Development of Knowledge Management System for Equipment Troubleshooting

Knowledge Management (KM) system is getting more significance recently for petrochemical plant operation, especially for maintenance section due to issues related to poor information management, increasingly complicated and sophisticated equipment used and the departure of experts. The departure of experts from an organization not only would leave a vacuum in manpower resources but more depressingly decrease the overall organization knowledge level, if the experts’ knowledge is not well preserved in the system. This problem can be overcome if that knowledge is retained within the organization in the KM system which can be easily accessed, disseminated, shared, managed and updated. This paper aims to demonstrate how KM system based on ontology representation is developed to assist in troubleshooting affected centrifugal gas pump by identifying possible symptom and possible causes during field work. A case study based on the project done with a petrochemical plant was presented for that purpose. The project phases included i) Data gathering ii) KM system development iii) User acceptance testing iv) System deployment, and v) system operation manual development. The project deliverables were a) ontology representation, index and linkages features to retrieve and search for the possible symptom and possible causes b) system to update and edit failure modes, symptom, possible causes and remedies data, and c) operation manual on how to use the system. In conclusion, the KM system developed as being demonstrated is an effective system serves as a guide and troubleshooting data repository system for trouble shooting activities and a useful training reference for maintenance personnel and engineers that will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the maintenance operation.