Jason J. Bergkamp

Project Title: MAINTAINABILITY IMPROVEMENT PROCESS FOR OFF-ROAD MACHINERY

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to develop a maintainability improvement process for off-road machinery. This process was developed for CNH America LLC of Wichita, Kansas, the manufacturer of Case and New Holland brand skid steer loaders. The process is based off of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Surface Vehicle Information Report J817-2, Engineering Design Serviceability Guidelines – Construction and Industrial Machinery – Maintainability Index – Off-Road Machines. This SAE report establishes a point index system to evaluate the ease of maintenance of off-road machinery through out its life cycle. Improving on this system is the CNH Maintainability Index Method that addresses a fundamental flaw in the SAE report. The process of creating a CNH Maintainability Index for any type of off-road machinery is explained in detail. Also discussed are instructions on how to evaluate a machine using the CNH Maintainability Index. To complete the process, a method of integrating improvements to maintainability of the machine into the design process is provided. These improvements are based on maintainability of the manufacturers’ products, competitive benchmarking, customer inputs and warranty data. By using the maintainability improvement process, the machinery will be easier to maintain by the customer, thus increasing the availability of the machine. This in turn increases their profits and satisfaction, which leads to increased sales for the machinery manufacturer.