fernández, C. Parra Márquez, and M. López Campos offers a practical view of the set of activities composing of different management blocks resulting in different maintenance engineering tools, which are classified as qualitative and quantitative analytical tool.

4. 4.

   The paper by Erik Olsson and Peter Funk, proposes an agent-based condition monitoring system for use in industrial application. The authors have described an intelligent maintenance agent that is able to autonomously perform the necessary action and/or aid a human in the decision-making process, and a case study is presented from manufacturing of industrial robots.

5. 5.

   S. Ali Mirhadizadeh and D. Mba present experimental tests aimed at understanding the influence of speed and load on generation of acoustic emission in a hydrodynamic bearing. The authors conclude that the power losses associated with the bearings have a direct influence on the generation of acoustic emission.

6. 6.

   The sixth paper by Arne Nissen presents a case-study from Swedish National Rail Administration and describes the classification scheme for crossings and switches to develop a life cycle cost model based on switches and crossings condition useful for correct decision making in maintenance.

7. 7.

   The paper by Jawad Raza and Jayantha P. Liyanage illustrates the application of neural network approach to analyze system health and sub-optimal performance based on real plant data.

The guest editors would like to thank all authors, who have contributed their articles to this special issue, and all reviewers for their untiring efforts in getting the papers reviewed in time.

Uday Kumar and Aditya ParidaGuest Editors