Plenary Lecture

The Contribution of Terology for a Sustainable Future

Professor Torres Farinha
President & Coordinator Professor
Engineering School of Coimbra Polytechnic Institute
Portugal
E-mail: tfarinha@mail.ipc.pt

Abstract: Terology is defined as the combined utilization of operational research techniques, information management and engineering, with the objective of accompanying the life cycle of facilities and equipment; it includes the definition of specifications of purchase, installation and reception, and also the management and control of its maintenance, modification and replacement and, too, its accompanying in service.
The author introduced this concept in 1994, with the objective to synthesize a large view of the maintenance activity, that is necessary to implement in the Organizations, in order to have good levels of reliability and a large life cycle of facilities and equipment.
When this concept is implemented in a large organization it is necessary, to re-equation the maintenance department, to increment its level of operation, and to introduce an information system for maintenance management.
After this stage, the next step is to put into operation on-condition maintenance techniques and a fault diagnosis system. Also, it is important to reevaluate periodically the costs of functioning and the level of maintenance of facilities and equipment, in order to guarantee the minimum costs and the largest possible life cycle.
Usually, in modern Organizations, it is necessary to use the state-of-art of technology but, also, it is necessary to minimize the impact over the nature with the manufacturing of new goods, namely through methods and also through the reduction of its production.
Then, the humanity needs to rethink the economy and to redesign this, in order to maintain and, if possible, to increment his quality of life, with, always, the biggest possible respect by the nature.
It is because of this that, with good terology management, good replacement politicizes, good on-condition maintenance politicizes, namely the ones connected to the environment, that terology or, by other words, this vision of maintenance, is so important for a better and sustainable future.
A real maintenance management system, called SMIT, the core of a group of other developments, some yet implemented and others under implementation and, also, new future perspectives, that will be described within the paper proposed. These developments are a real contribution for the perspective that is being described.
The planet, the nature, the future, it is not sustainable if the man continue destructing it to manufacture new good that, when its life ends, are destroy, usually recycling, reusing or doing not, but always with big consumption of energy and, many times, adding new materials not organics.
To have sustainability it is necessary to preserve, to increment life cycle of goods, to reutilize, to return to the nature what will be possible, to live together, humanity-nature and technology, friendly. To reach this objective terology really helps and, because of this, the way showed in this communication is a way that author believes that helps to have a better and more sustainable future.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Jose Manuel Torres Farinha (www.torresfarinha.com), is Licentiate in Electrical Engineering by Coimbra University, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering by Oporto University. He is Senior Member and Specialist in Industrial Maintenance by “Ordem dos Engenheiros”, that is the Association that represents the long-cycle theoretically scientific studies in-depth in Portugal (CLAIU member). He is Coordinator Professor at Engineering School of Coimbra Polytechnic Institute (www.ipc.pt). Since 1994 he is member of Mechanical Engineering Center from University of Coimbra – CEMUC - (http://www2.dem.uc.pt/cemuc/index.htm), that is classified as Excellent by “Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia” - (http://alfa.fct.mctes.pt/index.phtml.en). His main research is in Terology, around information maintenance systems, fault diagnosis, and on condition maintenance, with emphasis in an ecological approach. He wrote a book, chapters of books and has more than thirty papers published in national and international journals and conferences. He is President of Coimbra Polytechnic Institute (IPC), since 2001. In charge of these functions he reached several innovative objectives, namely, by the first time in Portugal, to certify a higher education institution, IPC – Coimbra Polytechnic Institute - (Central Services, Social Services and Colleges) by ISO 9001; IPC has 14.000 students, 6 schools, 1.000 teachers.