Paper
TQM-Based Equipment Maintenance in Oilfield Service Industries
- Authors:
- Jim Lee; Anthony J. Gaspard; Jalel Ben Hmida
- Abstract
- Equipment maintenance programs in oilfield service companies today are not designed to handle complex oilfield equipment. In many instances, equipment that returns from a job is washed, painted, and reinstated for service without any type of special maintenance, inspection, or performance evaluation for its mechanized components. By short cutting the maintenance requirements, equipment availability increases but equipment reliability decreases. According to internal records, a local oil service company experienced a loss in revenue of $300,000 over a seven-month period directly attributable to issues of non-performance of its equipment. This research suggests that a Total Quality Management (TQM) based equipment maintenance program that focuses on employee empowerment and structured communication channel can reduce equipment failure and downtime. Various TQM tools are suggested to deal with the maintenance issues identified in the management level. Maintenance procedures and work instructions are then evaluated with new procedures proposed in the operational level to implement the TQM concepts.
- Keywords
- TQM; Oilfield Service Industry; Equipment Maintenance; Organizational Structure; Work Instructions
- StartPage
- 60
- EndPage
- 69
- Doi