LAUSR

The production of sugar in plant consists of procedural steps, each step consisting of various sub-systems. Milling plant is the most important sub-system of a sugar manufacturing plant. The equipment availability in milling plant is a big issue as it has direct bearing on total production cost. Intelligent and effective maintenance planning can decrease total production cost and contribute in achieving strategic goals of sugar manufacturing plant. The objective of this paper is to generate and maintain reliable and exhaustive database of agile maintenance attribute for selection of effective maintenance strategy in milling plant of sugar industry. The database of eighty-eight (88) agile maintenance attributes were formed, out of which twenty-six (26) pertinent attributes relevant to the system under study. PM, PDM, CM, CBM and RCM strategies are selected for prioritization respectively. The proposed framework prioritizes and selects maintenance strategy by fuzzy integrated MADM approach. The fuzzy TOPSIS, fuzzy graphical and fuzzy digraph and matrix approach were used for decision making. The results from analysis were compared for better understanding and effective maintenance strategy selection. Proactive maintenance approaches of PDM RCM and CBM were identified as best alternative by different methods. Further, limitations due to uncertainty and vague expert judgement were eliminated in analysis by integrating fuzzy methodology. The novelty of study is selection of optimum maintenance policy based on agile maintenance attributes using proposed framework. The proposed framework will act as decision support system for efficient planning of maintenance activities using exhaustive database of agile maintenance attributes and selecting effective maintenance strategy.