Development of a Risk-Based Maintenance (RBM) Strategy for Sewerage Pumping Station Network

Industries have been facing ever-increasing challenges to do more with less under ongoing budget constraints. They are pushing the boundary by challenging the OEM recommended maintenance intervals and relaxing or tightening based on where it is needed. This is also evident in water sector where industries are trying to do targeted maintenance based on balancing costs, performances and risks. The unexpected failures, the down time associated with such failures, the environmental overflows and, the increasing maintenance costs are major challenges all wastewater reticulation and distribution networks. Industries have been working hard to increase the availability of equipment and reduce the life-cycle cost without compromising safety and environmental targets. Risk-based maintenance (RBM) strategy is useful for allocation of maintenance resources where first allocation occurs to the highest risk item and progressively allocated till it reached budget limits. This paper is based on findings from a study covering 186 sewerage pumping stations of Townsville Water in North of Queensland in Australia. This study covered identifying the critical subsystems and mitigating the risks of failure of those subsystems. Implementation of risk based maintenance strategy was useful in further enhancing reliability and reduction of maintenance costs.