Using Reliability Centered Maintenance and Condition Monitoring to drive Reliability Improvement

A 40 minute video from the International Maintenance Conference (IMC-211) delivered by Keith Berriman, P.Eng., CMRP, Director of Engineering and Reliability, Agrium Inc.

Timely identification of equipment failure allows for planned and scheduled repairs.  This in turn minimizes the impact of actual failure events on production and maintenance costs.  Agrium, like many asset intensive companies, have been using Preventive/Predictive Maintenance techniques to detect impending signs of failure in their equipment.  This has resulted in cost and availability improvements at many sites.  In addition they have worked to leverage RCM techniques to improve their PM/PdM program. However, strengthening market conditions are providing strong impetus for further improvement in availability and production.  To this end Agrium has launched a Reliability Improvement Program centered around Asset Health Monitoring based on RCM methodology.

See how Agrium has combined an asset health management solution with their SAP EAM to integrate operator rounds, vibration and other technologies to drive improvements in plant availability and production.   With this approach redundant PM work has been reduced and the frequency of plant trips has been improved.  In addition the program has driven the standardization of various plant software solutions and equipment hierarchies.  The goal of the program is to be doing the right work on the right equipment at the right time.

Note: A high definition DVD of IMC Keynotes and Presentations is available at the MRO-Zone.com e-Store

25 Twitter Accounts That Will Make Your Maintenance More Reliable

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

How could 140 character messages have any value?  If you are reading my writing, you probably do not belong to Gen X, Gen Y or even a Gen Z.  Tweeter me this and twitter me that – it all seems like nonsense right?

If you do not understand the value of some of the new media networks, have some patience and try this quick 5-minute, 10-step Twitter Tutorial.

If you do not immediately agree that this is a GREAT way to get focused information in a quick easy-to-read format, then you never have to visit Twitter ever again.

Step 1)  Visit Twitter at http://www.twitter.com

Step 2) Create a FREE Twitter account by entering your name, email and a unique password

Step 3) Check your email and click the confirm link so Twitter knows you are a real Human Being

Step 4)  Log into your new Twitter account.

Step 5) Skip your profile set up.  We are not going to bother setting up your profile for now – because you may never visit Twitter again unless you find GREAT value quickly so let's get straight to it.  You can always set up your profile; add your location and a profile picture later.  Skip all that for now.

Step 6) Click the Home link on the top of the page to ensure you are on the home page

Step 7) Copy and Paste each on the following Twitter accounts into the search box at the top of the home page and click the search icon

Step 8) A small twitter icon that matches that @ Twitter account name will appear in the upper left under the word People

Step 9) Click the small icon under People and a small screen will pop up with the past few tweets and a Blue “Follow” button. Click it.

Step 10) Once you have “followed” these top maintenance reliability Tweeters (people who post Tweets) – you will have your own personalized “flow” of quick, easy maintenance reliability resources.

You can also download free Twitter apps for your smartphone/iPhone and iPad/Tablet for mobile access.

If you are on a path to learn new things and discover new ideas related to maintenance reliability, I guarantee you have just struck pure gold.

In addition, you Wife/Husband, your Kids and your Co-Workers will all be amazed you have joined the 21^st century and adopted the latest technology!

You never have to post a Tweet of your own and you will quickly discover other Tweeters that you will want to follow.  You can un-follow anyone at anytime by clicking on their icon and then clicking on the Un-Follow button.  They will never even know you stopped following them!

@reliability

@MaintenanceTips

@UptimeMagazine

@CMMSCity

@RickySmithCMRP

@MaintenancePro

@maintenanceconf

@fms95032

@ShonIsenhour

@JeffShiver

@HeroicChange

@MaintNews

@DPlucky

@HearMore

@tammipickett

@bofiliosj

@ModPumpMag

@Ivara

@IVCTechnologies

@Marshall_Inst

@ReliabilityWork

@ecmweb

@PumpsSystemsMag

@LudecaInc

@UE_Systems

Additions by request (starting with #26):

@thesnellgroup

@MaintOnLine

@oilanalyst

@PumpingTweets

@bjarniisl

@VibrAlign

Let me know what you think and what other Twitter accounts I should add to this list.

Welcome to the 21^st century. 

Is It OK To Be Excited About Maintenance?

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

When John Schultz first co-founded Allied Reliability, he used to say “It’s OK to get excited about maintenance!”

Of course “excitement” already existed in the maintenance community.  When a critical machine fails, you can bet that there will be a great deal of “excitement” around that event.  We think John was referring to a completely different kind of excitement. 

He was excited because evolving condition monitoring technologies coupled with effective strategies for pinpointing their application were creating high-performance reliability results.  Companies no longer had to be surprised by failures.  They could detect potential failures much earlier and plan interventions that would prevent a major disruptive and unplanned failure.

The team that creates each issue of Uptime® Magazine and Reliabilityweb.com also get excited about maintenance.  We are committed to making the world a much more productive, safer and yes; a more exciting place for maintenance leaders who can learn new things that will produce career making returns (ROI) for those who make the difficult journey to high-performance reliability.

This is one of the ideas that drive IMC or the International Maintenance 

Conference.

This event, now in its 27^th year not only delivers stellar educational opportunities; it does so in a positive and exciting format that builds networks, confidence, knowledge and team.

Take a few minutes and check out some of the images of IMC-2011 26^th International Maintenance Conference and decide if you want join us for IMC-2012 being held December 4-7 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point in Bonita Springs Florida on the Gulf of Mexico.

We hope we see you there.

7 Traits of High-Performance Reliability Programs

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

It is no wonder that company management looks at maintenance with a jaded perspective.  Many of them still think of maintenance as a necessary evil that is just a cost of doing business.

I am referring to failed reliability improvement initiatives. Research conducted at Reliabilityweb.com shows that approximately 85% of these improvement initiatives fail to create sustainable business gain.

Some improvement efforts do makes things better for a little while but then they return to the previous state or worse.  We call this “bureaucratic elasticity”.  Like a rubber band being stretched outward, it only remains in that position while it is being held.  Once released it returns to its original position.

Maintenance leaders often follow the “silver bullet” approach because they met some “expert” who sure seemed credible as they explained the “only way” to make improvements.  (The “only way” also happened to be the method that this consultant knew about).  If your maintenance consultant is telling you about the “one way” to make the journey to high-performance reliability, run away fast.  There is no such thing.

Things like Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), Predictive Maintenance (PdM) or Maintenance planning and scheduling are all fantastic improvement strategies and tools, however the power for change is not resident in the tools themselves.

Do you recall Wile E. Coyote, the Warner Brothers cartoon character that was always trying to capture and eat the Roadrunner?

I do not know where he got his budget but his wily mind was able to engineer very elaborate plans using a wide variety of strategies, tools and technologies (all available from Acme Manufacturing), however none of them ever delivered a meal to his plate.

Even if Wile E. Coyote had managed to catch and eat a roadrunner, would he be able to repeat it?

Of course as maintenance reliability leaders, we need to use any strategy, technology and tool that will help us reach our performance goals, but the lessons of the last 30 years have demonstrated that creating a sustainable high-performance reliability level is not a by-the-book journey.

Since 2006, Uptime Magazine has hosted the Best Maintenance Reliability Program Award or Uptime Awards for short.  Over the years we have found 7 traits that each of these winning high-performance programs share:

1) Each program developed maintenance and condition monitoring tasks based on criticality ranking and failure modes and effects analysis. In other words they understood how their machines failed and how important they were to company goals.  They directed maintenance activity to detect or prevent potential failures on the right machines at the right time.

2) Each program had earned a high level of active corporate support and respect by starting small, assessing the result, improving, then expanding.  Company leadership did not simply endorse the reliability improvement program; they understood it and actively guided it so it could survive competing initiatives and temporary loss of faith.

3) Each program excelled in communicating up the chain, down the chain and across the chain.  All stakeholders and interested parties had a high awareness about the benefits of the program.

4) Each program included short and long-term training and certification for team members that were far higher than what we typically find in lower performance companies

5) Each program included passionate and energetic people who were highly motivated to perform at high levels.  Many of these people had no management authority however they were clearly leaders who possessed initiative.

6) These programs reported gains in safety, productivity and reliability on a regular basis to justify and sustain the reliability improvement program.

7) Each program subjected itself to annual assessment in order to identify current gaps, and then created follow-up plans to close those gaps.  They expect to continually improve with no end in sight.  If you have been through an honest assessment, you know how painful it can be.

Are you still chasing the roadrunner?

It is clear that leadership and culture are very important along with use of the best reliability strategies, technologies and tools.  The human side of reliability is ignored at your own peril.

No one said it would be easy.  Making the journey to a sustainable, high-performance reliability program requires a lot of work, vision and perseverance.  Everyone I know that has made it reports that it is one of the most satisfying achievements of their life.

Here are some resources that might be useful for your journey

Find out more about the Uptime Awards

Read these two book by Winston Ledet

Consider attending the International Maintenance Conference

What are your thoughts about creating a sustainable high-performance reliability program?

There is no shame in using checklists for maintenance reliability

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

Astronauts use them, airline pilots use them, lawyers use them, doctors and medical specialists use them but many maintenance team members do NOT use them.

I am talking about checklists.

There is no shame in using checklists for maintenance reliability.  Checklists can help us remember the things we already know how to do but may overlook because we do the task so often.  Can you imagine a pilot failing to check the fuel level before taking off?  It is a major cause of aviation incidents and accidents. (Remember that next time a friend offers to take you in in his Cessna.)

With an aging workforce and unskilled replacements, companies are finding it challenging to maintain the same workforce performance levels previously achieved.  Checklists are one element that can help capture some of that workforce knowledge.

Most us find it hard to recall a list that is longer than 5-7 steps, especially in a pressurized or reactive environment.  Checklists are an excellent stress reducer.  They can make our loves simpler and much more productive.

In his paper titled “Procedure based Maintenance”, Jack Nicholas Jr. states, “that in the field of maintenance the traditional approach has been to rely upon the intuitive knowledge and skill of the crafts-persons who conduct it. There is a great deal of pride of workmanship and, in all too many organizations, a great deal of psychic income in addition to significant overtime pay for successful emergency repairs to return equipment to operation after unplanned shutdowns.”

Jeff Shiver, CMRP of People and Processes reflects on the value of using checklists for maintenance planning stating “in visiting various locations, I find that many established Planners don’t have a process to ensure consistency in their planning approach. Sure, the initial job plan can be simple such as the identification of crafts required, estimated hours, and a list of the required materials as a minimum. But that’s just a start and you should be using a continuous feedback loop to improve it over time for repetitive tasks. Ensure consistency by using a checklist.”

Here is a checklist designed to aid the checklist creation process and ensure that your checklist helps instead of hurts.

Download the PDF Version of the checklist for creating a checklist here

The use of checklists is becoming a buzzword in literary circles so expect that to flow downhill at your company as your CEO read the latest on the New York Times best seller list (see below). 

Malcomb Gladwell posted a review of the best selling book The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right by Atul Gawande (ISBN 978-0312430009) on Amazon.com “The Checklist Manifesto, begins on familiar ground, with his experiences as a surgeon. But before long it becomes clear that he is really interested in a problem that afflicts virtually every aspect of the modern world--and that is how professionals deal with the increasing complexity of their responsibilities. It has been years since I read a book so powerful and so thought-provoking.

Gawande begins by making a distinction between errors of ignorance (mistakes we make because we don't know enough), and errors of ineptitude (mistakes we made because we don’t make proper use of what we know). Failure in the modern world, he writes, is really about the second of these errors, and he walks us through a series of examples from medicine showing how the routine tasks of surgeons have now become so incredibly complicated that mistakes of one kind or another are virtually inevitable: it's just too easy for an otherwise competent doctor to miss a step, or forget to ask a key question or, in the stress and pressure of the moment, to fail to plan properly for every eventuality. Gawande then visits with pilots and the people who build skyscrapers and comes back with a solution. Experts need checklists--literally--written guides that walk them through the key steps in any complex procedure. In the last section of the book, Gawande shows how his research team has taken this idea, developed a safe surgery checklist, and applied it around the world, with staggering success.”

If you do not already do so, you should consider creating checklists to ensure consistency and compliance for the maintenance related tasks that ensure reliability at your company.

I would like to hear about your experiences with checklists or better yet, please share your checklists or your procedure for creating checklists with me! 

Thank you for reading this post.

Unscheduled downtime should be a random phenomenon

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

If you are still doing time-based or run-time-based maintenance (Preventive Maintenance or PM) as a primary maintenance strategy you should be aware of the "Waddington Effect".

20 years before Nowlan and Heap wrote “Reliability Centered Maintenance”, and way before John Moubray wrote RCM2 was work down by a British scientist named C.H. Waddington who was put in charge of British aircraft maintenance in WWII.

He stated that unscheduled downtime should be a random phenomenon.  If all unscheduled downtime events are plotted with respect to the last PM, there should not be any pattern evident.

Waddington concluded that the scheduled maintenance: “…tends to increase breakdowns, and this can only be because it is doing positive harm by disturbing a relatively satisfactory state of affairs. Secondly, there is no sign that the rate of breakdown is beginning to increase again after the 40-50 flying hours, when the aircraft is coming due for its next [scheduled preventive maintenance event].”

In other words the Waddington Effect states that scheduled preventive maintenance was actually doing more harm than good.

Have you formally tracked unplanned downtime that happens shortly after a scheduled PM at your company?

If you are not ready for more proactive reliability-based approaches, one thing you can do is to look at increasing the time or operating hours between PM's - a pretty simply solution if you are stuck in the Waddington Effect.

Tracking Maintenance Costs and Maintenance Benefits

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine 

I hear it over and over again from maintenance reliability leaders.  Maintenance costs are one of the first things to get cut when the company decides to tighten its belt.

After all – the results of maintenance cost cutting will probably not manifest for years and by then, the management who made that decision will have likely moved on. On a side note: Management mobility is one of W. Edwards Deming’s deadly diseases. 

In a recent discussion at LinkedIn, a couple is interesting issues were raised about maintenance cost.

Cliff Williams related a story of how in one plant he works in, maintenance costs actually went up but because of the benefit, maintenance cost per unit produced actually dropped from its previous level.  Note: Cliff will deliver a very lively keynote address at IMC-2012 The 27th International Maintenance Conference in Bonita Springs Florida this December. 

Do you track Maintenance Cost related to production units or revenue?  It might prove to be much more valuable than simply having an accounting person decide what is included in the maintenance cost bucket.

Joseph Rambaldi stated that one of the largest stumbling blocks is that budgets rarely are managed or analyzed in a way that captures all costs. It is quite common for "maintenance" to capture PM and corrective work costs but perhaps not pick up the depreciation costs for replacement of capital equipment.

That creates a disconnect between seeing the value in doing more Preventive Maintenance (PM) and less equipment replacement. 



Likewise when equipment is down and manufacturing personnel are idle those costs are not typically documented and almost never assigned to the same cost center that the equipment repairs will be captured creating another disconnect between the equipment cost of inadequate PM and the business cost of the same. 



Thus total costs of equipment reliability are never summed so it is hard to know what changes in budget or practice actually makes a difference unless the difference is so dramatic that it is undeniable. Unfortunately few companies have the patience or faith to let those undeniable improvements occur, it is only by completely understanding the costs of equipment reliability that this can truly be solved.

Of course no company has a goal to reduce or grow maintenance cost, companies have a plan to grow revenues and profits.  The difficult part is choosing a “leap of faith” to believe proactive maintenance reliability is the right thing to invest in or finding a way to ensure all benefits delivered are credited to cost.

Do you have any comments you can share about your experience about tracking the cost and benefits of maintenance?

Empty The Ocean: What Can One Person Do To Create a Reliability Transformation?

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

The journey from a typical reactive maintenance context to a proactive reliability based context is a long difficult journey.

Resistance seems to exist in every corner of the organization ranging from the maintenance team, the operators, the plant manager to top company management who are the fiduciaries of the plant assets and do not fully understand or are not willing to support the journey.

So what can one person do?  

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.~Margaret Mead

• Find others who think like you do and cement the commitment to proactive reliability actions. 
• Make a declaration to yourself and others that you will apply proactive reliability strategies and techniques where ever and whenever possible.  Your word and declaration hold great power.
•  Use specific words consistently so others will follow your example.   Misuse of words creates misunderstanding.  The last thing you need is a muddled story.
•  You can ask others who have made the journey what they did (meet them at online discussion groups, focused conferences, etc…).  Learning from others experience is powerful leverage and this is a sharing community.
•  Educate yourself on proactive reliability – the more you know – the more you can do. 
•  Read more than one book about proactive reliability.  There is NO one way to do things.
•  Tell stories to your co-workers and managers about what you are learning…OFTEN.  Stories have been around since caveman time and are a powerful change tool.  Make it a goal to hear others retelling the stories you told.

Remember that the Reliability Transformation journey takes place one step at a time, and you can surely make some steps all by yourself.  Hopefully your steps will gain momentum and others will join you to build on that momentum and create sustainability.

One person may not be able to change everything single-handedly, however one person can start a Reliability Transformation by changing how others think, the words they use and then, then way they act.

Think John Adams, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi.  Your job should even be easier than theirs because you are not trying to change the world, only your small part of it!

Reliability Transformation: New Thinking About Reliability

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

Warning:  Your brain is not naturally wired to think reliability

If you are a maintenance reliability leader you can probably recall a time in the not so distant past when you were not aware of proactive reliability strategies.  Maybe strategy is not even the right word.   There was a time when you thought about maintenance reliability the way that the vast majority of people who actually think about maintenance do:

1. Something is new and operates close to perfect
2. Occasionally someone from the maintenance department shows up to lubricate, tighten things and possibly replace some fluid or filters
3. The thing ages and requires replacement or major repair or rebuilding
4. There is not much that can be done to create a longer operating life of the thing

Then you met someone who changed your mind or you started reading books, articles and blogs or you attended conferences where you learned a new way of thinking about maintenance.  You learned about the concepts of failure, consequences, condition monitoring, and reliability-centered maintenance.  You re-wired your brain to think VERY differently about reliability and what you might be able to do to improve it.

Let’s call this a “Reliability Transformation”

Read reliability leadership articles here

Watch reliability leadership video tutorials here

Of course there are people you work with that have not experienced a reliability transformation yet but that does not mean they cannot do so – especially with your assistance.

Don't change beliefs – transform the believer ~ Werner Erhard

You can consider using some of the following Reliability Transformation tips:

• Learn more than one way to present the concept of reliability.
• Practice communicating the concept of reliability on friends, strangers, supportive and hostile listeners.
• Check in with the listener often. Are they following? Let them ask questions.
• Allow “white space” around the idea of reliability. Start at a very high level view.  Don’t overwhelm them with details
• Try to close with actions – even if small. 

OK now I need to make a broad generalization about many of the maintenance reliability leaders I know.  They tend to talk in great detail and use examples that are too micro when they should be macro.  They also fail to tie these conversations to business results.  Feel free to file a dispute in the comments section below.

Can you refine and distill your conversation to support the concept of Reliability for your managers and other company leaders as well as floor level people who will be affected?

• What are the BARE BONES parts of your concept about reliability and some of the changes that would be required?
• How few words can you use, and still get meaning across? (Example: we will double production on line 1).
• What part of the concept is most confusing? Can you change it?
• Would a picture help?
• How much can be explained later without hurting the conversation now?
• What’s your next sentence, after this new, distilled one?

Are you willing to take responsibility for the way things are now and still create possibilities for a reliability transformation in your organization?

Let me know if you already have or will do so.  You can contact me through Google+ here

Moneyball Reliability or Home Run Hero Reliability?

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine

  

“Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (ISBN 0-393-05765-8) is a book by Michael Lewis, published in 2003, about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane.

Its focus is the team's analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric approach to assembling a competitive baseball team, despite Oakland's disadvantaged revenue situation. A film based on the book starring Brad Pitt was released in 2011.”¹

The basic idea is using stats like On Base percentage and Slugging percentage, the A’s built title contending teams with 1/10^th the player budget as teams like the Yankees and Red Sox whose rosters were filled with drama educing Home Run hero’s.

Like the A's Moneyball techniques, there are many reliability statistical methods available for you to guide your actions and activities.

“You must work on the vital few things that influence results while ignoring the trivial many things that do not materially alter performance.  You must know the vital few things to correct to get big improvements for your operations.  This concept is true for reducing cost, improving quality, or solving business problems.  Build your list using dollars not the number of problems.

Solving problems requires a breakthrough in your thinking to get improvements.  You must separate the vital few details from the trivial many items.  Vital problems are difficult to solve and produce good results.  Trivial problems are fun to solve, never put your reputation at stake, and produce few results.”²

Read Reliability Engineering articles here

Watch Reliability Engineering video tutorials here

J. W. Anson said:

Fixing major problems on the Pareto list requires effort, time, and perseverance.  Solving vital problems puts your reputation at stake on high profile tasks for big gains.  Winners work on the vital few problems.

Losers work on trivial problems without getting big gains. Working on trivial problems makes pretty exhibits without chances for failure.  Pareto distributions assign eye-catching activities on trivial problems into last place.

Working on the vital few problems results in major gains on the most important projects!   This is an important competitive key for any manufacturing operation.

Use the Pareto principle with these action steps: 

• Sort problems in descending order from the most important to the least important—use $’s cost whenever possible.
• Start work on the top 10% to 20% of the things which produce the vitally important improvements.
• Ignore 60% to 80% of the things on the bottom of the lists—they’re the trivial problems producing few gains.
• Solve the really big problems at the top of the $ list—then sort the list again to revise the priorities.
• Use continuous improvement programs to chip away at the big ticket items for a never ending stream of changes.

Fix the vital few problems for important gains.

Pareto principles result in: Ranking problems in the order of their importance (use money rather than occurrences) for establishing work priorities.  Winners in an organization work on the vital few problems that change the results for the business.  Losers in an organization work on the trivial few problems, which produces no gains.  Set-up your breakthrough plans and make important changes for improvements in your area using Pareto principles. <sup>2


Here is an example of a Pareto Chart</sup>

Will you use Moneyball techniques (like Pareto’s 80/20 rule) to become a reliability contender or will you count on your hero’s to deliver the results?

Footnotes:

1)  Wikipedia: Moneyball

2) H. Paul Barringer, Pareto Principle http://www.barringer1.com/anvil_files/anvil04.htm

New Capital Asset Management: Just Like Burning Money

by Terrence O'Hanlon, Publisher and CEO Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine 

I just finished re-reading Operational Readiness: Bridging the Gap Between Construction and Operations for New Capital Assets by Bob DiStefano with Co-Authors Will Goetz and Bruno Storino in the June/July 2012 issue of Uptime^® Magazine.

They use the term Value Leakage as a euphemism for the way companies wastefully burn money during capital projects.

This article is one the best I have read on the subject however I must disclose that I am the CEO and Publisher of Uptime Magazine and a friend of Bob DiStefano, but I stand by my statement in spite if my obvious bias.

The authors point out huge short-term consequences of company/management decisions and actions by the capital construction team on operations and maintenance (you can do the math to multiply the long term impacts).

Examples of some of the reason so much “value” is leaked include:

• The new plant has been “tossed over the fence” to the operations and maintenance organizations from the capital construction people.
• The operations and maintenance people were not given the opportunity to contribute to the design or equipment selections.
• The plant is being commissioned later than scheduled because of construction delays, and now the company is pressuring operations to make up the lost time.
• The project came in over budget and at the end of the construction phase, options to facilitate maintenance and reliability (e.g., instrument packages) were sacrificed in favor of saved time and cost.
• Voluminous operations and maintenance documentation is delivered coincident with commissioning in the disparate formats that the engineering and procurement contractor firm, construction contractors and equipment suppliers elected to use (usually inconsistent and not readily transferable into the enterprise asset management (EAM) system).
• Some of the equipment selections were based on the value of lowest initial cost and not on the basis of total lifecycle cost or reliability/maintainability.
• No consideration was given to make and model of already installed assets, resulting in no standardization, a need for overstocking of spare parts, and a requirement for operations and maintenance to become familiar with every brand and model under the sun.
• Abundant spare parts have been procured and delivered, usually at great capital cost, in anticipation of the frequent equipment failures that likely will occur given the operations and maintenance organizations’ unfamiliarity and lack of experience with the new equipment.
• The EAM system has not been loaded with asset and spare parts master data or maintenance procedures representing the new assets.
• Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) maintenance recommendations are contained only in the OEM hardcopy manuals and are largely time-based preventive maintenance with heavy reliance on parts replacements and little use of predictive maintenance or condition-monitoring technologies.
• Little was done to perform acceptance testing (e.g., predictive maintenance baselines) and ensure proper installation and readiness for mission prior to releasing the contractor(s), leaving the operations and maintenance organizations to fix the mistakes of the contractor(s).
• The first year of operations is very stressful, with significant unexpected downtime due to the operators and maintainers trying to learn the new plant on the fly, not having had time to prepare, train and be ready for the operations phase.

Do any of those sound familiar to you?

The authors state that list can go on and on, but the point is hopefully made.

There is currently a lot of noise about what role maintenance reliability leaders play in asset management with European and Australian organizations doing their best to avoid having the M word (maintenance) associated with Asset Management.  The fact is that in almost every “Asset Management” case study with significant financial results, M not only means Money it means Maintenance.

There are huge opportunities awaiting maintenance reliability leaders who push their way into playing a more important role in project life cycle decisions.  Career making opportunities.

I urge you to read this well written and relevant article if you are an Uptime Magazine subscriber.  If not, it is also published online at Reliabilityweb.com here.  Please leave your comments online as well as I am sure the authors would value any feedback you can share.

A special thank you to Bob DiStefano and the entire MRG team for sharing their knowledge and experience with Uptime Magazine and Reliabilityweb.com readers.