When Views Do Not Match: Different Insights of Management and Staff Into Frequency Converter Reliability and Maintenance

Frequency converters can cause expensive downtime in industrial applications when they fail. How reliability appears in the field and how the workers find the situation has, however, remained obscure. Maintenance and cultural issues affecting the reliability of frequency converters have not been reported in the scientific literature either. In this work, a survey was conducted to gather data about the conceptions and views of maintenance professionals and production facility management in different kinds of factories in Finland. The data related to the failures, reliability, and life cycle management of frequency converters were gathered from three organizational levels. The aim was to reveal any significant differences in the conceptions between people at different organizational levels. The frequency and adverse impacts of failures and the prevalence of life cycle management systems were also of interest. The data were analyzed using statistical and numerical methods. According to all respondents, frequency converter failures happen regularly, and failures cause a variety of adverse impacts. The analysis showed that the organizational levels had disparate conceptions about issues related to frequency converter reliability and maintenance. Better communication between the organizational levels could promote mutual understanding.