In the era of “constrained budgets,” strategies to decrease maintenance program costs yet increase critical system reliability and availability are more important than ever. A robust Preventive Maintenance (PM) approach is required to maintain the assets and deliver a meaningful level of reliability. However, performing too much PM can be costly beyond their direct costs (labor, materials, equipment, etc.) as many are highly invasive procedures which can disrupt and disturb stable systems resulting in unplanned downtime.

In 2012, Jacobs took the initiative to develop key maintenance strategies for NASA Langley Research Center (NASA LaRC) – a 788-acre campus of over 270 buildings and other national assets including several large wind tunnels which provide subsonic to hypersonic speed aeronautic testing. Finding our proposal compelling, NASA provided strategic investment funding for three consecutive years to implement real-time condition based monitoring (CBM) of critical assets and systems. In addition to physical asset monitoring, our comprehensive solution included everything from applying fundamental RCM principles and processes to designing and operating a 24/7/365 Integrated Operations Center. Our Jacobs holistic approach enabled early identification and prevention of catastrophic failures; increased the useful life of plant equipment; optimized maintenance intervals; increased worker safety; and lowered disruptions to normal operations by performing CBM. In fact, we have enhanced system reliability to the point that NASA LaRC has not experienced a single, unplanned asset failure on CBM monitored assets since 2015!

After implementation, the overall cost of maintenance also decreased significantly – a savings of $5.3M over three years.

Speaker: Michael Stites, JTOG Director of Maintenance, Jacobs Engineering