Challenges affecting the reliability of diesel locomotives within the South African railway industry

• Main Author: Dibakoane, Kgothlelelo Collet
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Diesel locomotives - Reliability; Railroads - Dieselization; Reliability (Engineering)
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/8683

M.Phil (Engineering Management) === The importance of an effective maintenance programme cannot be over-emphasized because such a programme plays such an important role in the effectiveness of lean manufacturing. Maintenance may be considered the health care of any engineering equipment and its equipment. It is required to reduce waste effectively, and to run an efficient, continuous locomotive operation within a business or service operation. The cost of regular maintenance is very small when it is compared to the cost of a major breakdown at which time production is held up. The main purpose of regular maintenance is to ensure that all equipment required for production is operating at 100% efficiency at all times. Through short daily inspections, cleaning, lubricating, and making of minor adjustments, minor problems can be detected and corrected before they become major problems that can shut down a production line. A good maintenance programme requires company-wide participation and support by everyone from top executives to shop floor personnel (Dale, 2008) The function of reliability engineering is to develop the reliability requirements for a product, establish an adequate reliability programme, and perform appropriate analyses and tasks to ensure that the product meets its requirements. These tasks are managed by a reliability engineer who usually holds an accredited engineering degree and has additional reliability-specific education and training. Reliability engineering is closely associated with maintainability engineering and logistics engineering. Many problems from other fields can also be tackled using reliability engineering techniques (O’Connor 2010). Reliability is defined as the probability that a device will perform its required function under stated conditions for a specific period of time, and quality can be defined as how the recipient of the product or service views the product (Barringer, 2006). Therefore the two cannot be viewed differently as they both have the same focus which is the end result of the product’s performance. The findings reveal that customers should form part of reliability management systems; the development of ways to identify possible failure before it actually happens is key in achieving reliability targets; and training of key personnel on engineering and quality department as well as resource planning and utilization is a key towards eliminating reliability challenges.