Basic Concept and Its Aims of E-Journal of Advanced Maintenance (EJAM)

• The Framework and the purpose of E-journal of Advanced Maintenance

EJAM stands for “Electronic Journal of Advanced Maintenance”, and is published by Japan Society of Maintenology(JSM). The Editorial Board of Journal (EBJ) is, set up under the executive board of JSM. EBJ is composed of three sub-committees, Academic Paper Committee, Maintenance Technology Committee, and Occasional Topics (OT) Committee. EBJ itself is charged with General Articles.

It has been more than five years since JSM was founded. “Hozengaku”, a domestic journal published by JSM has provided high-quality articles and academic papers. Seminars hosted by JSM also have provided superb lectures, and maintenance technologies. These contents bear comparison with maintenance technology in any other industries. What if we release electronically these contents in English to the world. This was the major motivation to launch EJAM.

When international journals are published, the prospect of paper contribution is unpredictable compared to domestic journals due to the fact that the scope of global interaction is narrow. This situation has not been changed yet, but it would be improved by learning from EJAM’s experiences in global interaction in cooperation of all parties concerned. To sustain a journal, quality of academic aspect is essential. Just organization itself does not bear a journal. Therefore we need continuous efforts to improve quality of academic aspect.

In seeking ways of how we achieve the goal, we concluded that starting with a journal of electronic medium would be most possibly suitable way, because the media offers less cost and fewer risks for this journal. The rest was, how to enrich its contents. We believed that the system of this international on-line journal had to be different from other traditional international journals in terms of richness of contents, and hoped that we could find a new focal point in the unique journal contents

As a result, we decided to divide the journal into three themes on maintenance. They are; 1) general articles (General Articles), 2) academic papers on maintenance (Academic Papers), and 3) latest maintenance technologies (New Technology). Traditional journals is uni-functional media, for example, it contains only original papers including new ideas in the specific field On the other hand, EJAM is multi-functional media including three themes mentioned above. The intention includes constructing structure of maintenology comprehensively. This helps ordinary persons and personnel engaged in maintenance activities to get a better understanding of maintenology.

What are then the merits of doing so?
Firstly, it is easy to capture entire pictures of maintenology. Secondly, if they have an obsolescent idea about maintenance, this setup would easily help refine the predetermined image. Thirdly, it should be a good opportunity for a reader to learn a new concept of the structure of maintenance. In a detailed manner of speaking, this makes it possible to improve maintenance methodology to quantify maintenance using maintenance parameters, and to systematically analyze formulation of a maintenance logics. We count on EJAM that extends an opportunity to the international community to further discuss these themes globally.

• Establishment of Maintenology― General Articles

In General Articles, we plan not only to publish articles on maintenance, but also to engage in academic systematization of maintenance. As far as we know, JSM is the only organization that tackles academic systematization of maintenance in the entire world. This work is still under way, but we believe that we have enough room for us to transmit the information about academic systematization of maintenance to the world for discussion, because we have abundant contents that have been built up over many year. I believe JSM should be allowed to be in its unique position in the world by providing the opportunity.

Now as for how to systematize maintenology, we can learn from cases of systematization in another areas such as physics. To speak specifically, the process would be as follows;

1. at first, define parameters which describe phenomena (in electromagnetics, electric field, magnetic field, electric current, magnetization, magnetic moment, etc.).
2. next, explain phenomena using parameters (Biot-Savart’s law, Coulomb’s law of magnetism, Ohm’s law and so on).
3. finally, make predictions of phenomena (repulsion between coils, magnetic field intensity in fields, and so on).
4. based on these results, design electric equipment for practical use (application of circuit theory, TV, radios, mobile phones, etc.).

If these processes are applied to those of maintenance, we are obviously able to know what should be done for systematization of maintenance and how the systematization is conducted. Conclusively it tells us that observing and documenting of phenomena is an important step in systematizing of maintenance.

To make a description of phenomena appeared in maintenance,

5. define maintenance parameters (such as for intervals of scheduled shut-down and equipment inspection, for condition monitoring, and for equipment performances, etc.).
6. next, explain maintenance phenomena when using parameters for such as priority in maintenance, effectiveness evaluation, safety achievement index, and so forth
7. finally safety and maintenance levels of nuclear power plants as result of maintenance activities, and effectiveness of the ageing management, etc. must be predictable.
8. as a result, maintainability and safety of nuclear power plants are entirely secured.

It is important to continuously improve these systematic approaches. General Articles in EJAM is expected to be fully utilized for this purpose.

As maintenology makes progress, safety evaluation by the rule of maintenology would have its accountability and acceptability by society increased. Thus we can also expect EJAM to aim at promotion of a social aspect such of acceptability by society

• Academic papers in the field of maintenance ―Academic Paper

There are three basic actions connected each other, i.e. “inspection, evaluation and maintenance action plan (repair and replacement). Inspections include non-destructive examinations as well as disassembly inspections of dynamic equipment. Papers for these fields partially belong to the area of the existing academic journals, but they are relatively independent each other. The reason why such academic papers are published on EJAM is that they expect to its usefulness for maintenance.

Academic paper places value on universality and does not carry economic value judgment. The main purpose is to solve natural phenomena. But a paper for maintenance have a different quality than the other. Social usefulness and technical adaptability are important elements for maintenance. A lack of these elements in maintenance is unthinkable. Substantive maintenance activity keeps our social life normal and global environment sustainable.

• The quality of EJAM―New Technology

Accomplishments of academic activities by JSM are summarized in the journal “Hozengaku”, and booklets of seminars and lectures hosted by JSM. The quality of maintenance technologies introduced in the journal and the booklets are as high as any ones in journals published by other academic societies. It’s a shame to leave these technologies as they are after published in “Hozengaku” and the booklets. It is too bad to leave valuable papers in a file without further use. What are the ways to utilize them. One of the ideas was to introduce the latest maintenance technologies in Japan to the world in English. We envisaged that, the roles of EJAM become increasingly important. Actually, New Technology is regarded as value feature in EJAM. It is expected to be unique, only one of this kind. We believe that we ourselves should make our best effort so that EJAM can be evaluated as such.

• Scope of EJAM

As previously stated in fragments, the purposes are summarized as follows;

1. from standpoints of styles and how contents should be, EJAM should be the journal suitable for the area of maintenology with whole engineering aspects.
2. EJAM should give clear impressions of maintenance technologies to the readers and give an incentive to maintenance personnel for the development of technologies.
3. EJAM should provide the stage (forums) where engineers and workers can discuss the latest maintenance technologies.   
4. EJAM should be a globally definitive journal on maintenance technologies and should make continuous efforts for maintenance technologies to be ascertainable.
5. it is obvious that we need to make efforts towards progress of maintenance technology. As the technologies progress, it is expected that safety and maintenance standards for a nuclear power plant is logically improved. We also need to study evaluation criteria for the safety and maintenance.
6. we should establish a foundation for standardization of maintenance technologies based on knowledge previously stated.

EJAM is an international journal. It should be shared globally with people engaged in maintenance. As mentioned before, however, technologies developed in Japan will play a central role in EJAM for a while. We hope that technologies developed in other countries also be introduced soon on EJAM. On the other hand, contents of Academic Papers are quite internationally from the beginning. Characteristics of General Articles are half-domestically oriented and half-internationally oriented because it deals with thoughts of maintenance and regulation in Japan and maintenance engineering as is internationally. As presented in the above, a flag signifying the purposes of EJAM is clearly seen, but whether it flies well in the sky depends on winds. EJAM will be influenced with such winds, so flexible attitudes are truly unavoidable.