The system for enrolment has been changed. The individual downloadable enrolment forms for single courses and for diploma study were replaced with one single web-based application form. It is not meant to enrol, but simply to start the process of talking to us. When you are then ready to enrol, the more comprehensive form will be provided to you by our Registrar, Me Annerie Terblanche.

To inquire / apply simply click on the button below and fill in the necessary detail.

Both the income from, and the cost of equipment are strongly dependent on Life Cycle Cost Management

The life cycle cost of a system does not start at system procurement, but at the moment that somebody has the idea that such system should exist. Such idea is then typically passed on to a designer / design team, who starts designing the system (through the generic design phases of (i) conceptual design, (ii) preliminary design, and (iii) detailed design). The design process normally also includes the system development process, involving the construction and testing of prototypes.

These early stages of the life cycle are critically important, because a very high proportion of the total system life cycle costs are committed at these early stages through the design decisions that are made.

Our aim is then to studying life cycle costing, so to attain an understanding of how to minimise the costs over the life cycle of the equipment, firstly through design inputs, but also through meaningfully influencing the maintenance and operation of the equipment over its operational life.

Course Content

Day 1 - Foundational Facts Introduction Stages in the Life Cycle Basic principles Basic concepts Annual Compounding
Day 2 - Engineering Economics Test 1 Valuation Models Methods for Comparing Different Projects Choosing Among Investment Alternatives
Day 3 - Life Cycle Analysis Test 2 Life Cycle Cost Definitions Introduction Why use LCC? What Goes into LCC? Trade-off Tools for LCC Engineering Facts Adding Uncertainty to the LCC Results
Day 4 - Equipment Replacement Test 3 Equipment Replacement and Retirement Depreciation and Taxes
Day 5 - Estimation Estimation: Theory and Practice Examination

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for Asset Managers / Maintenance Engineers, Reliability Engineers, and all others that need to know about Life
Cycle Cost Management and Capital Replacement.

Important note: Laptop computer required – refer to terms and conditions on Course Registration form, and footnote on the Course Listing.

No economy can be sustainably vibrant without good roads

Our roads are a key asset to the South African Economy. It plays a sizeable role in our ability to produce and distribute. And it also gives us the ability to commute fast from place to place. The road system can thus rightly be described as a national asset. The quality of the roads determines the speed and safety with which people and goods can move. It is thus a key element in creating wealth.

Large parts of our road network fell into disrepair over the last 20 years. One of the reasons for this is the change in goods/material transport strategy. It was decided in the late 80's to change from largely rail transport to mainly road transport. Another reason for this state of affairs is a lack of proper road maintenance.

This situation needs to be dealt with soon. It will need a mixed strategy. The first component of such strategy will need to be road repair / road rebuilding. Where repair is still viable it should be the chosen option. But where the road's structure has been damaged, it will have to be rebuilt. The second part of such mixed plan of action calls for a program of preventive maintenance. This is vital to prevent a future recurrence of this state of affairs.

A blend of road surface restoration and preventive maintenance will have three effects. It will firstly help to allow people and goods to move safely. Secondly, it will ensure that our road network is kept in a good condition. Lastly, it will keep the long term cost of roads to the economy at an acceptable level.

A good road surface preventive maintenance scheme is made up of a whole range of methods. The goal of these are to increase road surface life in a cost effective and efficient way. A scheme with the right mix of strategies can result in an ongoing good road surface condition. This concept, as simple as it seems, has not been fully accepted by road authorities. They thus opt for reactive repairs rather than for prevention.

The course addresses the following areas:

• Maintenance Principles
• Road Design
  
• Road Pavement Repairs
  
• Preventive Maintenance of Roads
  
• Road Condition Assessment
  
• Implementing and using a Road Condition Database
  

Road condition inspection plays a key role in road maintenance. It is the main input prompting preventive action. It is covered for both flexible (i.e. asphalt) and rigid (i.e. concrete) surfaces.

Guidelines are amongst others also provided for:

• Sealing of cracks• Patching and pothole repairs
  
• Spray patching
  
• Repairs to storm drainage ducts
  
• Service trenches
  
• Repairs associated with service access openings
  
• Partial and full-depth repairs
  

Recommendations are practical - it centres on methods and products that are effective and improve road surface life.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The course is designed to address specific needs of those who manage and oversee road pavement maintenance activities, select maintenance treatments, specify maintenance techniques and materials, supervise field maintenance operations, and provide quality
assurance.

Credits 6*, level 5**                      

* The course comprises 30 hours of study, of which 16 hours are in class, with a further 14 hours for the assignment.

**Occupational Certificate level

Water treatment is a very serious and emotive issue at this time

This topic is continuously in the news. Local governments struggle to operate and maintain water treatment plants successfully. Some large industrial organisations have the same problem. In the meantime the environment and consumers of water are at risk.

The need for operations and care of different production plants is similar – i.e. the operational and maintenance principles are the same. Yet, water treatment plants clearly do have many aspects that are unique.

The course touches on both operations and maintenance issues. Its objective is to train both operations staff and maintenance staff. What's more, it deals with both fresh water supply plants and wastewater treatment plants.

The course addresses the following areas:

Day 1: Water Treatment and Maintenance Principles: Nature’s water treatment cycle, Water quality requirements, Water treatment system overview, Wastewater sources, Maintenance Principles: The maintenance function in context, Principles of Preventive Maintenance, Plant Inspection.

Day 2: Water Treatment Technology: Operation and Maintenance I: Water intake and screening, Coagulation and Flocculation, Sedimentation, Biological Treatment, Filtration, Disinfection, Distribution, Discharge Effluent, Maintenance of Water Plant components: Pump Maintenance, Pipeline Maintenance, Maintenance of Civil Structures, Lubrication, Corrosion Control, Machinery Alignment, V-belt drives, Flexible Couplings, Electric Motors, Control Components, Lighting.

Day 3: Water Treatment Technology: Operation and Maintenance II: Water Delivery Quality, Monitoring water quality, Advanced treatment of Wastewater, Membrane Separation Technologies, Ion Exchange, Solids Management.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for both operations and maintenance staff. It is also meant for managing staff.

Good control makes success a snap!

Maintenance Control is the twin of Maintenance Planning. Without control the maintenance plan that was created may never be achieved.

Maintenance Control is the function that ensures that good results are achieved. Without proper control you are only hoping for the best. With good control, you set the seal on quality maintenance.

One gets the idea that maintenance control is not regarded as important in most courses – including our own. Maintenance planning is seen as important by most. Some highlights ideas such as Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). Others stress methods such as Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM). Course upon course insist on these as solutions to all maintenance problems.

Undoubtably, these are important! But they can never be separated from good control. Control is the 'cherry on the cake' of a good plan. It makes sure that the objectives of the plan have been met.

Good control has four elements:

• Strategic steering of maintenance.
• Tactical steering of the maintenance actions - this is based on a good maintenance plan.
• Sound performance management.
• Operational planning and control.

Most organisations focus on only one or two of these elements. This leads to them only achieving mediocre results - excellence is only to be had by those who both plan and control well.

The objective of this course is to rectify this situation. Remember, good control is the 'cherry on the cake'!

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for maintenance practitioners who want to improve their organisation's performance in this very important area.

Asset Management / Maintenance is not for sissys. Fortunately, there are tools available to make us heroes.

Asset Management / Maintenance practitioners are often faced with situations where they need to take challenging decisions. Such decisions are mostly based on limited information and years of experience. While experience and gut feel are invaluable in such situations, it can often be enhanced by good analysis.

Typically, maintenance decisions require the evaluation of alternative solutions in terms of various maintenance criteria such as cost, failure history, time to repair, time to failure and uptime.

The course Decision-making in Maintenance is aimed at providing such analysis tools. Specifically, it addresses the following decision making areas:

• Preventive maintenance decisions
• Component replacement decisions
• Asset replacement decisions
• Repairable Systems decisions
• Condition Based Maintenance decisions
• Maintenance resource decisions
• Outsourcing decisions

The course intends to enable maintenance practitioners to be able to:

• Use a variety of mathematical and statistical techniques to assist them in maintenance decision making.
• Apply the techniques of component replacement decision-making, reconditioning decision-making, and equipment replacement decision-making to limited scale problems, using standard student copies of commercially available software.
• Develop proper maintenance strategies for the assets under their care.
• Do basic failure analyses.
• Find the optimal replacement age of components.
• Develop an essential understanding of capital replacement decision making models and techniques.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for maintenance managers, maintenance engineers and other maintenance personnel who need to make important maintenance decisions regarding the different aspects of maintenance (both managerial and technical decisions).

Important note: Laptop computer required – refer to terms and conditions on Course Registration form, and footnote on the Course Listing.

Root Cause Analysis is one of the most potent tools in the fight against failure

Root Cause Analysis is used in a routine way in most medical situations. It is recognised that a symptom has an immediate cause, which can in turn be caused by a deeper seated problem. Physicians also understand that you cannot just jump in and start treating the symptoms. You need to stop to consider whether there's actually a deeper problem that needs your attention.

If you only address the symptoms – what you see on the surface – the problem will almost certainly happen again... which will lead you to re-address the same symptoms, again, and again, and again. If, instead, you look deeper to find out why the problem is occurring, you can remedy the underlying systems and processes that cause the problem.

We in maintenance also work with 'patients', machine patients. In the same way as with patients in the medical case, we have to find problems through the use of Root Cause Analysis.

Root Cause Analysis seeks to identify the origin of a problem. It uses a specific set of steps, with associated tools, to find the primary cause of the problem, so that you can:

• Determine what happened.
• Determine why it happened.
• Decide on an action to reduce the risk of it happening again.

Root Cause Analysis typically leads to one or more of the following three basic types of causes:

• Physical causes – something physical failed or stopped working.
• Human causes – somebody did something wrong, made a judgment error.
• Organisational causes – a system, process, or policy that people use to make decisions or do their work is inadequate.

The course's main aim is to equip course participants with sufficient skills to be able to do the following:

1. Put in place a group of people with the necessary qualities to perform Root Cause Analyses successfully.
2. Define the problem clearly and unambiguously.
3. Perform the required data assembly through learnt investigation and exploration techniques.
4. Find the root cause through various techniques, including cause and effect diagrams, and the 5M method.
5. Generate solutions to the problem, find the best solution, implement the solution.
   

The accent of the course is on practical application through group work. The purpose of this is for students to internalise the method well.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for maintenance people who need to cope with maintenance problem situations.

Knowledge is necessary to steer the Asset Management / Maintenance function successfully

Asset Management / Maintenance is inescapably part of the production success of any business. As such it is dependent on machinery or buildings to generate a profit or service.

Those people steering such organisations inevitably need some knowledge of the Asset Management / Maintenance function. Such knowledge will enable them to steer the Asset Management / Maintenance function successfully.

This course was specifically designed with these top managers in mind.

More and more courses on various Asset Management / Maintenance topics become available. The Asset Management world is being reshaped through the application of new techniques and philosophies being presented at such courses.

However, the lack of knowledge higher up in the organisation often limits the possibility of achieving success through such improvement drives.

Some of the executives who should provide the necessary co-ordination are not able to do so because of their own lack of understanding of the processes involved.

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for all who need to have a total overview of the modern Asset Management / Maintenance function and the newest maintenance philosophies and techniques.

The accent is on the (strategic) needs of top ranking Asset Management / Maintenance and Production executives.

RCM is the best tool available to decide what maintenance to do to your equipment

RCM = Reliability Centred Maintenance. The maintenance of physical assets needs to be scientifically determined based on reliability considerations. Reliability stands at the centre. This is the principle that improved the safety of modern jet liners and many industries to the level which improves the quality of our lives greatly.

Modern production equipment design is complex. It thus needs to be maintained scientifically. So how do you decide what maintenance to do on your critical production equipment? By deciding which failures are the ones that matter and then designing maintenance tasks for them.

The maintenance suggested by the manufacturer of your equipment often leads to one of two things. These are respectively over-maintenance or under-maintenance.

The reasons for this is:

1. The manufacturer does not understand your specific production circumstances.
2. The manufacturer is often over-conservative in their approach to ensure that their good name is preserved. This leads to unnecessary expensive maintenance.

Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) has become an industry standard. It is the tool of choice for the design and development of effective maintenance plans.

One of the key drives behind RCM was to assure a high level of safety performance. The safety record of modern passenger airliners bears this out. Similar success has been achieved in many industries using RCM.

Courses in RCM

We present two courses in RCM: C903 and S801. They provide a good theoretical and practical base for the use of the RCM technique.

The difference between the two courses are:

• The three day short course (S801) teaches RCM as technique.
• The five day course (C903) adds two days. These two days essentially adds facilitation skills to S801.

Course Content

Module 1 – RCM Principles Historical Background Principles Underlying RCM Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Basic Renewal Theory The Nature of Failure Maintenance Strategies Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)	Module 2 – Select Failure Modes Prioritisation of Plant Items Identification of Maintenance Significant Items (MSI’s) Prioritisation of MSI’s Determining the Functions(s) of Each MSI Determine the Functional Failure(s) for Each Function Determine the Failure Mode(s) for Each Functional Failure Determine the Consequence of Each Failure Mode	Module 3 – Select Maintenance Tasks Technical Feasibility and Economical Feasibility Selecting Suitable Maintenance Tasks Optimising / determining maintenance intervals Workshop: Use the techniques learnt to develop a maintenance plan for an example technical system. Note:This short course forms the first three days of the RCM Facilitation course (C903)
	Who Should Attend The C903 course is recommended for facilitators of RCM sessions. The S801 course is meant for participants in RCM design sessions. Any person who needs to apply the RCM logic to a system or parts of a system will also benefit from any of the two courses.

Important note: Laptop computer required – refer to terms and conditions on Course Registration form, and footnote on the Course Listing.