Interesting comments. Robert's immediately took me back to Jeddah in 1983. The O&M contractor had wanted to spend 2 million
Riyals of the client's money on stocked spare parts. Needless to say, I was able to whittle this down*. How? By visiting an example of each piece of kit, opening it up, taking a look inside, then crossing about 90% of the parts off the contractor's lists, based upon my own - practical - assessment of the requirement. Unlike me, they had not bothered (in their haste to
gouge the client) to come up with any sort of
rationale for stocked spares planning.
The people brought in by the contractor had simply drawn up their lists sitting down in the comfort of their Portakabin, and turning pages of the service manual parts lists. That and getting the OEM's to fax their "recommendations" (another licence to gouge)!
Yes, "Life-Cycle Costings" should be carried out ... but by people like us (that is, practical folk), and not Bean Counters.
What I'm saying is that you have to come up with your
own assessment of maintenance requirements. There's no other valid approach, in my opinion. Yes, it all takes time. But
thoroughness is a large part of what being a biomed is all about! If other people (
eg, the "suits") are into quick fixes, and sloppy work, that's up to them. They'll be out the door, next thing you know ... but the kit will still be there (waiting to be fixed, most likely).
Of course, convincing the
suits is an entirely different matter. Personally, I gave up trying many years ago. I would just present my findings, then file them away. And (if it was politic so to do), throw it all back at them later on ... in the nicest possible way, of course.
*
Needless to say, I was never really "flavour of the month" with that contractor, and they tried all sorts of things to discredit me. But I have had a lot of that over the years, to the point where it became the proverbial water off a duck's back long, long ago. Honesty, integrity, are two words that come to mind.
