Inspection and Maintenance - Decreasing Fuel Consumption and Exhaust Gas Emissions in Transportation - page 200

13.6.1 Vehicle Technology
OBD is the indirect monitoring of the combustion and the emission systems.
The first systems were developed in the 1980s for the continuous inspection of
vehicles. Today, a malfunction can be precisely recognized by logical evaluation
of individual sensor values and by comparison of the measured values with stored
reference data of the operating point.
In exactly defined check routines, the OBD system starts periodic tests for
monitoring the quality of controlled elements with sensor signals. Since the
introduction of OBD, manufacturers are obliged to uniformly define and store
malfunctions and to transmit MIL signals to the interface of the system.
Preventive maintenance and repairs are vitally important for vehicles to ensure
that they operate reliably. In well maintained vehicles, repairs are done only if a
component fails by external influences.
13.6.2 Airplane Technology
The inspection and maintenance plan is carried out according to internationally
agreed guidelines. Inspection programs should be approved by the aviation
authority of the state of registry. Individual actions are summarized in packages or
during inspections. The operator has to continuously check the airworthiness and
to report on the fuel consumption to the management.
The development of inspection and maintenance programs for a new airplane
begins approximately two to five years before its production. Close cooperation
between airplane manufacturers and operators is important for the development of
its Maintenance System Guide (MSG). The comprehensive MSG-3 system iden-
tifies more than 3,000 parts. Nowadays the volume of modern maintenance plans
requires an electronic storage capacity of more than 1 GB.
Improved inspection and maintenance activities decrease costs in both civil and
military aviation. New methods in maintenance technology are very often intro-
duced in military jet airplanes first. A positive example is the increase in the
maintenance interval with the automatic control system Engine Enhancement
Package which lowers the life time maintenance costs by about 30%.
13.6.3 Ship Technology
Each manufacturer establishes its own individual inspection and maintenance
documents. Experience shows that monitoring ship operation positively affects the
costs during the ship's entire life.