Human reliability and error in maintenance

Abstract

Although humans have felt the need for maintenance of their equipment since the beginning of time, the beginning of the modern engineering maintenance may be regarded as the development of steam engine by James Watt [1736 - 1819] in 1769 in Great Britain (The Volume Library, 1993). Today, billions of dollars are being spent each year on equipment maintenance around the world. For example, each year United States industry alone spends over $300 billion on plant maintenance and operations and for the fiscal year 1997, the operation and maintenance budget request of the United States Department of Defense was $79 billion (Latino, 1999; 1977 DoD Budget, 1996). Humans play an important role during equipment life cycle: design, production, and operation and maintenance phases. Even though, the degree of their role may vary from one equipment to another and from one equipment phase to another, it is subject to deterioration because of the occurrence of human error. A human error may be classified under six distinct categories: design, assembly, inspection, installation, operating, and maintenance (Meister, 1962, 1976). In particular, the maintenance error or poor human reliability occurs basically because of wrong repair or preventive measures and their two examples are incorrect calibration of equipment and application of the wrong grease at appropriate points of the equipment. A comprehensive list of publications on human reliability and error in engineering maintenance is available in Dhillon and Liu (2006). This chapter presents various important aspects of human reliability and error in maintenance. © 2009 Springer-Verlag London.