Internship reports

Issues

Royal Navy Den Helder

Oct 1, 2023, 3:14:00 PM
2023-2
Internships
2 minutes (328 words)

Royal Netherlands Navy

Data for Maintenance (DvO, in Dutch: Data voor Onderhoud)

Directorate of Material Sustainment (in Dutch: Defensie Materiële Instandhouding)

Facilitating the Implementation of Predictive Maintenance within the Royal Netherlands Navy

Compared to most commercial maritime organizations, the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) is a unique institution in terms of its objectives and methods of operation. However, like any other organization, maintenance is an essential requirement to keep the physical assets functional. The RNLN is continuously trying to enhance its maintenance capabilities, and the transition towards Smart Maintenance should support the improvement of the operational readiness of the fleet. This transition involves a shift in maintenance management from predominantly corrective maintenance to more condition-based and predictive maintenance.

The DvO is a small department within the RNLN that aims to facilitate the transition towards data-driven maintenance. The DvO was established in 2019, and therefore, it is still a relatively new department. The DvO department consists of approximately 6 permanent employees and several self-employed employees, making it a relatively small department. The DvO strives to assist the crew on board and ashore by providing the system-state and failure information obtained from sensor-data to the users. However, the implementation of this maintenance strategy is not solely dependent on an organization’s technical capabilities, but also depends on the social and organizational implementation of this maintenance strategy.

Therefore, my research focused on how the DvO can support the development of a (social) engineering support community that implements data-driven maintenance within the Royal Netherlands Navy. To accomplish this, I designed a roadmap on how to develop a community of practice and provided recommendations on how the DvO can best support this community.

I spend my internship at the naval base of Den Helder, where the RNLN provided a room for me. I enjoyed my time there and besides the office hours, I also enjoyed spending my evenings on the base together with the other interns stationed there.