Guest editorial

Citation

Raouf, A., Duffuaa, S. and Ben-Daya, M. (2006), "Guest editorial", Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jqme.2006.15412aaa.001

Guest editorial

Professor Dr A. Raouf has over 40 years’ academic experience to his credit. During this period he was actively engaged in undergraduate and graduate teaching, supervising graduate students and industrial consulting work. Of this period, for more than two decades he was at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada and was Head of the Industrial Engineering Department for seven years. During this period he supervised 28 graduate students. He has more than 150 research papers in conferences and journals, has contributed 25 chapters to various books and also has six books to his credit. He is Editor in Chief of Anbar, and the award-winning Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering. He is a member of the editorial boards of nine international journals. His current significant assignments include being a Fellow Member of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences; Advisor, University of Management and Technology, and Member of the Committee on Curriculum Reforms of the Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan. He holds one of the highest civil awards in Pakistan for his contribution to the uplift of industrial engineering worldwide. He is Chairman of the Committee for Quality Assurance of Educational Institutions which was constituted by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan. He also Chairs HEC’s Committee on Accreditation of Engineering Programs. Based on his contributions, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan has bestowed upon him the title of “Distinguished National Professor”.

This issue of JQME is the 10th anniversary special issue. This journal started at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, where a team was actively conducting research and consultancy in the area of maintenance. A decade ago a scholarly journal addressing maintenance issues specifically was not available. The team decided to edit a special issue of the International Journal of Operations & Production Management on maintenance. The management of MCB University Press (now Emerald Group Publishing Limited) showed interest in launching a journal, and as a result JQME got its title and start. The support provided by the KFUPM authorities and the hard work of the Editors and editorial team has not only kept the journal going but improved the quality of articles published.

Maintenance has gone through many changes, which have been caused by rapidly advancing technology, increasing equipment costs, training and managing very sophisticated machinery. This special issue reflects the breadth of the discipline to some extent.

The first paper presents a concept of maintenance strategy and its effectiveness and uses consistency and contributions to competitive advantage to develop a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of strategy. It contains case studies and suggests that the framework developed can be used as a strategic audit tool to assess the maintenance functions of an organization.

The reliability of human performance significantly affects the quality of maintenance and the safety of operating equipment and operations. “Human error in maintenance” is the subject of the second paper. This paper provides a review of the literature on human error in maintenance in various industry sectors.

The quality of input data is essential for making optimal decisions based on mathematical models. The third paper addresses issues related to data management, and is especially concerned with the optimization of condition-based maintenance. It identifies common quality data, quality problems and suggests methods for resolving common related issues, including missing data.

A growing trend towards leasing equipment rather than owing it is being experienced. “Maintenance strategies for used equipment under lease” is the topic of the fourth paper. Normally, with used equipment, the leaser has the option to improve the reliability of the leased equipment through an upgrade action before leasing. This is in addition to preventive maintenance to minimize equipment failure during the lease period. This paper deals with this topic in detail, and may be of great interest to organizations involved in leasing equipment.

The fifth paper presents an integrated model that simultaneously considers inventory production decisions, preventive maintenance schedule and warranty policy for systems that experience shifts to an out-of-control state.

Control charts are used as a tool for maintaining an effective statistical process control. The sixth paper presents a control chart for maintaining process means and variances. This paper presents a chart based on the non-central chi-square statistic that is claimed to be operationally simpler and more effective than X¯ and R charts in detecting assigned causes.

The seventh paper develops a procedure for deciding on the limits of initial clearance to which tubesheet holes can be enlarged before replacement in heat exchanger maintenance. The procedure is derived based on an empirical model that relates the hardness of roller expanded tubes and ligaments to their initial clearance. Experimental data is used to predict the extent of tolerable levels of over-enlargement of tubesheet holes before the joint loses its structural integrity. The procedure developed, combined with industrial criteria, results in new criteria for heat exchanger tube replacement. The proposed criteria are expected to have an impact on the cost of heat exchanger maintenance and plant downtime.

Abdul Raouf, Salih Duffuaa, Mohamed Ben-DayaGuest Editors