ENSURING ACCURATE EQUIPMENT IDENTIFICATION IN OUTAGE DATA SYSTEMS.

The justification for a consistent approach to ″Cause Codes″ is developed and an alternate called the Outage/Equipment Identification system is proposed that provides a simple link between equipment or conditions and the power generating unit outage period. The main feature of the Outage/Equipment Identification is its simplicity in that the code: 1. Does not mix cause and equipment in the same multi-digit identifier element. 2. Records the equipment that is preventing the unit from returning to service at any given time - a fact that can be established more easily and consistently than the cause. 3. Provides for contributing factor information through an alphabetic identifier allowing the Design Specialist to select all outages with contributing generic faults such as out of tolerance lubrication, corrosion, personnel error, etc.