Terotechnology. A modern approach to plant engineering

Emphasis is put on the increasing importance of maintenance costs and availability levels to the profitability of an industrial organisation. This point was recognised by UK Government studies in the late 1960s, and terotechnology was defmed to describe the areas of management and engineering concerned with these factors. During the last decade the concept of terotechnology has drifted from a point of where maintenance and unavailability costs are of central importance to a general and less tangible subject area the relevance of which has not been accepted by industry. This paper considers the aims of terotechnology to be concerned with `the optimisation of the total maintenance and ownership costs over the equipment life- cycle¿¿. With this in mind the principles of terotechnology are discussed and their applications described via an industrial case study.