Purpose: This study presents a systematic framework for maintenance strategy development of manufacturing process machinery. The framework is developed based on the reliability-centred maintenance (RCM) approach to minimise the high downtime of a production line, thus increasing its reliability and availability. A case study of a production line from the ghee and soap manufacturing industry in Taiz, Yemen, is presented for framework validation purposes. The framework provides a systematic process to identify the critical system(s) and guide further investigation for functional significant items (FSIs) based on quantitative and qualitative analyses before recommending appropriate maintenance strategies and specific tasks.Design/methodology/approach: The proposed framework integrates conventional RCM procedure with the fuzzy computational process to improve FSIs criticality estimation, which is the main part of failure mode effect criticality analysis (FMECA) applications. The framework consists of four main implementation stages: identification of the critical system(s), technical analysis, Fuzzy-FMECA application for FSIs criticality estimation and maintenance strategy selection. Each stage has its objective(s) and related scientific techniques that are applied to systematically guide the framework implementation.Findings: The proposed framework validation is summarised as follows. The first stage results demonstrate that the seaming system (top and bottom systems) caused 50% of the total production line downtime, indicating it is a critical system that requires further analysis. The outcomes of the second stage provide significant technical information on the subject (seaming system), helping team members to identify and understand the structure and functional complexities of the seaming system. This stage also provides a better understanding of how the seaming system functions and how it can fail. In stage 3, the application of FMECA with the fuzzy computation integration process presents a systematic way to analyse the failure mode, effect and cause of items (components of the seaming system). This stage also includes items’ criticality estimation and ranking assessment. Finally, stage four guides team members in recommending the appropriate countermeasures (maintenance strategies and task selection) based on their priority level.Originality/value: This paper proposes an original maintenance strategies development framework based on the RCM approach for production system equipment. Specifically, it considers a fuzzy computational process based on the Gaussian function in the third stage of the proposed framework. Adopting the fuzzy computational process improves the risk priority number (RPN) estimation, resulting in better criticality ranking determination. Another significant contribution is introducing an extended item criticality ranking assessment process to provide maximum levels of criticality item ranking. Finally, the proposed RCM framework also provides detailed guidance on maintenance strategy selection based on criticality levels, unique functionality and failure characteristics of each FSI.

The aims of this study are to introduce the appropriate preventive maintenance to the production line machines at the company to increase their reliability and reduction the shutdown, and to obtain more safety. Mean time between failure, mean down time and availability are investigated as the best indicators to generally evaluate all type of maintenance. Pareto diagram and Effect-Cause techniques both have been used for identifying where and what are the problems in the production lines. The big and serious way that the company staff was using was maintenance of run to failure. Many solutions in this paper are introduced to the company to follow the proper preventive maintenance. After one year monitoring to those production lines, their productivity increases by 15.47% and the reliability becomes high.

Nowadays, the research for innovative approaches to and practices for plastic waste in a circular economy has acquired a big attention. Plastic waste causes a serious environmental pollution concern. Meantime, the cement industry is one of the biggest sources of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions, which is considered as another environmental challenge to change of climate. All those and others side effects of plastic waste, make the plastic sand glass bricks an attractive alternative material to construction. In this paper, the plastic and glass waste were used at different percentage for replacing cement as a binder to produce non-traditional concretes. The literature review reveals that there is a deficiency of studies that manage the plastic sand glass as a construction material from economic perspective. Plastic sand glass bricks prepared could be a workable solution for combating issues related to solid waste. The results showed that the compressive strength decreased with increasing ratios of plastic to sand. On another hand, it is increased with increasing of sand ratio. Plastic brick prepared poses a density less than the conventional bricks, and acceptable hardness. Low water absorption also reflected that the plastic brick could be used in the construction. TGA and DSC analysis showed that the plastic brick prepared has a good thermal stability and the decomposition is in the limited and acceptable range. Optimization of the two effective variables (plastic/sand and galas ratios) has been made and correlating the results obtained using Box-Wilson statistical method to create a model for describing the predictable properties of a new product.

This research uses Autodesk Moldflow Insight (AMI) software to simulate the injection moulding process (IMP) parameters setting in order to reduce shrinkage. To This research uses Autodesk Moldflow Insight (AMI) software to simulate the injection moulding process (IMP) parameters setting in order to reduce shrinkage. To