An Cosantóir

17 VESSEL Unfortunately this technology, once connected to the internet, also introduces opportunity for hacking of equipment controls. For now, the Naval Service uses a combination of UCM, PPM & CBM strategies for each asset, depending on the redundancy and criticality of the equipment. Maintenance Periods At a minimum, the hull and every piece of equipment on a ship is inspected once in a 5 year period. Many of these are under the water line and can only be inspected in a dry dock, so this forms the foundation of the 5 Annual maintenance cycle. Typical dry dock activities include removing and dissembling propellers, shafts, rudders, stabilisers and bow thrusters, as well as painting the underside and renewing the anti-corrosion anodes and cathodes. Major overhauls and upgrades are saved for refit periods. Currently the NS has moved to holding 8 week refits every 2 years or so. Interestingly, these were originally annual four week periods as this was how long it took to clean out the boiler tubes on the steam powered Corvettes. A common job during a modern refit might be a complete main engine strip down and inspection or replacing a boat launching system (Davitt) or the electronic navigation suite and radars. Annually there is now an assisted self-maintenance period (ASMP), put in place to help a ship conduct annual certifications on life rafts, anchors and the like. In between 4 week MDSO patrols, ships conduct two week long Self Maintenance Periods (SMP), they have a lower priority for base support. These patrols themselves will contain periods of time set aside for On Patrol Maintenance (OMP) Maintenance Levels There are three maintenance levels in use in the Naval Service: Level 1 is work the ship can do for itself, often on patrol or SMP. Level 2 is work that requires a return to base and assistance from Naval Service staffed workshops in the Naval Base or Naval Dockyard support. Level 3 is major planned work that is conducted by the Naval Dockyard or specialist contractors. Maintenance Management Located in Block 6 of the Naval Base is the Maintenance Management Unit, (MMU). At the start of each year, this unit runs the forecasting on all the maintenance activities for the year and fits them into the available Maintenance periods allocated to each ship on the Annual Patrol Plan developed before the end of the previous year. This unit uses the Oracle Enterprise Asset Management Strategic Application to keep track of all planned and unplanned work. This system is due to move to an updated (Release 12) version in the next few years and when fully implemented this will allow the Naval Service to better predict workload and inventory demand to ensure the sailors have the right parts, at the right time, to do the job assigned. Some of the maintenance activities and most upgrade work can be discrete projects in their own right within a refit. Often they involve hundreds of hours labour and tens of thousands of euro in capital and inventory costs. These are managed by Planning and Inspectorate located beside MMU. This unit also manages contracting commercial service providers and superintendancy of drydocking. As a separate project a Life Extension Project (LEP) office has been set up to managed this work on LE ROISIN and LE NIAMH. Maintenance Execution This brings us back to the sailor on the deck plate who does the work. A Petty Officer, Leading Hand or Able Rate will be given a Job Information Card (JIC) by their Chief Petty Officer and report back once the work is done. The Chief Petty Officer for his part will check the EAM daily to see what work is due, record what work is done and how long it took, as well as enter the running hours for metered machinery. The Petty Officer Mechanician will write off inventory on the LMS to the same work order. Once the work is done and marked complete on the EAM and the parts allocated, the Engineering Officer on board certifies the work and closes the work order. Each of these work orders can be rolled up into a labour and inventory cost history for each asset on board the ship, or for each system, department and even the whole ship for any time period. All of this history is monitored by MMU for deviations from the plan to identify any areas that might have implications for safety, quality or reliability on other ships. The goal and the result is a fleet of ships that is safe, certified, reliable and capable. Only in drydock can certain critical tasks be undertaken Vessels need to be in top shape to handle heavy weather Each class of vessel brings its own layouts and machinery Engine Room Artificers are all skilled tradepersons

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