Peter Sandborn

University of Maryland, College Park | UMD, UMCP, University of Maryland College Park · Department of Mechanical Engineering

Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) has been widely applied to hardware systems in the electronics and non-electronics domains but has not been explored for software. While software does not decay over time, it can degrade over release cycles. Software health management is confined to diagnostic assessments that identify problems, whereas progno...

This article analyses several promising policies in the electronic parts industry for disrupting the flow of counterfeit electronic parts. A socio-technical electronic part supply-chain network model has been developed to facilitate policy analysis. The model is used to understand the technical and social dynamics associated with the insertion of c...

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) is an engineering discipline focused on predicting the point at which systems or components will no longer perform as intended. The prediction is often articulated as a Remaining Useful Life (RUL). PHM has been widely applied to hardware systems in the electronics and non-electronics domains but has not been...

Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) has been widely applied to hardware systems in the electronics and non-electronics domains but has not been explored for software. While software does not decay over time, it can degrade over release cycles. Software health management is confined to diagnostic assessments that identify problems, whereas progno...

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) is an engineering discipline focused on predicting the point at which systems or components will no longer perform as intended. The prediction is often articulated as a Remaining Useful Life (RUL). RUL is an important decision-making tool for contingency mitigation, i.e., the prediction of an RUL (and its ass...

Throughout the world, various policies and regulations exist that govern the buying and selling of energy. In the United States, government mandates have been developed in the form of State-specific Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) that require specific percentages of renewable energy consumption. RPS laws are managed through Power Purchase Agr...

A simulation-based real options analysis (ROA) approach is used to determine the optimum predictive maintenance opportunity for a wind turbine with a remaining useful life (RUL) prediction. When an RUL is predicted for a subsystem in a single turbine using PHM, a predictive maintenance option is triggered that the decision-maker has the flexibility...

Wind energy is an important source of renewable energy with significant untapped potential around the world. However, the cost of wind energy production is high, and efforts to lower the cost of energy generation will help enable more widespread use of wind energy. Yaw error reduces the efficiency of turbines as well as lowers the reliability of ke...

Pure-tin platings, which have become prevalent in electronics that uses lead-free solders, result in the spontaneous growth of conductive tin whiskers. If the tin whiskers bridge the gap between conductors, they can cause short circuit failures in systems. In this chapter we use cost-based FMEA to determine the projected cost of failure consequence...

This book discusses relevant topics in field of corrosion, from sensing strategies to modeling of control processes, corrosion prevention, detection of corrosion initiation, prediction of corrosion growth and evolution, to maintenance practices and return on investment. Written by leading international experts, it combines mathematical and scientif...

Yaw error lowers the efficiency and reliability of wind turbines resulting in higher maintenance costs. LIDAR devices can correct the yaw error; however, they are expensive, which creates a trade-off between their costs and benefits. In this study, a stochastic discrete-event simulation model is developed that models the operation of a wind farm. W...

Sustainment and sustainability are concepts that have pervaded recent engineering culture. Although the popular media often associates sustainability with environmental and socio-ecological constructs, it is a widely used and understood concept with application to many technology, system, and business areas that extend beyond a socio-ecological con...

This chapter explains a prognostics and health management (PHM)‐enabled predictive maintenance optimization approach based on real options analysis (ROA). It presents a case study applied to a single wind turbine system indicating a remaining useful life (RUL). The chapter describes how the requirements from an outcome‐ based contract are incorpora...

Prognostics and health management (PHM) provides an opportunity for lowering sustainment costs, improving maintenance decision‐making, and providing product usage feedback for the product design and validation process. This chapter discusses the determination of the implementation costs, potential cost avoidance, and the resulting return on investm...

The Cost of Energy is a major concern for the electric power industry. Customers are sensitive to the cost of renewable energy, which is typically more expensive than conventional energy generation due to the variability and uncertainty associated with their sources. Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are developed to balance the energy price and ass...

With renewable energy and wind energy in particular becoming mainstream means of energy production, the reliability aspect of wind turbines and their sub-assemblies has become a topic of interest for owners and manufacturers of wind turbines. Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs account for more than 25% of total costs of onshore wind projects and...

Wind energy and especially offshore wind energy faces an uphill battle in the United States to become a mainstream source of energy generation due to its high price relative to fossil fuels. The wind industry is looking for methods to reduce the costs of energy production by improving the efficiency of wind turbines and reducing their operation and...

Outcome-based contracts that pay for effectiveness and penalize performance shortcomings have been introduced to incentivize cost reduction efforts on the contractor side of product service systems (PSSs). Outcome-based contracting concepts are being used for PSS acquisitions in healthcare, energy, military systems and infrastructure. These contrac...

Yaw error is the angle between a turbine’s rotor central axis and the wind flow. The presence of yaw error results in lower power production from turbines. Yaw error also puts extra loads on turbine components, which in turn, lowers their reliability. In this study we develop a stochastic model to calculate the average capacity factor of a 50 turbi...

Renewable energy from wind and solar are considered to be the main alternatives to fossil fuels. The costs of renewable energy technologies are high and without tax credits they are not currently competitive with fossil fuels in many markets. Improvements in the performance or reduction in operational costs will have significant impacts on the pric...

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) technologies have been introduced into wind turbines to forecast the Remaining Useful Life (RUL). An RUL for a wind turbine represents the time or other applicable lifetime usage measure before it fails. PHM with RUL predictions enables predictive maintenance for wind turbines prior to failure, thus avoiding...

Product-service systems (PSSs) are the result of a shifting business focus from designing and selling physical products, to selling a system consisting of products and services in an ongoing relationship with the customer that fulfills customer satisfaction. A PSS contract can take several forms (e.g., fixed price, capability-contract, and availabi...

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) technologies have been introduced into wind turbines to forecast the Remaining Useful Life (RUL). PHM with RUL predictions enables predictive maintenance for wind turbines prior to failure, thus avoiding corrective maintenance that may be expensive and cause long downtimes. For a wind farm managed using a pow...

From a customer’s viewpoint, understanding the total cost of owning a product is the most important aspect of the product’s cost. In many cases, the cost of purchasing a product may be insignificant compared to the cost of operating and maintaining it. Figure II.2 in the Part II introduction summarizes the elements that are included in a total cost...

Cash flow analysis is the analysis of cash inflows and outflows over time representing a particular investment or project, such as the life-cycle cost of supporting a system. Conventionally in engineering economics, cash flow analysis is performed using discounted cash flow analysis (DCF). DCF captures the time value of money and the uncertainties...

When managers consider spending money they usually want to formulate a business case that not only describes the process they wish to follow, but also the value that they expect to gain through the investment. For electronic systems manufacturing and life-cycle support, business cases could be required for spending money to modify a manufacturing l...

Manufacturing processes can be modeled as a sequence of process steps that are executed in a specific order. The steps and their sequence are referred to as a process flow. Process-flow modeling emulates a real manufacturing process. This means that the process flow attempts to imitate the actual manufacturing process. Process-flow modeling is gene...

Authors have attempted to create coherent chapters and sections on how the fundamentals of maintenance cost should be organized, to present them in a logical and sequential order. Necessarily, the text starts with importance of maintenance function in the organization and moves to life cycle cost (LCC) considerations followed by the budgeting const...

Outcome-based contracts that pay for effectiveness and penalize performance shortcomings have been introduced to incentivize cost reduction efforts on the contractor side of product service systems (PSSs). Outcome-based contracting concepts are being used for PSS acquisitions in healthcare, energy, military systems and infrastructure. These contrac...

Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems are used for wind speed and direction measurements. By using LIDAR, static yaw error (the angle between wind direction and rotor central axis) can be minimized. Minimizing the yaw error will result in extra energy production from wind turbines. Also, the presence of yaw error puts extra cyclic loadings on...

Railway assets suffer wear and tear during operation. Prognostics can be used to assess the current health of a system and predict its remaining life, based on features that capture the gradual degradation of its operational capabilities. Prognostics are critical to improve safety, plan successful work, schedule maintenance, and reduce maintenance...

The cost of energy is an increasingly important issue in the world as renewable energy resources are growing in demand. Performance-based energy contracts are designed to keep the price of energy as low as possible while controlling the risk for both parties (i.e., the Buyer and the Seller). Price and risk are often balanced using complex Power Pur...

The rise of energy prices, concerns over climate change and geopolitical issues have brought special attention to renewable sources of energy and wind energy in particular. Based on NREL projections, the United States has more than 32,000 TWh of onshore and 17,000 TWh of offshore potential for wind power generation, which is far beyond its 11,000 T...

A simulation-based real options analysis (ROA) approach is used to determine the optimum predictive maintenance opportunity for a wind turbine with a remaining useful life (RUL) prediction. When an RUL is predicted for a subsystem in a single turbine using PHM, a predictive maintenance option is triggered that the decision-maker has the flexibility...

Assumptions used in field reliability data analysis may be seldom made explicit or questioned in practice, yet these assumptions affect how engineering managers develop metrics for use in long-term support contracts. To address this issue, this article describes a procedure to avoid the pitfalls in employing the results of field data analysis for r...

Understanding the total life-cycle cost is an essential part of all sustainment contracts. Sustainment constitutes 70% or more of the total life-cycle cost of safety-, mission-, and infrastructure-critical systems. For many types of systems, availability is the most critical factor in determining the total life-cycle cost of the system. To address...

A simulation-based real options analysis (ROA) approach is used to determine the optimum predictive maintenance opportunity for a wind turbine with a remaining useful life (RUL) prediction. When an RUL is predicted for a subsystem in a single turbine using PHM, a predictive maintenance option is triggered that the decision-maker has the flexibility...

Many systems that must be manufactured and supported for long time periods lack control over critical portions of their supply chains; these systems include: military, avionics, industrial controls, and rail infrastructure. During the long lifetimes of these systems the components, technologies and resources that the systems depend on become obsole...

A simulation-based real options analysis (ROA) approach is used to determine the optimum predictive maintenance opportunity for multiple wind turbines with remaining useful life (RUL) predictions in offshore wind farms managed under outcome-based contracts, i.e., power purchase agreements (PPAs). When an RUL is predicted for a subsystem in a single...

A simulation-based real options analysis (ROA) approach is used to determine the optimum predictive maintenance opportunity for multiple wind turbines with remaining useful life (RUL) predictions in offshore wind farms managed under outcome-based contracts, i.e., power purchase agreements (PPAs). When an RUL is predicted for a subsystem in a single...

Accurate life-cycle costing is a key enabler for wind farm operation and maintenance (O&M) optimization. Research has shown that maintenance is not optimized and that significant opportunities exist for reducing the total cost for maintenance and production losses, especially for large wind farms. This poster describes a stochastic life-cycle cost...

A simulation-based real options analysis (ROA) approach is used to determine the optimum predictive maintenance opportunity for turbines in an offshore wind farm managed under a power purchase agreement (PPA). In this analysis, the major subsystems in the turbines have remaining useful life (RUL) predictions generated by condition monitoring (CM) o...

Technology-centric products often contain parts, software, and materials that have procurement lives that end before the product they are in reaches the end of its life cycle. Life-cycle mismatches between parts and products, which is referred to as obsolescence, can result in large life-cycle costs for mission, safety, and infrastructure critical...

The loss of critical human skills that are either nonreplenishable or take very long periods of time to reconstitute impacts the support of legacy systems ranging from infrastructure, military, and aerospace to information technology. Many legacy systems must be supported for long periods of time because they are prohibitively expensive to replace....

In this paper, a simulation-based real options analysis (ROA) approach is applied to valuate the predictive maintenance options created by PHM for multiple turbines in offshore wind farms managed under outcome-based contracts known as power purchase agreements (PPAs). When a remaining useful life (RUL) is predicted for a subsystem in a single turbi...

While the transition to lead-free electronics, which began nearly a decade ago, is complete for most commercial products, many safety, mission and infrastructure critical systems that were originally exempt from RoHS and WEEE are only now transitioning. For these types of products qualification is very expensive and the consequences of failure can...

Mismatches between part procurement life cycles (especially for electronic parts) and the life cycles of the systems that parts are used in cause systems with long manufacturing and/or support lives incur significant obsolescence management costs. While lifetime and bridge buys, which are used to manage part discontinuance (i.e., obsolescence) duri...

The prediction and optimization of maintenance activities provides a significant opportunity for offshore wind farms operation and maintenance (O&M) cost reduction. This paper introduces the concept of predictive maintenance options applied to offshore wind farms managed via power purchase agreements (PPAs). For a single turbine, a predictive maint...

LED lighting systems have become desirable because of their environmental and energy-saving advantages. The lack of information regarding LED reliability is a barrier to the further expansion of LED use, especially in large-scale applications such as street lighting and traffic lights, and safety-related applications such as automotive headlights....

Discrete event simulation is usually a preferred approach to model and predict the life-cycle characteristics (cost and availability) of large populations of complex real systems managed over long periods of time with significant uncertainties. However, while using discrete event simulation to predict the availability of a system or a population of...

Due to the nature of the manufacturing and support activities associated with long life cycle products, the parts that products required need to be dependably and consistently available. However, the parts that comprise long lifetime products are susceptible to a variety of supply chain disruptions. In order to minimize the impact of these unavoida...

Many engineering systems incorporate prognostics and health management (PHM), which consists of technologies and methods to assess the reliability of a product in its actual life-cycle conditions to determine the advent of failure and mitigate system risks. Wind turbines are among the systems that incorporate PHM to reduce life-cycle costs and incr...

Long-term support of legacy electronic systems is challenging due to mismatches between the system support life and the procurement lives of the systems' constituent components. Legacy electronic systems that are used in safety, mission, and infrastructure critical applications that must be supported for 20+ yr are threatened with diminishing manuf...

This paper presents a method that uses a simulation-based real options analysis to determine the value of waiting after obtaining a remaining useful life (RUL) indication from prognostics and health management (PHM) structures within a wind turbine. This methodology potentially allows the threshold for maintenance to be optimized in real-time based...

Composite indicators formed when individual Indicators are compiled into a single index. A composite indicator should ideally measure multidimensional concepts that cannot be captured by a single index. Since asset management is multidisciplinary, composite indicators would be helpful. This paper describes a method of monitoring a complex entity in...

Maintenance activities are commonly organized into scheduled and unscheduled actions. Scheduled maintenance is undertaken during preprogrammed inspections. Maintenance operations try to minimize the risk of deterioration based on a priori knowledge of failure mechanisms and their timing. However, in complex systems it is not always possible to sche...

Many systems that are required to be manufactured and supported for long time periods lack control over critical portions of their supply chains; these systems include: military, avionics, industrial controls, and rail infrastructure. This results in the components and technologies that these products depend on becoming obsolete (and unavailable) l...