COMPUTER AIDED LOGISTICS SYSTEMS FOR RE-LIFE ASSESSMENT OF HEAVY DUTY SPECIALIST VEHICLES

Abstract

Reliability and availability of any system is dependent on its maintenance standards. Organized maintenance of the system is vital to ensure reliability of the system and at the same time, it is (the process of organized maintenance) is cost effective too. Initial cost and the maintenance cost are the major heads of the total cost of a system. Maintenance cost is linked with the logistics designed for the system. Formulation of logistics analysis during the designing phase enables in evaluating whether the system being developed is cost effective or otherwise. From this evaluation, the organization can decide on the commencement of development phase. Formulation of logistics manually using data in paper form is a very tedious job as it is very difficult of analyze the design as well as ascertain the effect of one component on the other due to lack of integration. CALS is a system in which all the phases of a product life cycle are integrated in a single data base. CALS helps the user in formulation of logistics during the design phase and then assists the user in maintaining the product during its entire life cycle. However, it is not necessary that the organization which is producing is product belongs to the same country which is user of system. Ideally user of the system should acquire the complete logistics system of the product / equipment while making contract for purchasing a certain product / equipment. However, this is not the case most of the times. In some instances, the final product may be a combination of assemblies developed / purchased from different vendors. In such cases, user has to develop the logistics system by using the available data of each sub-assembly. If data of all the sub-assemblies be integrated at one place in digital form by developing common standards of data storage and data communication, the logistics can be made cost effective as well as more effective. In this thesis work, maintenance system of a heavy duty specialist vehicle has been studied and a proposed system has been suggested for its conversion to CALS. A prototype re-life system has also been developed which will help in re-life of the heavy duty specialist vehicle based on its actual operational life instead of a certain time span