PAL-VMEA: A Novel Method for Enhancing Decision-Making Consistency in Maintenance Management

Abstract

Decision-making regarding maintenance planning has become increasingly critical. In view of the need for more assertive decisions, methods, and tools based on failure analysis, performance indicators, and risk analysis have obtained great visibility. One of these methods, the Variation and Mode Effect Analysis (VMEA), is a statistically based method that analyses the effect of different sources of variations on a system. One great advantage of VMEA is to facilitate the understanding of these variations and to highlight the system areas in which improvement efforts should be directed. However, like many knowledge-based methods, the inherent epistemic uncertainty can be propagated to its result, influencing following decisions. To minimize this issue, this work proposes the novel combination of VMEA with Paraconsistent Annotated Logic (PAL), a technique that withdraws the principle of noncontradiction, allowing better decision-making when contradictory opinions are present. To demonstrate the method applicability, a case study analyzing a hydrogenerator components is presented. Results show how the proposed method is capable of indicating which are the failure modes that most affect the analyzed system, as well as which variables must be monitored so that the symptoms related to each failure mode can be observed, helping in decision-making regarding maintenance planning.

Keywords

• Paraconsistent Annotated Logic
• Best-Worst Method
• Variation Mode and Effect Analysis
• maintenance management
• decision-making