Main engines, generators, compressors and purifiers wear according to how much they run, not according to the calendar. Running-hour based maintenance schedules jobs against those counters — for example, a generator overhaul every 12,000 hours — and is one of the most valuable, and most fragile, parts of a ship PMS.
Why running-hour schedules drift
- Hours are transcribed by hand from the engine room into a logbook, then into a spreadsheet, then into the PMS.
- A counter is replaced or reset and nobody records the offset.
- Readings are entered late, so jobs appear due — or not due — at the wrong time.
- Different people use different equipment names for the same machine.
Three ways to make counters reliable
1. Enter once, reuse everywhere
If running hours are captured in the daily machinery report, the PMS should reuse those values rather than asking for them again. One entry point removes most transcription errors.
2. Review on shore
Running hours by day, plotted per vessel and equipment, make anomalies obvious: a generator that ‘ran’ 30 hours in a day, or one that stopped reporting.
3. Capture from the source
Where alarm and monitoring systems expose running hours through an approved interface, automatic capture removes manual entry entirely. On legacy vessels, monitor capture can be validated as an alternative.