4th IMarEST Condition Based Maintenance Conference

The IMarEST Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) series of conferences have established the reputation of not merely raising the bar of the technical discussion – always the aim of Institute events – but of moving the level of the discussion onto an altogether higher level among owners and in the maritime industry.

Intelligent discussion of CBM has long ceased to be an examination of the technical possibilities. Condition monitoring technologies and methods which permit a condition based maintenance régime are becoming increasingly mature.

The need was identified to make the business case for the adoption of the approach – in other words to move the discussion further up the management chain within organisations. This was tackled by this conference two years ago. Without properly implementation with the necessary buy in from the top, CBM is doomed to failure – remaining a cost rather than a reduction to the residual cost of ownership and opportunity for more efficient fleet operation.

However a simple top down approach is insufficient without the removal of obstacles to cultural change for CBM, which was the theme of the conference last year together with the benefits of adopting a risk based maintenance strategy

Developing the theme of an optimised – often risk based – maintenance régime further, this year the focus will be on how CBM fits into a maintenance strategy; together with human factors and implementation. The conference will also look those technologies where there have been noteworthy developments which could have a significant impact.