RELIABILITY AND AVAILABILITY IMPROVEMENT OF RAW MATERIAL CHARGING STATION IN A STEEL INDUSTRY

Raw Material Charging Station (RMCS) is one of the most important infrastructures in steel industry and is used to load and carry crushed iron ore to furnace. Breakdown behaviour of the RMCS was observed for a certain period, and its future behaviour was predicted using a reliability model. For improvement of availability however, a Six sigma approach was used. Initial focus was to reduce the repair time per month in order to make RMCS more available for use and save the financial loss due to unavailability of the furnaces to produce steel. This study discovers a way to simultaneously improve reliability, reduce repair time and thereby improve availability of the RMCS. The study also generalises an approach for improving reliability and availability for any mechanised repairable system using six sigma methodologies.