New challenges for the maintenance strategies on large astronomical facilities at remote observing sites

Armin Silber

doi:10.1117/12.925903

13 September 2012 New challenges for the maintenance strategies on large astronomical facilities at remote observing sites

Armin Silber

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8448, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems IV; 844818 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.925903
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Abstract

The Change from a reacting to a proactive maintenance concept represents for large Observatories at remote operational sites a new challenge, considering the increasing numbers of complex subsystems. Conventional operational maintenance models will not cover all the requirements, will lead to more down time and the operational cost cannot be reduced. For the successful astronomical observation with large telescope facilities new strategies have to be applied. In this contribution we will demonstrate on the example of the 78 Cryogenic Sub-systems of ALMA how a proactive maintenance strategy help to increase the efficiency, to reduce the operational cost and the required staff resources. With respect to the growing number of complex subsystems on future telescope facilities the operational staff needs proper diagnostic and monitoring tools to allow a precise prediction respectively synchronization of the service activities. This leads away from a pure scheduling of preventive maintenance and enables a longer availability of the subsystems as tendencies and performance are monitored and controlled. Having this strategy considered during the developing phase of future large astronomical facilities allows the optimization of the required Infrastructure, a proper definition of the LRU¹ strategy and to which level maintenance can be cost efficient on site.

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Armin Silber "New challenges for the maintenance strategies on large astronomical facilities at remote observing sites", Proc. SPIE 8448, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems IV, 844818 (13 September 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.925903

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