RAM (Reliability, Availability and Maintainability) study is one of the recent value improvement practices gaining increased application in process plants. Although this is a common practice in upstream oil and gas industries, it is equally applicable in refineries, petrochemical plants, batch plants and major infrastructure projects including water and waste water treatment, power stations etc.

There are number of commercial software packages available and a brief comparison of these is included in this paper. Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) uses high end simulation software packages called MAROS (Maintainability, Availability and Reliability of Systems) and TARO (Total Asset Review and Optimisation) Refinery for RAM studies.

This paper discusses Reliability and Availability simulation during pre-feed and feed stages of the project along with RAM development during the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) stage and throughout the operation and maintenance of the plant. KBR experience on typical RAM studies, methodologies and immediate benefits and life cycle cost advantages are discussed in this paper.