Wärtsilä, the marine industry’s leading solution provider, has been awarded a five-year technical management contract based on Dynamic Maintenance Planning covering three LNG carriers.
The vessels are operated by Gazocean, the fleet management subsidiary of the Paris-based energy company GDF SUEZ, the largest utility in the world. The contract covers the Dynamic Maintenance Planning for the three vessels’ twelve Wärtsilä 50DF dual-fuel engines.
Dynamic Maintenance Planning is a new concept in maintaining this type of engine, and offers owners a significant reduction in operating costs through less unplanned maintenance, fewer unplanned stops, and by optimizing propulsion performance.
With this order, 60 Wärtsilä 50DF engines powering LNG carriers are under contracts based on Dynamic Maintenance Planning by Wärtsilä. The concept is based on the condition based monitoring (CBM) system developed by Wärtsilä for its latest design engines and thrusters.
This provides a summarized report that enables corrective actions to be taken onboard. The parameters are fed into the Wärtsilä database and then evaluated by specialists at the CBM centre.
The group then makes the appropriate risk assessment. The flexibility of this system allows maintenance intervals to be extended, and spare parts consumption to be reduced.
It means that the Wärtsilä engines and thrusters can be serviced when, and only when, needed – thus reducing costs and minimizing downtime. “Although Wärtsilä has maintained the engines on these three vessels ever since they entered service, this technical management agreement based on Dynamic Maintenance Planning gives a new dimension to the service support we can offer on our customers’ equipment.
We have raised maintenance planning to a new level of efficiency through the use of the latest technologies and through integrating our full scope of solutions. By anticipating breakdowns before they occur, we can reduce risk and, therefore, also the cost of maintenance.
Of course, such a commitment would not be possible without the global reach of our service capability. Wherever these ships are operating, they will never be far from a Wärtsilä Services facility,” says Hervé Denis, Key Account Manager, Wärtsilä Services in France.
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Source: Wärtsilä, September 9, 2010