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A journal for all those interested in themaintenance, monitoring, servicing andmanagement of plant, equipment,buildings and facilities.
Volume 19, No 4.October 2006
Published by:Engineering Information Transfer Pty Ltd
Publisher and Managing Editor:Len Bradshaw
Publishing Dates:Published in February, May, August andOctober.
Material Submitted:Engineering Information Transfer Pty Ltdaccept no responsibility for statementsmade or opinions expressed in articles,features, submitted advertising,advertising inserts and any other editorialcontributions.
Copyright:This publication is copyright. No part ofit may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system or transmitted in anyform by any means, including electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording orotherwise, without the prior writtenpermission of the publisher.
For all Enquiries Contact:Engineering Information Transfer Pty LtdPO Box 703, Mornington, Victoria 3931, AustraliaPhone: (03) 5975 0083, Fax: (03) 5975 5735,E-mail: [email protected] Site: www.maintenancejournal.com
Lubrication ExcellenceSuzy Jamieson & Scotty Lippert
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2006 WCEAMLen Bradshaw
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Reducing Failures At Canadian Kraft MillBen Stevens
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Watchful EyeJörg Gebhardt & Peter O. Müller
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Sharing ReliabilitySteve Turner
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Improving Plant MaintenanceCraig Lawrence
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Ash Grove CementEric Stockton
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Control Room DataRay Beebe
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Lean ReliabilityRicky Smith
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68 Maintenance NewsCurrent Maintenance andProduct News
32 Survey 2006Special MaintenanceApplications Software
75 SubscriptionSubscribe To Either The PrintOr eAMMJ Versions of The Asset Management &Maintenance Journal
Regular Features
October 2006Contents
Cover Shot:
Field instrument monitoring inprocess plants. Read the articleWatchful Eye. Photographcourtesy ABB.
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web: www.infratherm.com.au
Maintenance Web LinksIn the January 2007 issue of theAMMJ will be published a listingof Web Links to important WebSites around the world thatprovide information or services onMaintenance, Reliability, AssetManagement, ConditionMonitoring,.
We are also clearing out allcurrent links at our web sitewww.maintenancejournal.com
Should your organisation wish tohave your web site listed in theJan 07 issue of the AMMJ andadded to our web site links pleasecontact Len Bradshaw at:[email protected]
Entries for the new Web Linkslisting close on 17 Nov 2006.
EditorialOctober
Journal Name Change
Welcome to the October 2006 issue of the Journal. After much thought we have committed to a newname for this Journal. The Maintenance Journal will henceforth be known as the:
Asset Management and Maintenance Journal - AMMJ
Since its first issue in 1988 the Maintenance Journal has always included articles and news that went beyondthe traditional boundaries of just pure maintenance. However, we still retained the Maintenance Journal title for18 years. This was partly due to the lack of alternative titles that would be acceptable to our readership.
In the 1970’s, in the UK, attempts were made to put a name to this expanded role of maintenance using theabsolutely terrible word “Terotechnology” (the science of caring for assets). I am one of the few people in thisWorld having a Masters Degree in Terotechnology. Not a good title.
M o re recently there has been a move towards the phrase “Asset Management”, backed strongly by variousSocieties and Councils (particularly in Europe and the Asia Pacific region). I like “Asset Management” but it hastwo main flaws:
1. Asset Management is already used, with a quite different emphasis, by financial/accounting groups.
2. The word “Maintenance” is lost from the title.
I still firmly believe that good quality “hands on” Maintenance is still the essential foundation for buildingexcellence in Asset Management. That by losing Maintenance from our title would diminish the emphasis onMaintenance that is still required. Hence our new title for the Journal.
October 2006 AMMJ
We again have a wide variety of articles from around the World.
The October 06 issue includes the annual survey of “Special Maintenance Applications Software”. The surveyhas listed dozens of special maintenance software for such applications as Reliability Centred Maintenance,F a i l u re Analysis, Parts Optimisation, Life Cycle Analysis and Costing, Maintenance Frequency Optimisation,Maintenance Modelling and Simulation, Reliability and Availability Analysis, and other applications.
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a International Council for Machinery Lubrication, USA and Australiab Clopay Plastic Products Company, Augusta, KY, USA
Suzy Jamiesona and Scotty Lippertb
sset Management relies on the cornerstones of Maintenance and Reliability, which in turn rely on the cornerstone ofLubrication. This paper will explore machinery lubrication best practices implemented at Clopay Plastics that have earned themi n t e rnational recognition as a benchmark program for industry. This paper also addresses the impact of world class lubricationon the reliability of lubricants and machinery. Total cost of ownership can be greatly reduced through proper lubricationm a i n t e n a n c e .
MAINTENANCE CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT
WORLD-CLASS MAINTENANCE REQUIRES WORLD-CLASS LUBRICAT I O N
Clopay Plastics Products Company in Augusta Kentucky is an ISO certified plant located 50 minutes from Cincinnati/Nort h e rnKentucky International Airport along Ohio River in Augusta, KY, USA. It manufactures hygienic and healthcare plastic pro d u c t s(i.e., films and film laminate for use in diapers, life jackets, surgical gowns, refrigerators) along with a selection of others, includinghouse wrap. The company has five sister plants: two in Germ a n y, one in Brazil and one in Nashville, Tennessee, with companyh e a d q u a rters and development lines in Mason, Ohio.
In September 2001, Clopay's operations management decided to develop world-class maintenance systems. Plant engineers fro mthe Augusta and Nashville facilities identified key areas within the maintenance functions critical for development of world-classmaintenance. Each plant was given a specified area of maintenance to master and set the standard for the remainder plants. TheAugusta plant was selected to set the standard for Machinery Lubrication and Oil Analysis.
Until the beginning of this process Clopay Augusta had perf o rmed lubrication the same way for a half century there f o re it was nosurprise that changing the culture for Maintenance Technicians was to be a difficult task. In the process, the staff learned thatone of the best ways to change attitudes is to show proof. It is only natural that when someone is asked to disassemble a highdollar gearbox just to replace seals because of a new oil type chosen, for example, you will likely encounter resistance every time,unless there is well documented proof of the cost/benefit. That’s where oil analysis re p o rts showings oil circulating in a sumppump cleaner than the day it arrived are priceless. When the attitudes of those assigned to the lubrication tasks is world classand corporate management is behind you, your lubrication and oil analysis program can only move forw a rd .
Corporate senior management challenged Clopay in 2001 to achieve world class status in maintenance systems and once givenp rojected cost/benefits they never turned back.
LUBRICANT SELECTION/PERFORMANCE STA N D A R D S / C O N S O L I D ATION
THE LUBE SURV E Y
The need for training in lubrication and oil analysis became evident to the staff at Clopay Augusta soon after corporate managementput them in charge of making Clopay Augusta a lubrication example to be followed by the other plants. The staff at the Augustaplant determined their first task would be to select a lubricant company Clopay could count on in their quest for lubricationexcellence. Augusta staff met with three diff e rent oil companies but soon realized they could not comprehend what was beingsaid to them re g a rding lubricants and lubrication or identify which companies had a sincere interested in helping them versuswhich ones had their own interests in mind. So in Febru a ry 2002 Augusta personnel were sent to initial lubrication/oil analysistraining. Upon re t u rning from this training, the staff again met with each oil company. This time they asked for re f e rences andmade follow-up calls and on-site visits to various facilities the oil companies listed as re f e rences. Clopay is a company open tocustomer auditing of its facility operations and customer feedback given Augusta in past auditing visits was taken into accountin meetings with the oil companies. The feedback strongly suggested the use of no-tox lubricants. Clopay made it clear to the oilcompanies that food-grade oil was re q u i red and eventually selected a petroleum company specialized in food grade lubricants,developed a plan and set a date to start a lube survey of the plant.
An oil consulting company, assisted by trained Clopay lubrication personnel conducted the lube surv e y. For eight days theconsultant and the Lubrication System Leader did surveys of diff e rent lube systems throughout the plant, re c o rded findings andreviewed the current lubrication pro c e d u re s .
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A
Lubrication Excellence:A Case Study at Clopay Plastics
(Paper presented at the WCEAM Australia 2006 - for full Proceedings see www.springeronline.com)
After the lube surv e y, Clopay had a better idea of the equipment needed, square footage re q u i red and an inventory of how manyd i ff e rent oils and greases existed in the plant. During the survey they had also re s e a rched oil re s e rvoirs, gear boxes and there f o rehad enough information for calculating an estimate of how many gallons of oil would need to be purchased to change the plantover to the new lubricant type. A cost benefit analysis on savings of electricity costs by conversion to the new oil type was alsodone, taking into consideration environment and safety aspects as well.
Clopay Augusta's staff could now develop projected costs, analyse projected cost savings and present a clear picture of pro p o s e dchanges to the corporate office for re v i e w. It is important to be able to communicate to corporate how these changes aff e c tp rofits. Without support from the corporate office, a plan will go nowhere. The team worked from Febru a ry to July of 2002,compiling the data into a detailed plan with pro j e c t i o n s .
The survey results were used in the determination of needed actions for achievement of world-class lubrication practices andPM Optimization program (RCM rationale). After extensive re s e a rch, a cost analysis was presented to corporate level for appro v a l .It was decided that:• A new lubrication room must be constru c t e d• Lubricants in the entire factory must be changed from mineral oil to no-tox synthetic pao based oil• Desiccants must be purchased and installed on all gearboxes, independent of size• New lubrication equipment for handling and disposing of oil must be purc h a s e d• E v e ry hydraulic hose in the factory must be changed out due to incompatibility with new oil• Seals in gearboxes must be re p l a c e d• Stainless steel piping and fast disconnects must be installed on gearboxes• Continuous training cost
After presenting the plan to the corporate office, Clopay Augusta staff was given 100% support to implement their plan.
LUBRICANT STORAGE, HANDLING, SAFETY AND CONSERVATION
THE LUBE ROOM
I n d u s t ry accepted lubrication best practices recognize that it is important that a lube survey be carried out prior to a lube ro o mbeing built. As a result of a lube surv e y, consolidation of some oils and grease is likely. In Clopay Augusta's case, six oils and fiveg reases were eliminated from inventory. Also, before purchase of IFH (Innovative Fluid Handling) systems, the needed number ofc a rts and holding tanks has to be calculated as the storage room will have to be built to accommodate the new equipment sizes.In fact a lube survey is recommended whether building an oil room or not. Lube surveys are important to assess current practices,identify gaps and aid in strategic planning of changes to be implemented.
In the case of Clopay Augusta, the survey determination was that the plant's lube room should be located in the most "part i c l ef ree" area while still being as close as possible to the receiving department for easy access. The area selected was over abasement and there f o re, due to safety concerns, the floor of the room was covered with two coats of protective sealant in theevent of a major spill. The room was secured with built in cameras and a security card is now re q u i red for access. Only thoseemployees with lube training are permitted access to the area. The cameras provide viewing access to the room with viewings c reens located in offices throughout the plant. If a question arises about items seen on the viewing screen, the user may contactthe closest maintenance associate to guide them through the inventory. The viewer is used for training and allows people to viewthe inventory without having to be permitted access to the area. The room is additionally secured with explosive proof lightingand receptacles. A climate control system maintains the recommended temperature of 68 degre e s .
Clopay started by ordering an eight tank IFH system and seven IFH carts. The IFH system was ord e red with only one electricalpump for 460 viscosity and above. Each container was equipped with 3 micron filters. Diaphragm pumps were later installed foreach container to pump the 220 -gear oil, taking into consideration a stronger pump is re q u i red to get a good flow rate with 3m i c ron filters installed. When ordering the unit, a spill pan was not ord e red and the decision was made to have one made ofstainless steel and installed by Clopay personnel. Clopay also constructed a platform on the side of the IFH system to mountadditional pumps as needed. Mounting brackets were built for the filters and each filter was attached to a manual filter indicator.Each row of tanks was connected to a desiccant on the side and 3/4" fast disconnects installed on each pump and holding tank.
Generally speaking, when an IFH system is received, the fill valve made for lower viscosity has a check valve permitting you topump in but not out. In Clopay's case, after receipt of the IFH system, staff removed the check valves to allow for pump out. Byinstalling fast disconnects that have a check valve built into them, Clopay staff are now able to pump both in and out. By havingchanged some hoses on the system Clopay can also use their pumps to fill the tanks or to pump out into the carts. The new luberoom's design was such that all oil at Clopay Augusta is filtered four times before entering any gearbox or hydraulic unit. Clopayhas gone to great measures to prevent cross contamination of oils. Each storage tank has individual pumps and hoses. This systemwas all designed to ensure cross contamination of the oil does not occur. As part of the changes in the lubrication pro g r a mgearboxes were identified and labelled using colour-coded, written labels. An evaluation was done to ensure alignment withClopay's CMMS and ISO systems.
When the new carts and holding tanks ord e red for the new lube room arrived at the Augusta plant, Clopay staff were not sure theinterior tube of the hosing was compatible with the new no-tox oil to be used in the plant. To eliminate any doubt, they discard e dall hoses and "radiator hose clamps" which are not permitted in the plant due to safety reasons. They purchased hoses compatiblewith the new oil and swag-lock barb fittings specially designed for the hoses, which locked on the hoses without needing a clamp.They made 3/4" stainless steel Wands and welded 1" by 12" pipe down the frame of the IFH system, making a housing for the wand.They slid the 3/4" wands into the pipe hanging over the spill pan with a dust plug in the end. Clopay has learnt that modifying thehosing re q u i res the inner tubing material be checked to ensure the PSI, GPM and temperature range meet the systems' needs.
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In order to change the oil throughout the factory to the new type, a lot of gearbox and re s e rvoir flushing was necessary. Clopayp u rchased a flushing agent in quantities of 50 gallon drums, mounted a diaphragm pump onto a drum dolly and carried the dru mand pump right to the re s e rvoirs for flushing. As a result of all the oil changing and flushing Clopay had another problem: storagefor waste oil. In the past, the practice was to put the waste into 50 gallon drums. To solve this problem, Clopay purchased two320 gallon totes and built a spill holding tank under them. They built metal skids under the tanks so tow motor forks would notp u n c t u re the tanks. With all the draining, taking totes inside the facilities by the machines and pumping straight into it saved manytrips with a waste cart. Fast disconnects were installed on top of the totes to hook into for filling. The 3" ball valves for draininghad locks installed on them to prevent accidental spillage. To save potential spills and also save storage space, lily pops, betterknown as popcorn buckets were purchased to drain small gearboxes. The interior of the buckets is wax-like and oil drains cleanlyf rom buckets into waste totes. Additionally, Clopay ord e red two more holding tanks to have on hand in anticipation of future needbased on current and projected plant gro w t h .
The Old Lube Room. The New Lube Room.
In the selection of oils and greases, Clopay also took into consideration plant environment, ambient temperature, loads, oil supplierrecommendations and OEM’s recommendations. In selecting lubrication best practices heavy emphasis was placed upon safety,e n v i ronmental and user-friendliness of machine top offs, draining of gearboxes, as well as filling and disposal of waste oil. TheDN factor was also taken into account to obtain amounts and frequency of grease and oils. The final selection was determ i n e dat the plant by the Lubrication System Leader with input from the Plant Engineer and all trained maintenance personnel.
C O N TA M I N ATION EXCLUSION AND REMOVA LMany hydraulic units in the factory did not have filtration. Filtration was added to such units. Stainless steel disconnects wereadded to re s e rvoirs. Low-grade media filters in sump pump re s e rvoirs were replaced with thre e - m i c ron beta filters with oil samplingp o rts installed in proper positions and manual filter indicators included. All zerk fittings were mapped out and colour-coded capsinstalled on each zerk identifying the proper grease. Hoses and gearbox seals were changed out at selected planned downturn s .Fast disconnects have been mounted on gearboxes to prevent oil from ever being exposed to the atmosphere .
Lint free towels and towel racks are mounted to each cart. Clopay has found that, if they are handy, personnel are more likely touse them. Each parking place for carts is coloured and marked on the floor cap to the height of the cart. Labels are placed onthe wall, cart, hoses and floor, in the event a mix up should occur.
E v e ry pump, hose, disconnect, tank, cart, shelf, oil safe containers and storage space for carts is colour coded to easily viewc o m p a t i b i l i t y. Additionally, each part is tagged with a description of the part for people having problems with colours.
Oil safe containers were purchased. Each container is labelled the same as carts and tanks to match up. The containers ares t o red in colour coding, clearly marked. Oil sample pumps are colour coded for each oil and stored in zip lock bags as are thefunnels used. There are two oil sample pumps for each oil: one sample pump for pulling samples from new oil shipments and onefor pulling samples for oil of same type in the gearboxes.
Each grease gun was calibrated and labelled by pumping once and weighing the sample. This was done 3 times in grams andthen taking an average of the three and converting to ounces. The results are labelled on the guns, which are stored in the cabinetswith dust caps attached. The colour of grease guns are coded to match zerk caps on machinery. The middle part of the gre a s eguns are colour coded to match colour coding on the labels.
L U B R I C ATION PROGRAM METRICS AND OVERALL PERFORMANCE TRACKINGOnce best lubrication work practices were implemented in all machinery gearboxes, zerks and lube room; and training of allmaintenance personnel was completed, a crew was assigned to each machine on scheduled downturns, to convert, flush andinstall the new oil. Clopay has found this conversion process to be a very long process, often taking over 300 hrs to completelyc o n v e rt one production line over. Being a 24/7/365 operating facility, to ensure there were no interruptions in meeting customerneeds, it took several scheduled downturns to complete each line. Each line is scheduled down for 12 hrs every eight weeks forplanned maintenance work. The conversion was started in September of 2002 and by December of 2004 estimates were thatClopay Augusta had 95 % of the lines completed with full conversion. The goal at the beginning of the lubrication program re -vamping was for the conversion to be completed in three years.
Clopay had expected setbacks during the change over in its lubrication process and took care in documenting each mistake thatwas made during this process as well as the tools to overcome them, as a learning opportunity for the other Clopay plants.
L U B R I C ATION PM OPTIMIZATION, WORK PLANM A N A G E M E N T / S C H E D U L I N G / D O C U M E N TAT I O NClopay had selected a CMMS software program. The first step in the process of CMMS implementation was imputing machinerydata into the system. Each line was given an ID # and then each system (section of machine) was also given ID numbers.Lubrication PM’s were introduced into the CMMS program to identify each machine. Lubrication work plans on each unit includedwhich lubricant, which amount and which frequency to use, as well as the location of lubrication points.
In developing job plans Clopay used the 5 R’s of lubrication concept: right amount, right time, right product, right place and right attitude.
To ensure procedural consistency hard copies of the work practices are now laminated and attached to the bulletin board in theoil room. There is also a hard copy of the lube survey re p o rt in a binder along with electronic backups.
OIL ANALYSIS PROGRAM DESIGN, TEST SLATES, LAB SELECTION AND SETTINGOF ALARMSClopay was very selective in the oil analysis lab they use. They requested a lab capable of perf o rming all desired oil analysis testsand of providing electronic results. The oil analysis re p o rts are now entered into maintenance software and available to every o n ein the maintenance department to access on plant computers. ISO/cleanliness codes are set for gearboxes at 15/14/11 and forhydraulics at 14/13/10. Clopay is always striving to improve on these standard s .
OIL ANALYSIS SAMPLING FREQUENCY, SAMPLING HARDWARE ANDP R O C E D U R E SSamples are tracked from the time the distributor delivers the lubricants. Samples of new oil are pulled on arrival and then theoil is stored until test results are received. Currently regular (30 days) oil samples are pulled on identified critical machinery andsent to an oil analysis laboratory. Gearbox oil analysis data (from 30-day checks) is being gathered to determine appro p r i a t esampling frequencies. Upon conclusion of this analysis PdM job plans will be entered into the CMMS pro g r a m .
The oil analysis program at Clopay Augusta is still in its initial stages however some benefits achieved which are already cleara re the significant decrease in oil changes and increase in cleanliness of oil. After over two years in service, the oil is still cleanerthan the day new oil shipments came into the facility. Lab re p o rts of new shipment of 220 gear oil when compared to re p o rts ofoil that has been in service for sometime in an extruder gearbox, confirm the cleanliness level is improved. The level of impro v e m e n tcan't be clearly appreciated unless lab results are compared to those of gearbox oil samples taken prior to the upgrade in filtrationand the other mentioned program changes were made.
F u rt h e rm o re, when an oil change is re q u i red, less time is needed to perf o rm the oil change because of the lubrication systemrevisions done to the gearboxes during the lubrication program re-vamping. Clopay has estimated 53 % of savings over a 5 yearperiod in oil cost due to the use of lubrication best practices. Decreased downtime and reduced man hours are achieved thanksto gearbox revisions of fast disconnects and lubrication transfer carts adapted to the gearboxes.
COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION AND SKILLS COMPETENCY
TRAINING AND CERT I F I C AT I O N
The staff at the Augusta plant recognized early on that it lacked the needed knowledge of lubricant technology to carry out thetasks ahead. The need for a quality training program was identified and a global organization was selected, since the plants inBrazil and Germany would follow the steps utilized in Augusta. The lubrication team consists of 15 people from a total of 200employees, whose lubrication practices were restricted to what old timers had past down to them. These individuals are multi-craft with strong skills in at least one related area and crossed trained in various areas such as electronics, mechanics, electrician,millwright, machinist, etc. Lubrication knowledge is something no one had actually obtained in all their years of training andexperience, but about which, many had strong beliefs.
A maintenance employee was selected as Lubrication System Leader and along with a support person was sent to external trainingin Feb of 2002. Later, as implementation of the lubrication program began, consultants were brought in-house to train the entiremaintenance staff, as well as some management personnel in lubrication and oil analysis best practices. In Febru a ry 2003, afterf u rther external training, the lubrication leader achieved certification in machinery lubrication. He attended yet another extern a ltraining in March of 2004. In addition, the company invested on setting up a re s o u rce library, by purchasing several technicalbooks, now used as re f e rences and for self-study. Thus far the lubrication leader has amassed more than 100 hours of documented
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p rofessional training and has also received training from vendor re p resentatives, oil suppliers and filter specialists. The selectedoil supplier has provided training to all staff, throughout the entire program period and the filter specialist provided in-house trainingfor all maintenance staff. Training was taken so seriously that many maintenance staff, including the lubrication leader, enro l l e din a local community college for hydraulic short courses. Online training was also used by some of the maintenance group andfound to be eff e c t i v e .
Training is not mandatory for maintenance personnel but outlined as to their and the company's advantage as it incre a s e sknowledge of lubrication best practices. Maintenance personnel have annual perf o rmance reviews that include an evaluation bythe Maintenance Manager of the individual’s knowledge and application of lubrication best practices.
Training needs are reviewed to include auditing of the system for indications that further training or retraining is needed. Clopayhas accepted that lubrication is the cornerstone of world class maintenance systems and that denying plant floor workers trainingwould be in effect saying that machine reliability and profitability are already satisfactory. Clopay has found that when developinga world class lubrication program, knowledge is the first thing to be purc h a s e d .
PLAN FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Without continuous extensive training, the tasks discussed in this paper could not have been effectively accomplished. TheLubrication System Leader, certified in machinery lubrication, is now receiving further formal training in Oil Analysis to impro v ethe oil analysis program at the plant.
Clopay expected setbacks, some level of surprises and certainly some resistance to change. However, it encountered moreresistance beyond what was initially expected and somewhat of an emotional nature. Clopay has addressed them with trainingand persistence. They did not rush the process. They educated themselves first and put the time into system development, priorto any attempts to implement the changes. Upon implementation they have had a continuously consistent message and dire c t i o n .
Clopay recognizes that if they had to do it all over again, the one thing they would do diff e rently would be to send more personnelto formal training before implementation. They feel the culture change would not have been quite as difficult. Neither would havebeen the changeover in their facility. As it was, their difficulty laid on only having a few personnel trained in the beginning of thep rocess, which were able to do all the re s e a rch and guidance needed. The Augusta staff have pointed this out to corporatemanagement and insisted that training of personnel at the other plants is the essential first step prior to implementation at otherlocations. The Lubrication System Leader from Augusta has been asked to guide the other plants in their lubrication pro g r a mi m p rovements, but has asked corporate that designated people from those plants be trained formally first, before there is anyc o rrespondence between Augusta and the other plants.
In the coming years more attention will be given to further defining and implementing the oil analysis program and eff e c t i v e l yintegrating it with other PdM methods (i.e. vibration, IR scan), precision maintenance (i.e. laser alignment) and RCFA eff o rt s .Although about 3 1/2 years ago Clopay Augusta had no formal analysis program in place and they can say now they have a pro g r a m ,they realize there is still and there will always be room for improvement.
REAPING THE REWA R D S
P reventing cross contamination of the oil, particle contamination and water contamination along with the right selection of lubricantsand applying them correctly is priceless, however, one can't expect all these changes to be completed overnight. A lot of timeand eff o rt will go into for example installing filtration units, installing sample ports, labels, sight glasses, inspection bulbs and newseals compatible to the new oil, as well as labelling and flushing gearboxes, adding desiccants, fast disconnects, just to name afew of the best practices now in place at Clopay Augusta.
Acceptance to what they have done at the Augusta plant has been greater than they could have imagined, not only in results inmachine re l i a b i l i t y, which was the goal, but reaction from upper management. More specifically, release of the re s o u rces for theother plants to follow suit. Reaction from the outside world was something Clopay Augusta staff never had expected to occur.Not only were they the inaugural recipients of the John R. Battle Aw a rd for Excellence in Machinery Lubrication, they have giveni n s t ructions to several plants around the world in constructing a lube room, as well as other change items done in the Augustaplant. They have passed along to other organizations what they have implemented in Augusta and never refused to help anyonewho asked. Besides the many personnel from the diff e rent states in the US who have come to the Augusta plant to see theirlubrication best practices at work, Clopay Augusta has had visitors from Germ a n y, Portugal, Belgium, Australia, Brazil and Canada.All these people have gone to Augusta for the same reason: to learn from Clopay's lubrication system.
A customer of Clopay, who conducts extensive audits of their suppliers, Clopay included, has commented Clopay Augusta's pro g r a mis the best they have ever seen! One well known fortunate 50 company, Clopay's largest customer, wrote in their final audit thatClopay's lubrication program could be labelled as a benchmark for lubrication.
Not many companies have tried to do all of the changes at once as Clopay Augusta has. Not only did they adopt lubrication bestpractices, they changed lubricants plant wide. And they did all this, without having personnel assigned solely to lubrication! Asan example, the Lubrication System Leader is one of three Planners for the maintenance department and is also involved withother reliability decisions and systems developments. He is a major contributor to the overall leadership of the maintenanced e p a rtment.
Clopay Augusta's whole maintenance department had the responsibility of implementing these best practices and had to balancethem in with all their other various daily responsibilities.
Suzy Jamieson may be contacted at s u z y j @ l u b e c o u n c i l . o rg, w w w. l u b e c o u n c i l . o rg
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Editor, AMMJ
Report by Len Bradshaw
he Inaugural World Congress on Engineering AssetManagement (WCEAM) took place in July at the Conrad Jupiter’s onthe Gold Coast, Australia. With over 400 delegates from around theWorld the event was one of the biggest events of its kind in Australiafor many years. The WCEAM is a new annual global forum on thevarious multidisciplinary aspects of Engineering Asset Management.The 1st WCEAM was organized by CRC for the Integrated EngineeringAsset Management (CIEAM) and the Maintenance EngineeringSociety of Australia (MESA).
I always find the size of such conferences somewhat daunting. Therew e re more than 170 authors from 28 countries contributing over 160papers presented in six streams over the three days of the confere n c e .Too often there were up to 4 papers I wanted to hear presented thatw e re in the same time slot. The conference proceedings are availableon CD from Springer Publications and at 1281 pages will take sometime to digest!
T
2006 World Congress OnEngineering A s s e tM a n a g e m e n t
Some WCEAM organisers sing for their supper at the WCEAM mystery night.
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The standard of papers andp resentations I attended was veryhigh. For example Ian Barn a rd ’spaper on the relationship betweenasset and maintenance managementand the ease or difficulty in gaininginsurance cover for large scaleassets/plant was a real eye opener.It highlighted the real risks/costs acompany may face of not being ableto obtain insurance cover if itexhibits a poor re c o rd of assetmaintenance and care. We plan toinclude Ian’s paper in the January2007 issue of this Journal. A paperf rom the WCEAM on Excellence inLubrication is included in this issue.
The WCEAM created amongst somedelegates two opposing camps - thea s s e t / i n d u s t ry based papers and there s e a rch/university based papers.One camp complaining of the lack ofhigh academic standards of themaintenance practitioner’s papersand the other camp unable to seemuch in the academic papers that could be applied in the “real world” of asset management and maintenance. However I ams u re that there was enough quality information presented at the WCEAM to satisfy all the delegates.
The confere n c e ’s “Mystery Night” was sponsored by Transfield Services and to every ones delight the surprise location turn e dout to be Dreamworld (a major theme park). A select few of the rides were booked for the exclusive use of the delegates. Thephoto shows myself (front row far right) and certain esteemed maintenance professionals on the “Tower of Te rror” ride.
The first WCEAM was a great success. The next WCEAM 2007 will be in Harrogate, in the UK (mid June 2007).
WCEAM Delegates on Dreamworld’s “Tower Of Terror” Ride
[email protected], www.omdec.com
Ben Stevens, OMDEC Inc.
u m m a ryIn 2005, the To ronto based CBM Lab collaborated with a Canadian kraft pulp mill operator to investigate the high incidence ofu n p redicted failures among a small group of its fleet of Gould pumps. EXAKT, developed by the University of To ro n t o ’s CBM Lab(Condition-Based Maintenance Laboratory), is an advanced failure prediction software package. By analyzing the pump failure s ,EXAKT provided a statistical decision tool to accurately predict whether the mill could continue to run the pump until the nextshutdown. Four key results were obtained:• The Mean Time Between Replacement was reduced by 7%• R e t roactively applying this would have prevented 10 of 11 actual failure s• Resulting in a cost saving of over 30%• The mill’s Maintenance Engineers and Vibration Specialists approved both the EXAKT model and the approach - thus paving
the way for its use elsewhere in the mill.
Mill management now has a software tool that will effectively predict equipment failure and the remaining useful life of its keya s s e t s .
Lessons Learn e d :
T h ree important lessons were learn e d :1. although many of the datapoints turned out to not be
p redictors of failure, mill management decided to re t a i nthe data current collection process to use for definingand fixing “the next weakest link”.
2. to achieve the optimum replacement strategy, failurep robabilities must be combined with breakdown costs -both repair costs and lost production costs
3. Exakt has acted as an enabler to drive forw a rd the workto correct the re c u rring issues with these pumps.
B a c k g round and Objectives
This mill produces over 300,000 tons of Kraft Pulp each year - pulp that is destined for the converting mill and then on to marketas facial tissues, paper towels and similar products. With the current acute stress on the market pricing for pulp and paper,bringing costs down and production up are key objectives for the mill’s 400 employees.
Hence eliminating or substantially reducing the frequency of pump failure was clearly the key objective. However managementwas also seeking a way to balance the normal production pre s s u re to keep running versus the cost of a failure. The missing linkwas a clear understanding of the probability of failure - this is EXAKT’s task.
Typically in these situations, three types of failure cost are re c o g n i s e d :1. the cost of a breakdown repair (damage to the equipment, expedited parts, emergency and overtime crew costs etc)2. the cost of lost production caused by the breakdown or slowdown3. the loss of reputation as a consistent and reliable supplier, potential safety or environmental costs, potential penalty
payments for non-supply for example; because of the difficulty of measuring this, it was decided to exclude this category ofcosts from the calculation.
M e t h o d o l o g yThe analysis started with a review of the mill’s current data to evaluate its consistency, accuracy and adequacy for model building.The units being examined were Gould 3175L pumps which were used 24/7. In anticipation of later capacity expansion (which infact did not occur), the pumps were originally deliberately over-sized. To compensate, the pumps were run below their beste fficiency point by throttling the discharge flow - thus causing excessive load on the thrust bearings.
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S
Reducing Failures A tCanadian Kraft Mill
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33 bearing histories were examined in 8 pump locations, embracing 11 failures. For each of these, seven measurements wereanalysed - five diff e rent vibration frequency bands, and the overall vibration reading plus the bearing’s acceleration data.
To include the all-important event data, operating starts, out-of-service intervals and failure dates were extracted from the CMMSwork history database.
F rom this data, a statistical model that would correlate the condition monitoring data with actual failure or potential failure eventswas determined.
An EXAKT Weibull Pro p o rtional Hazards model was developed to identify possible correlations between the vibration re a d i n g s ,the acceleration data and the units’ potential and functional failures for each key failure mode. As a result, only two of the variablesw e re proven to be predictors of failure. Although time and eff o rt could potentially be saved by avoiding the collection and analysisof this data, management is continuing the current collection for use in further reliability analyses.
Using the company’s estimate of the average ratio of 3.2:1 between breakdown cost and preventive replacement cost, plus thef a i l u re probability associated with each significant risk variable, the EXAKT decision model identified the optimum conditions underwhich the PM should be perf o rmed. This model balances the failure probability with the relative costs of prevention versusb reakdown. As each new set of inspection data is received, the model recalibrates and re t u rns a revised optimal interpre t a t i o nof the CBM data.
The recommended EXAKT policy resulted in an average 7% reduction (from 571 to 529 days) in the PM task intervals, which causeda significant shift from reactive to preventive maintenance, and produced savings of about 30% for these failure modes.
The EXAKT prediction model answers the questions - Should the company keep the unit in operation until the next scheduledoutage? Or should they take preventive action prior to the shutdown?
The EXAKT decision graphs above show the current status of the equipment and the recent trend. Each datapoint tracks theweighted sum of significant CBM measurements against the working age for a specific pump. As long as the current value is inthe “Green Zone” ( the lower segment in Exhibit B), then the equipment can be expected to last until the next scheduled inspection.Readings in the “Danger Zone” (the upper segment in Exhibit A) indicate the company will lose money by continuing to operateand incurring a breakdown - in simple terms, the equipment is overdue for breakdown. Additionally an “expected remaining lifeestimate” is re p o rted - important for scheduling maintenance on the unit. Maintenance managers now have persuasive data tohalt production, undertake emergency preventive maintenance and remove the consequences of a full breakdown.
The “Caution Zone” (between Green and Danger) indicates that the best decision will be to perf o rm maintenance within the nextinspection interval. The formula at the foot of the screen calculates the weighted sum of significant monitored variables asd e t e rmined by EXAKT. The conclusions (“Replace Immediately” and “Don’t Replace” respectively) are shown in the text boxeson the graph.
Data AdequacyGood failure prediction models depend on data adequacy and data consistency. The EXAKT methodology combines inspectiondata with key event data , and through rigorous statistical tests, concludes whether the data actually contains predictive capability.Thus EXAKT can guide the design of effective CBM pro g r a m s .
Dont Replace Expact to Replace Replace Immediately
Replace Immediately
Dont Replace
Dont Replace
Expact to Replace Replace Immediately
Replacement Decision
Working Age = 283 [d]Z = 21.477*P1H_Par5 + 53.436*P1V_Par5
Working Age = 637 [d]Z = 21.477*P1H_Par5 + 53.436*P1V_Par5
Replacement Decision
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15
10
05
00 100 2000
0
2
4
6
8
10
400 600 800 1000200 300 400 500
Exhibit A Exhibit B
As additional inspection and event data are collected, the analysis database is augmented - thus providing better and more
confident decisions. EXAKT measures and re p o rts on the confidence levels with which the data is interpreted. Hence, as new
data is received, the predictive models will be updated and the resulting confidence levels can be monitored in a continuous and
measurable improvement cycle.
Next Steps:
With the success of this program, the mill management plan to continue to run the mill at maximum output. By applying EXAKT to
manage the replacement of these pumps and to other key equipment, the mill can focus on keeping production losses to a minimum
and thereby reducing costs. In the current market conditions, “low cost is king”. At the same time, the company recognises that
minor modifications can be made to the information management system to ensure that the data will be readily available for analysis
without time consuming CMMS data cleansing pro c e s s e s .
The company is currently evaluating special software tools designed to assist this process - software that has been developed
by the UofT’s spin-off company OMDEC Inc, who are responsible for commercializing EXAKT.
C o n c l u s i o n s :1. Significant cost reductions were demonstrated - in the order of 30%
2. EXAKT failure prediction and decisions models were successfully developed and tested for the pump’s key failure modes at
the 95% confidence level
3. Some condition data were found to be of little or no value in predicting failure; however management decided to retain the
collection process intact to aid in further reliability pro g r a m s .
4. Minor changes to the work order process can enable the mill’s engineers to easily collect and extract the key “as found”
data for analysis and the generation of good predictive decision models.
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ABB Research Centre and ABB StotzKontakt GmbH(Source ABB Review 1/06, see www.abb.com/abbreview)
J ö rg Gebhardt, Peter O. Müller
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F
Watchful Eye
ield instrument diagnosis and its efficient use in process plantsM o d e rn field instruments provide a large number of diagnostic functions. The discussion is there f o re about how the user shouldhandle the considerable amount of additional information. In this re g a rd, the article re p resents an ongoing standardization activityand describes new concepts of ABB which enable clear and efficient exploitation of diagnostic inform a t i o n .
For the customers, this means better instrument and plant perf o rm a n c e .
The prevention of downtimes and an increase in availability are among the greatest challenges currently facing operators ofp rocessing plants. There are years when some industrial plants, owned by leading chemical companies, have maintenance coststhat exceed 50 percent of their annual profits! With this background, attempts have been made to replace expensive “pre v e n t i v e ”maintenance by event driven “predictive” methods.
Field instrument diagnosis plays a central role in this respect. But what does “diagnosis” entail? Errors can arise in the instru m e n titself (eg, an electronics error without an external effect) or be induced by incorrect use in the process (eg, the entry length is toos h o rt with certain flowmeters). Each diagnosis starts with the detection of certain symptoms in the field instrument, such as anatypical fluctuation of the measured value. Needless to say, it is not enough to display such symptom messages to the user.
Diagnosis should always lead to detailed instructions for action. These can be initially determined at the level of an individuali n s t rument (instrument specific instructions for action). In addition, the information should be put in the context of the entire plantto provide the end user – respectively the operator – with corresponding plant specific instructions. This subject is currently ofi n t e rest to many automation manufacturers and is the mainspring for the development of advanced global diagnostic techniques.
Guideline for self monitoringThe Expert Committee (6.21) of the VDI/VDE’s (Society of German Engineers) Society for Measurement and Automatic Contro l(GMA) is currently working together with the Association of Process Control Technology in the Chemical and Pharm a c e u t i c a lI n d u s t ry (NAMUR) and members of the International Instrument Users' Association (WIB) on a new guideline (VDI/VDE 2650) forself monitoring of field instruments with HART or fieldbus communication. It will also be published in spring 2006 as a new versionof NAMUR’s recommendation, NE 107.
The objective of this work is to create an understanding between instrument users and manufacturers about frequently occurr i n ge rrors and appropriate types of diagnosis in the various types of field instru m e n t s .
Status signals
In addition to this, a new description of the status signals used as standard in field instruments is being drawn up. Three have sofar been defined by NAMUR’s Worksheet, NA64: • “Function check” (symbol “C”). Work is being carried out on the field instrument and the output signal is there f o re
temporarily invalid.• “Maintenance re q u i red” (symbol “M”). Although the output signal is still valid, the re s e rve will soon be exhausted, or a
function will be restricted in the near future as a result of the service conditions.• “ F a i l u re” (symbol “F”): The output signal is invalid on account of a malfunction in the field instrument or its peripherals.
In future, field instruments should also be able to re p o rt an “Out of specification” (symbol “S”) status. In other words, the instru m e n tis currently operating outside its specified range, or deviations have been detected which can either be attributed to intern a lp roblems or to process characteristics.
A field instrument should always display only one of the signals at any given time. While the application of “Function check” isevident, it is not so for the status signals “M”, “F” and “S”. The fundamental diff e rence lies in the desired evaluation of the measure dsignal by the user:• In the case of “Maintenance re q u i red” the user can assume that the specified accuracy of the measured value is still
a v a i l a b l e .• If “Out of specification” is displayed, the measured value may still be useful, but the measurement accuracy is pro b a b l y
adversely aff e c t e d .• A “Failure” signal indicates that the measurement should be considered invalid.
I n s t rument internal diagnoses are there f o re assigned to these cases in accordance with the manufacture r ’s knowledge and mappedto “M”, “S” or “F”. To illustrate this, suppose an instrument is suitable for a specified temperature range according to the
m a n u f a c t u re r ’s specification. There f o re, a “failure” no longer has to be signaled immediately when marginal infringements of therange limits occur. This would certainly improve the current situation whereby the operator has to evaluate this as a completei n s t rument malfunction and initiate a technically unnecessary exchange of the instru m e n t .
The new status signal accommodates customer re q u i rements for greater flexibility. In the case described above, an “Out of Spec”signal, indicating that something is not OK at this measuring point because of instrument internal or process induced errors, wouldbe more appro p r i a t e .
The display should only change to “Failure” if an instrument or application parameter, ie, the process temperature in this case,deviates significantly from the permissible range.
I n s t ructions for action as the goal
In addition to this, the new guideline fulfils a fundamental re q u i rement: the most important diagnostic functions and messages arethose from which either the operator can derive unambiguous individual actions. This means the operator, or maintenance personal,must receive all the information re q u i red for safe operation as early as possible. It would be appropriate if the operator only seesthe status signals and can assign them to precise system specific instructions for action. On the other hand, maintenance personnelshould have easy access to all the available detailed information and also receive precise, system and instrument specifici n s t ructions for action.
No diagnosis is better than an incorrect one
Users have strongly indicted that they would rather dispense with diagnosis than have to deal with a spate of dubious erro rmessages. There f o re, equipment manufacturers have ensured that detailed user experiences and re q u i rements have beenincorporated into the guideline by creating lists of desired diagnoses for instrument faults and application specific erro r s .
Nowadays, many of the generally known diagnostic functions work very simply and re l i a b l y. However, even advanced diagnosticfunctions are not immune from errors. This can be illustrated by the following example:
Field instruments in certain applications may be affected by a certain error “F”. These instruments are equipped with a selfmonitoring function which definitely determines a certain symptom “S”, from which conclusions can be drawn about the error F.The result of each test for the error F, using symptom S, then falls into one of the following four categories: true positive (erro rd i s c o v e red), true negative (no erro r, no symptom), false positive (no erro r, symptom is present in spite of this, possible false alarm ) ,false negative (error not detected).
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From nuclear power plants to pet food processing operations, the principles of RCM are applied using RCMT u r b o to the generation of maintenance regimes that lead to minimisation of failure consequences, whilestriking the optimal balance between equipment reliability expectations and total annualised cost. RCM T u r b ore p resents a powerful decision support platform while leaving a detailed audit trail of the basis for allassumptions.
At the same time, the issue of spare parts required to sustain the maintenance practice is an important one.The Spares Optimisation System (SOS) continues to address this in a unique manner. A criticality assessmentis applied to establish the importance of a spare to continued plant re l i a b i l i t y. This priority outcome is convert e dto a recommended max/min holding, taking into account economic order quantity and safety stock calculations.A cost/risk analysis is also applied to expensive items or capital/insurance spares. Advanced 'What if ?'exploration capabilities enhance decision making in SOS.
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A result distribution of 1 million checks of the symptom S is shown in Table 1. The conditional probability that symptom S is activatedin case of error F is re f e rred to as sensitivity. If the sensitivity is high there is a high probability that errors are detected. In thisp a rticular case, the sensitivity is approximately 83 percent. The conditional probability that no error is indicated in error fre eoperation is re f e rred to as specificity. In the above case, it is calculated at 99.99 percent. High specificity means false alarms areu n l i k e l y.
Although the values in this example inspire confidence, a sophisticated evaluation of the self monitoring results is re q u i red sincethe error is actually present in only five out of ten cases in which symptom S is signaled. The so called “positive predictive power”of the error test is there f o re only 50 percent. Nevertheless, monitoring of symptom S has a purpose. If a symptom, S, is not pre s e n t ,the instrument is not affected by an erro r, F, in 999,989 cases out of 999,990. This high “negative predictive power” of approx. 99.99p e rcent helps the user to exclude errors and thus prevent the unnecessary disassembly of the instrument. The user can then focuson finding the real cause of the problem. It may in fact be more appropriate to map the error symptom, S, to an “Out of Spec”signal and initiate a check of the measuring point.
Typical application casesD i ff e rential pre s s u re gauges are among the most frequently used instruments in the process industry. They measure the pre s s u red rop at numerous points in a process line when an orifice is passed through to determine the flow. One problem, which fre q u e n t l yoccurs in instruments used in the oil industry, is responsible for a major part of the maintenance costs for this type of instru m e n t .The pre s s u re measuring points upstream andd o w n s t ream of the orifice and the measuringi n s t rument are frequently connected bymeans of diff e rential pre s s u re lines (socalled“impulse lines”) which occasionally becomeblocked through flocculation of the pro c e s sfluid. The problem in this case is that them e a s u red value does not fall to zero, but“ f reezes” and is often not detected by theoperator for a lengthy period. A considerableoutlay must currently be invested in theregular testing of these lines to prevent anundetected “Plugged Impulse Line” situation,ie, the blocking of one of the two diff e re n t i a lp re s s u re lines.
The development of an innovative diagnosticfunctionality would be a suitable solution. Thenew diff e rential pre s s u re gauges from ABBa re equipped with a socalled “PluggedImpulse Line Detection” functionality. Theseu l t r a m o d e rn pre s s u re gauges canindependently determine which of the twoimpulse lines is blocked. The re s p e c t i v ei n s t rument shows this on its local display.
The added value of the integration of this instrument with its diagnostic functionality into ABB’s 800xA automation is significant:regular local checks of the instrument to detect an impulse line blockage is no longer re q u i red as the signals of all instru m e n t scan not only be centrally monitored at one location, but the system also directly initiates the next steps. For example, an impulseline blockage is immediately and automatically retransmitted to the “Maintenance Workplace” via fieldbus. The MaintenanceWorkplace informs the responsible maintenance engineer by SMS. He also receives detailed information about the problem anda precise recommendation for troubleshooting from the Asset Monitor (see Figure 1).
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E rror F is pre s e n t E rror F is not pre s e n t
Symptom S C o rrect positive I n c o rrect positive Number of cases inis pre s e n t 5 5 which the symptom is
p resent 10
Symptom S I n c o rrect negative C o rrect negative Number of cases inis not pre s e n t 1 9 9 9 9 8 9 which the symptom is
not present 999990
Number of cases in Number of cases in C o n s i d e red numberwhich the error is wich the error is not of checks of thep resent 6 p resent 999994 symptom S 1000000
Table 1. Example distribution of one million error tests on a field instrument
Diagnostic Methods
Diagnostic methods are frequently classified with re g a rd to the use of physicalmodels on the one hand and historical data on the other. The analytical models,based on very detailed knowledge of the device or the process, are at one endof this spectrum. The other extreme is composed of methods which are basedp u rely on the processing of historical data. If industrial sensors and actuators,in part i c u l a r, are considered, a some what more detailed classification ispossible, namely with re g a rd to the following:• Test of the signal processing and electro n i c s• Switchover to re f e rence conditions• Test signals• Redundant sensor elements in the field instru m e n t• Additional nonredundant auxiliary sensors in the field instru m e n t• I n t e rnal signal data analysis• P revious knowledge and experience with re g a rd to the measure m e n t
signal (neural networks, pattern re c o g n i t i o n )
The potential for future developments consists above all in diagnosis by meansof test signals, internal redundant sensors and data analysis.
S u rveys of one ABB customer in the oil industry have shown, for example, that removing blockages in the diff e rential pre s s u relines accounts for a large percentage of the overall maintenance costs of the pre s s u re gauges. ABB Asset Optimization minimizesthe time re q u i red for identification of the problem and only initiates maintenance if it is needed. A considerable outlay for ro u t i n etesting is currently re q u i red to identify such impulse line blockages as early as possible. This outlay can be reduced to a fractionby means of modern pre s s u re gauges and their integration in System 800xA.
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Figure 1. Asset Monitor of a pressure transmitter displaying the “condition details” page
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Many further savings can be made in a great variety of areas by means of the 800xA automation system.
The interpretation of diagnostic dataIf certain tasks are solved at the level of the individual instrument, the plant owner is faced with new organizational and ITchallenges. Ultimately, this manager must derive efficient maintenance strategies from the field instrument diagnostics such as:who is to receive the corresponding message; what this person should do; and whether or not all the information and tools aret h e re to initiate the correct measure s ?
ABB has developed a special concept in answer to these questions: System 800xA integrates the control system and AssetManagement in a uniform data stru c t u re, which is served via various workstation interfaces. These socalled “Asset Monitors”scan the data from the intelligent field instruments at configurable intervals – usually in the range of a few minutes – and, if re q u i re d ,submit a detailed Asset Condition Document (ACD) with instructions for action. The user can electronically process this immediatelyand seamlessly connect to a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) which he uses.
The following principles are typical of ABB Asset Monitors:• Continuous status monitoring for all types of field instruments in the system.• With troubleshooting tools.• A standardized user interf a c e .
In System 800xA, each field instrument is re p resented as an “Aspect Object”, a highly flexible data stru c t u re, which gives easyaccess to the extensive data of modern field instruments such as manuals, operating data history, data sheets or driver softwaresimply by clicking a mouse button. Figure 1 shows the Asset Monitor for a pre s s u re transmitter, which has been subjected to aninadmissibly high pre s s u re. The Asset Monitor has detected the condition “Overpre s s u re”. With the click of a button, the user canimmediately call up detailed information on this condition such as:• Ti m e s t a m p• Severity of the erro r• Description of the erro r• I n f o rmation about possible causes• Suggested actions
Asset Monitors for all plant levelsAsset Monitors can be used at any level of the plant hierarc h y.As a result, intelligent field instruments and groups of fieldi n s t ruments can also be continuously monitored as well asc o n t rol loops, plant components, plant units or overall plants.Cascadability is an eminently important technological andpractical pro p e rt y. In the case of the ABB concept, it meansAsset Monitors can be created for assets (“Parents”), which int u rn consist of subassets (“Children”) with their own assetmonitors. Pre c o n f i g u red monitors are already in existence formany applications, namely:• Basic Asset Monitors: These carry out various tests on the
basis of information from plant systems, eg, quality,Boolean values, diff e rential flow, limits or deviation.
• Field instrument Asset Monitors: Field instrument AssetMonitors for the generally used fieldbus protocols (HART,Foundation Fieldbus, Profibus) are supplied with therespective Device Integration Packages (DIPS). There aregeneric asset monitors for each protocol which accessthe respective standard error signals. In addition, specificasset monitors are off e red which exploit the entirediagnostic knowhow of respective manufacture r.
• Motors and drives: Asset Monitors are also available formotors and the associated devices, such as pumps,c o m p ressors and fans. Abnormal or unstable process andequipment statuses which can lead to overload of theelectrical equipment and to wear and failures ver time aredetected. Asset Monitors here cover various degrees ofcomplexity from basic functions, such as the monitoring ofthe operating hours and the number of starts of a motor, tospecial functions such as the monitoring of intelligent“Motor Control Centers”. Asset Monitors tailored toclosedloop controlled drives determine possibleo v e r l o a d s .
• PCs, networks and software: Predefined Asset Monitorsa re available for computers, printers, switches or softwarep rograms. Various degrees of complexity are also covere d– from simple tests (paper supply in the printer) to
Diagnosis of low voltage switchgear
I n s t rument diagnosis can extend far beyond the classic area offield instruments:
The “Universal Motor Controller UMC22FBP” was one of the firstactors to be completely integrated in the 800xA assetmanagement system. It combines high grade motor pro t e c t i o nand sophisticated motor control functions in one instrument. Itcan be used for currents from 0.24 to 63 A without the need forextra external current transformers. Digital inputs and re l a youtputs enable the implementation of extensive pre d e f i n e dc o n t rol functions and applications such as direct start i n g ,s t a rdelta starting and servo drive including local control thro u g hthe digital inputs.
The UMC has a socalled neutral fieldbus interface. The UMC ist u rned into a PROFIBUS, DeviceNet or Modebus instru m e n tt h rough the simple attachment of a fieldbus connector. Thestatuses of the inputs and outputs, detailed diagnostici n f o rmation, motor current, instrument parameters and serv i c edata can be accessed via the various fieldbuses.
As a result, all the requisite information for necessarymaintenance and/or repair instructions, if applicable, isavailable to the asset monitor. By means of the asset monitor,the maintenance personnel can recognize more quickly, whetheran error is to be searched for in the instrument itself, the extern a lelectrical wiring or in the connected pro c e s s .
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complex tests (utilization of the working memory ) .
Asset Monitors and status signals are available for the widerange of applications described above in much the same wayas they are for field instruments, ie, with a user interface, alarm“severity” steps and logical content (instructions for action)that comply with the standards for instrumentation diagnostics.
Asset Monitors customized to project – and plant – specific“ m a c ro” assets can be developed beyond the existing librariesof asset monitors by means of Software Development Kits(SDK) – with full access to the existing asset monitoringsystem. If the data of all the instruments integrated both in thec o n t rol system and in the asset management system isavailable, this is advantageous for efficient data transfers. Toillustrate this, suppose an operator establishes that thep e rf o rmance of an appliance, for example a boiler or a heate x c h a n g e r, is deteriorating. Previously in such a case, hewould have received a process alarm, checked the pro c e s sgraphics and alarms and thereby determined what wascausing the problem. The operator would then either haveimmediately sent a maintenance job request in the form of alog entry, a handwritten memo or an email, or would havelaboriously searched through various systems at diff e re n tlocations for infor mation on requested or scheduledmaintenance measure s .
In System 800xA, the maintenance engineer is nowautomatically informed about a maintenance event by meansof the Asset Monitors. The problem and its cause aredescribed in the associated Asset Condition Document. As aresult, the user can quickly access the associatedmaintenance information in the CMMS by displaying the activejob requests and thus determine whether a new job request isn e c e s s a ry.
P redictive maintenance pays offThis information can be collected, combined, analyzed andc o m p a red with historical data across the plant by means ofthe described functions for condition monitoring and thep reparation of re p o rts. Wa rnings about the deteriorating perf o rmance of appliances, components and processes and their possibly imminent failure can be detected in good time, issued to the maintenance personnel and processed in a compre h e n s i b l em a n n e r. Maintenance work can be better planned, and downtimes can be minimized. In other words: predictive maintenance whichwas until recently connected with costintensive special measures and costeffective only for critical and expensive process equipment,is now economically acceptable for many applications.
Device Type Manager (DTM)1) diagnostics display. A DTM mirrors field device information into software applications.
Autodiagnosis up to dateThe example of the integrated empty pipe detection of amagnetic inductive flow meter (FSM 4000 from ABB) is typicalfor modern self monitoring by means of internal test signals,which is actuated by several application specific erro r s :
The monitoring of the electrode impedance in this fieldi n s t rument provides reliable information (instrument specific)about whether changes have occurred in the measuring system(deposits or similar) or in the fluid (composition, deterioration ofthe conductivity) during operation. The main task of the emptypipe detector is to monitor the pipeline for partial filling, becausethis causes a considerable number of measuring erro r s .
The appropriate actions (plantspecific) taken by an operator ormaintenance personnel can be configured at system level,because the instrument can communicate detailed inform a t i o nvia the standard protocols (HART, Profibus PA, FoundationFieldbus) with any desired filtering. There is an “Asset Monitor”for the instrument, by means of which the diagnostic inform a t i o ncan be displayed to the user in real time.
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Monash University, Australia
(First Presented at ICOMS 2005 Conference, Australia.)
Ray Beebe
U M M A RY: The investigation and diagnosis of plant problems is an important part of the maintenance engineering function.The techniques used often relate closely to those used in condition monitoring. As for condition monitoring, tests that re q u i respecial instrument arrangements or dedicated instruments are often re q u i red. Savings in eff o rt and time are possible if perm a n e n t l yinstalled instrumentation with displays is available in the control room. This is further facilitated with computer based systems.These have an apparent authority that may ascribe greater accuracy than is justified, as the data displayed and/or re c o rded isonly as accurate as the initiating element and its placement. This paper has several case studies that illustrate some key pointsfor maintainers and designers.
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Maintenance work often involves troubleshooting to decide the root cause of an evident plant perf o rmance problem. Every b o d yloves a good story, and engineers are surely no diff e rent. Many in the power industry would remember the Marmaduke Surf a c e b l o wcase study stories carried in POWER magazine for many years. Over my career I have encountered some similar interesting, oftenamusing, cases, all worthy of retelling as most have a message that is till relevant. Rather naturally, given the 28 years I workedin or for several power stations in Australia and the UK, the cases are of power generation plant, but most carry messages thatapply anywhere. Considering three boiler-turbine unit designs, built over some years, the oldest had 1100 data/status points, thenext 2000, the newest 4000. More data to inform (confuse?) the operators and investigating engineers?
Case 1 - ROTATION AFFECTS TEMPERATURES IN STEAM TURBINE GENERAT O R
A pair of turbine generators was installed in line, but in opposite hands, i.e. with the machine fronts facing each other. This wasa convenient layout with the control room between the two and the pair of boilers, resulting in the steam piping running under thec o n t rol room and then feeding in opposite directions. This style of layout re q u i red most of the piping to be provided in left handand right hand configuration. (There must have been considerable cost savings when later machines were laid out all in the sameorientation).
For symmetry, and to re q u i re the shortest cable runs, the instrument points provided on the plant were installed in the piping andin the generator stator teeth on the control room side of both machines. Appropriate operating limits were provided. In operation,it was found that under the same loading and steam supply conditions, that one machine had consistently higher stator and steamextraction temperatures than the other. As the construction and internal condition were identical, this was puzzling. Eventually,someone realised that as both machines rotated clockwise when viewed from their front, the control room side of Turbine A hadthe steam extraction flows, and generator coolant gas flows, sweeping downwards past the measuring points, while Turbine Bhad these flows upwards. Appare n t l y, the direction of rotation affected the indications. Once these peculiarities wereacknowledged, the machines operated for many years without any problems caused.
Case 2 - TURBINE DIFFERENTIAL EXPA N S I O N
Steam turbines are fitted with displacement detection and monitoring systems to show the axial diff e rence between the rotor ands t a t i o n a ry parts. As the rotor contains much less metal than the casings, this instrument is critical to managing the rate of heatingup and loading so that rubs do not occur. When a steam turbine is taken out of service for maintenance work, it can take manyhours for the metal parts to cool down sufficiently to enable it to be stopped without permanent damage. Owners and designershave developed ways of speeding up this process. Steam forced cooling during offloading is one method. When offload, anothermethod is forced air cooling. With the rotor turning over slowly on barr i n g / t u rning gear, a pipe is connected to an appropriate pointand blower used to force air through the steam blading, usually in the reverse direction of the steam flow. As when starting up,monitoring of the diff e rential expansion is critical.
S
Is Your Control RoomData Telling You W h a t
You Think It Is?
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An early experiment with this method proceeded well. It was actually too well, as the diff e rential expansion indication moved wellbeyond the limits set down by the manufacture r. Despite shutting off the cooling air, the rotor continued to move further outsidethe limits before stabilising. The manufacturer was contacted urg e n t l y, and responded by notifying revised limits that encompassedthe experience. Later discussion in the factory revealed the often large margins for safety built into recommended limits.
Case 3 - THE USELESS PLOT
The manufacturer of a large steam turbine was concerned that excessive steam flow through the last stage of the interm e d i a t ep re s s u re section would cause overloading of the blading. Accord i n g l y, a plot of steam flow against first stage pre s s u re wasp rovided with the instruction that operation above the line was not allowed. One of the many data displays in the control ro o mwas “IP Steam Flow” and with the pre s s u re also available to the operators, correct operation was expected. This would havebeen satisfactory if the steam flow was measured dire c t l y.
Turbine people know that first stage pre s s u re of a turbine section is close to linearly pro p o rtional to steam flow. The only IP steamflow measurement provided on the plant was taken from the IP casing’s first stage pre s s u re measurement....so the plot pro v i d e dwas a variable against itself!
Case 4 - TWIN OUTLET PIPES
The fan-type coal mills of a large lignite boiler type have two outlet pipes, each conveying the pulverised fuel and hot gas mixtureto an identical burner system. The fan action draws hot gas from furnace exit level, mixes it with the coal, and blows the lot intothe burners. (A cyclonic device is used in each outlet pipe both to classify the pulverised fuel and separate the flows into fuelrich and fuel lean streams, but that is not relevant to this case).
The design intention was that the flows would be equal through each path. To prevent corrosion, the temperature of the mill outletduct surface is re q u i red to be kept within a range above the dew point value. When coal moisture content increases, the dry i n ge ffect of the hot gas drops away, and to keep within the mill outlet temperature range, as well as maintain combustion stability,load on the boiler (and hence the unit) has to be re d u c e d .
As this is a key operating variable, a temperature point provided in one outlet leg was trended continuously on visual scre e n s .The temperature of the other outlet leg was also measured, but only seen when selected. Investigations showed that there couldbe large diff e rences between the two temperatures. Not only was one leg at risk of excessive corrosion, but the flows were notbalanced. Both needed to be shown together.
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Case 5 - VACUUM GAUGE VERSUS ABSOLUTE PRESSURE GAUGE.
The exhaust pre s s u re of a turbine as maintained by its condenser is critical to thermal efficiency and output. On the control ro o mpanel was a bourdon tube vacuum gauge showing the pre s s u re below atmospheric pre s s u re (usually 28 inches of merc u ry) andan absolute pre s s u re instrument (usually showing 2 inches of merc u ry). In their training, operators had been told that by addingthe two would result in the barometric pre s s u re of the day, with 30 inches being normal.
One day, a fault re p o rt was made on the pre s s u re gauge. It read 27 inches of vacuum, when the condenser’s absolute pre s s u reshowed as the usual 2 inches. A check revealed that the barometric pre s s u re that day was unusually low at 29 inches, so bothi n s t ruments were correct.
On other machines, control room instruments labelled as the same item can have separate connection piping, emanating fro mtappings at diff e rent places on the exhaust casing. One such point was located in the tapered part of the condenser neck, whileanother was in the parallel part upstream. These cannot be expected to give the same indication.
Case 6 - THERMAL EFFICIENCY TALKED UP?
After only 3 months into his assignment, the consultant was surprised to get a congratulatory memo from the Board, pleased tosee that the station thermal eff i c i e n c y, determined and re p o rted each month, had risen by 1%. Surprising, because all that hadbeen done to that time was to gather information and talk with staff. It was not however a case of the Hawthorne Effect! Thee fficiency was found at the end of each month by dividing the sent out generation (measured fairly precisely) by the product ofthe fuel oil usage (also measured fairly precisely) and its heating value. Due allowance was made for any diff e rence in oil tankstocks at start and end of the month.
And, yes, the efficiency had definitely risen from 23% to 24%. Many things can affect eff i c i e n c y, with the average load factor beingone. However in this case, it was the change in sea water temperature from 30 ˚C + to around 20˚C as the dry season moved in.The perf o rmance of the steam condensers had improved to give lower exhaust pre s s u res and hence much higher turbinee fficiencies! The calculation of the efficiency was changed to seasonally correct it to a standard sea water temperature of 25˚C.
Case 7 - ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION?
The first parts of this power station were built in the 1920s, and used run of river water for cooling its condensers. As further stagesw e re added, cooling towers were needed to dissipate the waste heat, with the river providing make-up water and discharge water.E n v i ronmental legislation came in that limited the allowable temperature rise in the river, and also set an absolute maximumd o w n s t ream temperature limit. Station output was to be offloaded to prevent this temperature exceeding the setting.
Considerable difficulty occurred on some occasions in keeping to this licence limit. On one very hot day, the reason for this becamea p p a rent when the downstream thermocouple was inspected and found to be swaying in the air. The drought conditions hadcaused the river flow to decrease to such low levels that the water level fell below the thermocouple.
Case 8 - ESSENTIAL INSTRUMENTS?
Four generating units were identical, with one exception. One unit had a thermowell fitted in its outlet pipe from the deaerator,with a thermocouple leading to a control room instrument. Inexplicably, the other units did not even have the thermowell. Whens t a n d a rdisation was suggested, the operators complained and insisted that no changes be made.
Case 9 - VIBRATION MAY NOT BE WHAT IT SEEMS - A
A pair of large steam turbine generators is fitted with a velocity transducer at each bearing. Their outputs are converted into a4 -20 mA signal, and conveyed to the control room indicating and re c o rding system. Monitoring systems on most machines ofother makes correctly integrated the velocity signal to obtain displacement, a parameter that was familiar to operators at the time.
On these machines however, the control room instruments were scaled in displacement, with the conversion assuming that all ofthe vibration occurred at a frequency of 50Hz, the on load rotation speed of the machine. As there are often other fre q u e n c i e sp resent, particularly 100Hz, this may lead to errors in interpretation of severity. The system was nevertheless useful for tre n d i n gto show changes, but if the scale had been marked in velocity, comparisons could have been made with the relevant ISO and others t a n d a rds when assessing vibration severity.
The system was later replaced with shaft-sensing displacement transducers and accelerometers on the bearings, giving a muchm o re through indication of machine condition.
Case 10 - VIBRATION MAY NOT BE WHAT IT SEEMS - B
Another design of large steam turbine generator unit had an overhaul where an LP rotor had been removed. During re t u rn tos e rvice, the vibration on the bearing between the two LP rotors reached the alarm level. The service transducer output wasverified with a test vibration instrument placed adjacent to it. Frequency analysis showed the largest vibration component was300Hz, or 6 times rotor service speed.
On some turbines, the bearing shell has a retaining keep with metal-to-metal contact to the outside, which is the part seen andaccessible for taking vibration measurements. Figure I shows how the permanent velocity transducer was mounted, and clearlylabelled “Bearing 5 Vibration”, with this designation carried through to the control room monitoring system. Installed adjacentwas one proximity transducer arranged to indicate the absolute shaft vibration.
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F i g u re I: Vibration transducer on turbine: labelled and appearing to be “Bearing Vibration”
Some turbine designs have a gap of some 50mm between the cover and a direct metal-metal path to the bearing. To the observ e rf rom outside the machine, both of these arrangements look similar. A drawing was obtained (Figure II), and showed that perm a n e n t“Bearing Vibration” transducer was sensing vibration of the cover, not of the bearing.
An accelerometer was held firmly on top of a rod put through a plugged hole on the top of the cover, to measure a bearing vibrationof 5.1mm/s rms (10-1000Hz). This is in the “satisfactory” range of severity according to available standards from experience forbearing cap vibration (Ref 2), [which is consistent with the recent ISO Standards - Ref (3) and (4)]. The machine proceeded loadingup as normal without incident. Frequency analysis revealed that the major component was at 50Hz, with no 300Hz componentp resent.
It was deduced that the cover had a resonance at 300Hz, and similar behaviour was eventually confirmed on other machines ofthis design. It was unclear why this cover did not show this behaviour before.
These examples show the importance of being sure of the location and mounting arrangement of permanent transducers, or forthat matter, of any vibration transducers used for routine manual monitoring . There are no established standards for bearingcover vibration!
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Case 11 - BOILER DUST EMISSIONS EASILY SOLVED The EPA Licence gave a limit on dust emission from the stacks of some coal boilers, with some hours of exceedances allowedeach year to cope with operational transients such as starting up. Monitoring instrumentation was fitted to measure optical densitya c ross the flue gas stream in the stack. Careful testing with isokinetic sampling was done to calibrate the monitors. The operatorsw e re instructed that the level as shown by the pen of the chart re c o rder in the control room was not to be exceeded.
A re p o rt was routinely compiled from the re c o rder charts, which were removed, examined and any exceedances totalled andre p o rted. After some time, it was thought strange that the exceedances were so low, yet the stack often looked dirt y. Closerinvestigation showed that the operators took the instructions literally, and bent the re c o rder pen so that it did not exceed the limit!
Case 12 - THE POORLY PERFORMING PUMP?A new pump was put into service, and not unre a s o n a b l y, the pump owner re q u i red a site perf o rmance test. Tests were dulya rranged, and to the surprise of all, the head/flow perf o rmance was well below the works test curve.
Much investigation followed. All instruments were calibration-checked. The tests were repeated, but the same poor perf o rm a n c ewas again found.
The flow rate was found by measuring the time to fill a tank at pump discharge. Its dimensions were double checked and thecalculations found to be correct. After much baffling thought, it was discovered that the digital stop watch used gave time inminutes and seconds. It had been assumed that the display was in decimals of minutes. So, 4.50 was 4.5 minutes, not 4 minutes50 seconds. The pump was verified as satisfactory.
Case 13 - THE BLAMELESS PUMP.A field test was arranged on a pump that circulated stator cooling water through the windings of a large stator. The supply pipingwas smooth copper, 100mm bore. A suitable flange existed, so an orifice plate was made and fitted into the joint, which is about2m from the floor level. Pre s s u re tappings were fitted: one pipe diameter upstream, and half a diameter downstream, per thes t a n d a rds for flow measurement. As the pipe bore was so smooth, the pre s s u re at the upstream tapping was considered to bethe same as at the pump discharge pre s s u re. This saved having another tapping point installed.
The test showed that the pump was well down in perf o rmance compared with its works test. This was so unexpected, that anindependent check was made. A closer check revealed that no static head correction had been applied to the pre s s u re gauge.Once the 1.5m or so head was added to find the discharge pre s s u re at pump discharge level, pump perf o rmance showed corre c t l y.The pump had a relatively low total head, so this seemingly small static head was significant.
Case 14 - ARE THE CRITICAL LIMITS MEASURED WHERE INTENDED?The superheater tubes in a series of large coal boilers of the same natural circulation drum type design leave the furnace thro u g hspaces between roof tubes, and connect to later sections, often via headers. There are several superheater sections in series.The platen superheater at the top of the furnace has 30 sections, each with 16 tubes in a U-shaped pendant loop, hanging thro u g h
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F i g u re II: Cross-section of bearing showing air gap between cover and bearing
Cover with transducermounted on itAir gap between
cover and bearing
Top of bearing
the roof tubes of the furnace. Unlike other designs where the leading tube down has a kink so that it becomes an inner tube inthe up direction, these pendants are laid out such that the assembly would be flat, i.e the inner tubes are pro g ressively short e rthan the outer tube. The platen is heated mainly by radiation, so the longest tubes on the outside of the array take up more heatthan those on the inner side.
These tubes are then led out of the furnace space through gaps in the roof tubes into the dead space, where they connect top r i m a ry superheater inlet tubes. There are 80 of these superheater sections across the gas path, so each has 6 tubes.
Excessive metal temperatures lead to considerable reduction in creep ru p t u re life. At these temperatures, an increase of only11 C˚ can halve the life, so operational monitoring is important. Manufacturers use thermocouples installed in tube walls, sometimesin special sections (Ref 4) to try and measure the maximum metal temperature. Such sophistication was not available when theseboilers were built, so at several sections, 5 thermocouples were fixed across the gas path to primary superheater outlet tubes inthe dead space, and the limits for operation derived by calculation.
Two boilers built almost at the same time exhibited quite diff e rent temperature behaviour at otherwise similar operating conditions.One was often close to alarm limits, and operation was adjusted to keep within them. The other showed no such high temperature s .After some years of service the “good” boiler suff e red a spate of superheater tube failures due to overheating and creep ru p t u re ,and the complete superheater had to be replaced. Why should two identical boilers be so diff e rent?
Close investigation and painstaking tracing of tube path layouts showed that the hottest tubes from the outside of the platen arr a yled mostly to leading tubes, but sometimes to the tube behind it in the primary superh e a t e r, as the number of platen tube banks isless than the number in the primary superh e a t e r. The monitoring thermocouples were installed on leading tubes. Unfort u n a t e l y,in the “good” boiler, the thermocouples were installed on leading tubes that did not come from the hottest tubes out of the platen.P re s u m a b l y, the installer was given set distances in from the furnace wall rather than specific tube numbers. The lesson here isto check such points in detail if two “identical” plant items show quite diff e rent behaviours.
Case 15 - INDICATIVE TEMPERATURES? The gas ductwork in large power generation coal-fired boilers is quite large, with cross-sections of the order of 30m square .M e a s u rements of gas temperature are needed for operation and monitoring. It is quite daunting to stand inside these large ductsand appreciate that the usual thermocouple or two provided can only give an indication of the temperature at its location, not anaverage. A repeatable indication may be sufficient, and it is obviously desirable for the location to coincide with the average gast e m p e r a t u re in the duct. A measurement survey across the duct to a grid pattern may reveal the best place or places. In thec o n t rol room, the data is labelled “gas temperature at ...... section”., but as shown before in this paper such a label ascribes anaccuracy that is often misleading.
An efficiency expert suggested, among other things, that the temperature rise across the induced draft fans of a large boiler wouldenable the efficiency of the fan to be found. Such a thermometric method is used on pumps (Ref 5).
The gas temperatures at the fan inlet are measured at several places in the gas path leading to the induced draft fans. The ductingis well insulated, so little decrease in gas temperature would be expected. The range of indicated values of what should be thesame parameter was checked. A scatter between 200 and 230 ˚C was found, with some points showing the gas temperature asi n c reasing along the gas path! The monitoring idea was discard e d .
Case 16 - STRANGE RESULT IN CONDITION PARAMETER The Data Processing and Alarms (DPA) system on a generating unit had been set up so that when Valves Wide Open tests wererun on the steam turbine, the VWO Output could be calculated by the DPA. The opportunity was taken during a high-accuracytest, run with calibrated test instruments, to compare the two values of the VWO Output that resulted. However, the DPA re s u l twas well beyond the correct one, and way above the possible range. Inspection of the plant showed that one of the two serv i c et h e rmocouples measuring the hot reheat steam temperature had been removed so that the test instrument could be inserted intothe thermowell. As the service thermocouple was left hanging in the air, it indicated ambient temperature. The DPA calculatedthe mean inlet temperature by averaging the two values: 535˚C and about 30˚C. The multiplying factor that resulted was huge, andcaused the excessively high VWO Output! To d a y ’s much more sophisticated computer systems would not make such a mistake....
C O N C L U S I O N SThe general conclusion for maintainers from these case studies is to be vigilant when data displayed or presented looks to beunusual or changes markedly from its usual values, and verify by investigation that control room and other designations corre c t l ydescribe the data. For plant designers, the conclusion is to take up the challenge with better initial designations and to pro v i d efull information behind the selection of operating limits.
R E F E R E N C E S1 . AS2625, Part 3 - 2003 Rotating and re c i p rocating machinery - mechanical vibration Measurement and evaluation of
vibration severity of large machines in situ 2 . ISO 10816-1:1995 Evaluation of machine vibration by measurements on non-rotating parts - Part 1: General guidelines3 . ISO 10816-2:2001 Evaluation of machine vibration by measurements on non-rotating parts - Part 2: Land-based steam
turbines and generators in excess of 50MW with normal operating speeds of 1500 r/min, 1800 r/min, 3000 r/min, and 3600r / m i n .
4 . M o d e rn power station practice: incorporating modern power system practice British Electricity International. 3rd ed. OxfordP e rgamon Press, 1990-1992
5 . Yates, MA and Kumar, A Thermodynamic-conventional tests on two 4MW pumps IMechE paper C556/031/99 7thE u ropean Congress on Fluid Machinery for the oil, petrochemical and related industries April, pp247-262 (1999)
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SPECIAL MAINTENANCEA P P L I C ATIONS SOFTWARE -
S U RVEY 2006Compiled by Ian Bradshaw, September 2006. The data given in this 2006 SMAS Survey is extracted, as received, from the respondents. EIT does not there f o re
accept any liability for actions taken as a result of information given in this Surv e y.
A p t o o l sD e t e rmine an assets whole of life criteria combined with its optimal operationalreliability risk, cost & replacement value.
Company Information: Name: Apt Group A d d ress: 22-450 Elizabeth Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 Tel: 02 93180656Contact: Ian Jones or Geoff Soper Email: i n f o @ a p t g roup.com.au Web: w w w. a p t g ro u p . c o m . a u
S o f t w a re Details
Psychical Asset Management re q u i res a process of workflow; data capture andanalysis to enable strategic/best practice Asset Management decisions. UsingAptools to assist this process will enable engineers to determine Total BusinessImpact based upon fact
Life Cycle Analysis; Determine optimum equipment lifespan based on totalbusiness impact expenditures, perf o rmance & risk exposure .• Evaluate the correct time to replace or upgrade an ageing asset.• Calculate the financial penalty of replacing assets early or late.
Schedule Shuts; select the right equipment, correct work scope for inspection &maintenance tasks.• D e t e rmine optimal intervals, combine tasks & staffing. • Investigate alternative work schedules, working practices, & risk exposure .
Maintain Optimal Maintenance levels; determine best preventive intervals orreplacement benefits, risk of alternative maintenance strategies.• E n s u re OH&S compliance, customer impression & other intangibles.• Reliability modeling determines failure modes & risk pattern consequences.
Inspection Routines; calculate the best inspection monitoring intervals, andquantify economics of inspection methods.• P rovide estimates & tests of sensitivity to your data inputs.• D e t e rmine the best frequency for testing standards based equipment or
s y s t e m s .
P rojects & Proposals; determine the worst & best case; evaluate the worth ofp rojects against re s o u rces & constraints.• Evaluate & demonstrate project viability.• Discover what data is worth collecting & for what re a s o n .
S p a res & Stock Management; determine correct levels, costs, & risk exposure .• Reveal impact of over or under stocking, central versus distributed options.• Unavailability consequences, criticality coding, escalation stages.
ATC Professional™ Shutdown / Tu rn a ro u n dManagement System
ATC Professional™ is a project management system developed specifically formanaging shutdowns and turn a ro u n d s .
Company Information: Name: InterPlan Systems Inc.A d d ress: P.O. Box 590131, Houston, Texas 77259, USAContact: M r. Dick Ert lEmail: [email protected] Web: h t t p : / / w w w. i n t e r p l a n s y s t e m s . c o m /
S o f t w a re Details
ATC Professional™ was designed specifically for process industry (oil re f i n e ry,p e t rochemical plant, fertilizer plant, etc.) turn a round management. It incorporatesp ro c e d u res that involve the entire turn a round management team to pro m o t eownership and visibility of the plan, and objectivity and communication in there p o rting cycle for successful project management towards your time and budgetgoals. It encourages cooperation and allows all team members to contribute ands u c c e e d .
A detailed list of features and benefits is available on the ATC Pro f e s s i o n a l ™p roduct page of our website.
Operating Systems: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
Cost: Starting at $5,000
ARMS Reliability EngineersCompany Information: Name: ARMS Reliability EngineersA d d ress: M e l b o u rne / Brisbane / Perth / Washington / Va n c o u v e rContact: D a rren GlosterPhone: +61 3 5255 5357 Fax: +61 3 5255 5778 Email: i n f o @ re l i a b i l i t y.com.au Web: w w w. re l i a b i l i t y. c o m . a u
Attack Tre e +Attack trees allow threats against system security to be modelled concisely in agraphical format. The effectiveness of internet security, network security, bankingsystem security, installation and personnel security may all be modelled usingattack tre e s .
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Attack trees allow threats against system security to be modelled concisely in agraphical format. The effectiveness of internet security, network security, bankingsystem security, installation and personnel security may all be modelled usingattack trees. With the increased risk of terrorist attacks on homeland security,hacking attacks on computer systems and computer-based fraud on bankingsystems, AttackTree+ is an invaluable tool to system designers and securitypersonnel.
A t t a c k Tree+ provides a method to model the threats against a system in agraphical easy-to-understand manner. If we understand the ways in which asystem can be attacked, we can develop counterm e a s u res to prevent thoseattacks achieving their goal.
A t t a c k Tree+, through the use of attack tree models, allows the user to model thep robability that diff e rent attacks will succeed. AttackTree+ also allows users to defineindicators that quantify the cost of an attack, the operational difficulty in mountingthe attack and any other relevant quantifiable measure that may be of intere s t .
AvSim+AvSim+ is a powerful availability and capacity modeling software that lets youmake better decisions about plant design, maintenance strategies, and spare sp l a c e m e n t .
S o f t w a re Details
AVSIM+ provides a system wide view to assess the impact of maintenance anddesign configuration decisions on the plant as a whole.
A sophisticated Monte Carlo simulation package for analysing systems availabilityand reliability problems using fault trees or reliability block diagrams. The Av S i m +Monte Carlo simulator engine is the result of 8 years development during theevolution of the AvSim+ product. The simulator enables AvSim+ to model complexredundancies, common failures, ageing and component dependencies whichcannot be modelled using standard analytical techniques.
With AvSim+ you can build Reliability Block Diagrams and populate them withi n f o rmation about failure mechanisms, maintenance costs, and operational impact.The powerful Monte Carlo simulation package then lets you make forw a rd lookingp rojections about plant capacity, maintenance costs, spares usage, re s o u rc eusage, operational losses, safety, environmental, and operational risk.
System Studies using AvSim+: • System availability studies• Verifying plant production capacity at design stage• R e s o u rce predictions including budget, spares and re s o u rc e s• Identifying bottlenecks
• Criticality studies • Optimising shutdown intervals • S p a res economic holding analysis• I n t e rmediate buffer sizing• “What if” studies - robustness of production plant to major events such as
e a rthquake, tsunami, cyclone, fire and lightning• Evaluate the impact of a maintenance plan on pro d u c t i o n• Evaluate the impact of modification or expansions• Level of protection studies
To learn more about how AvSim+ can help your business visitw w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
F a u l t Tree+
F a u l t Tree+ is the world’s most popular fault tree software package incorporatingfault tree analysis, event tree analysis and markov analysis.
S o f t w a re Details
Isograph RAMS software suite has built its reputation on the eff i c i e n c y, accuracy,stability and ruggedness of its FaultTree+ product. This is why there are thousandsof FaultTree+ installations world-wide that are currently being used on majorp rojects in industries as varied as aerospace, defence, automotive, nuclear, rail,chemical process plant, oil & gas and medical amongst many others.
F a u l t Tree+ can efficiently solve fault trees of the order of 20,000 gates and 20,000basic events, using world class analytical methods. It is the most advanced, andflexible FaultTree application available on the market.
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Safety Studies Faultre e +o Quantitative risk analysiso Failure re p o rt i n go Safety case studieso SIL level verificationo Risk management
F a u l t Tree+ includes an event tree analysis option. The event tree model may bec reated independently of the fault tree model or may use fault tree analysis gateresults as the source of event tree pro b a b i l i t i e s .
F a u l t Tree+ also allows the user to construct Markov models for use as the sourc eof basic event data. The Markov models may also be analysed independently ofthe fault tree analysis.
To learn more about how FaultTree+ can help your business visitw w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
FRACAS - Failure Reporting & Corrective ActionS y s t e mCollect, re c o rd and analyze system failures across multiple sites, using The FailureR e p o rting Analysis and Corrective Action System (FRACAS).
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The Failure Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action System (FRACAS) can beused to collect, re c o rd and analyse system failures. The failures are re v i e w e dand corrective actions identified and verified. This powerful process can be usedto greatly improve the through-life reliability of the target system.
A major problem for many organisations stems from the fact that similar failure soccur on many sites and are re c o rded by many individuals in many diff e rent ways.The use of a FRACAS system will solve this, as well as produce an accurate andaccessible failure and corrective action history.
The FRACAS+ tool has been designed by Isograph to compliment its curre n tre l i a b i l i t y, availability and maintainability analysis software suite. The re c o rd i n gof equipment or system failure is broken down by site and functional location ina hierarchical stru c t u re that can be easily understood. Beneath this, theh i e r a rchical tree can be constructed to any level of complexity.
F a i l u re and repair re p o rts are assigned to a particular pieces of equipment withits movements to other locations re c o rded. Corrective Actions and Failure modes,along with personnel data details can then be assigned to each specific part ofthe failure re p o rt .
The advantage of FRACAS over other systems is that as field failure and othermaintenance data is entered in to the FRACAS system the data is automaticallyanalyzed. The analyzed FRACAS data may then be used to optimize plannedmaintenance schedules, inspections and design changes using Isograph’sp o w e rful availability simulation, reliability centered maintenance and We i b u l ls o f t w a re .
To learn more about how FRACAS can help your business visitw w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
HAZOP - Hazard and Operability Study
One of the commonly used techniques in the pre l i m i n a ry phase of a safety study isa hazard and operability study. Hazop+ provides a familiar visual environment inwhich to design and use the study and action forms that are the basis for enteringHazop inform a t i o n .
S o f t w a re Details
The Hazard and Operability Study, known as Hazop, is a standard hazard analysistechnique used in the pre l i m i n a ry safety assessment of new systems ormodifications to existing ones. The Hazop study is a detailed examination, by ag roup of specialists, of components within a system to determine what wouldhappen if that component were to operate outside its normal design mode.
Each component will have one or more parameters associated with its operationsuch as pre s s u re, flow rate or electrical power. The Hazop study looks at eachparameter in turn and uses guide words to list the possible off - n o rmal behavioursuch as 'more', 'less', 'high', 'low' or 'no'.
The effects of such behaviour is then assessed and noted down on study form s .The categories of information entered on these forms can vary from industry toi n d u s t ry and from company to company.
The first major advantage of using Hazop+ is that it helps you to customise yourHazop study.
The second major advantage is that it provides a very convenient way to enterand store the study information. The information is stored in an Access compatibledatabase from where it can be filtered sorted and displayed. Hazop+ speeds upthe process of re c o rding and managing the potentially large amounts ofi n f o rmation.
The third major advantage is that Hazop+ also offers a powerful re p o rt generatorfor the creation and printing of professional quality re p o rt s .
Hazop+ also offers a project wizard to simplify creation of new projects.
To learn more about how Hazop+ can help your business visit
w w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website
IsoLib Parts Libraries
The IsoLib Parts Libraries contain many thousands of modern electronic and non-e l e c t ronic parts and provide a comprehensive source of failure data for users ofI s o g r a p h ’s reliability products.
S o f t w a re Details
The IsoLib Parts Libraries contain many thousands of modern electronic and non-e l e c t ronic parts and provide a comprehensive source of failure data for users ofI s o g r a p h ’s reliability products. The libraries have been constructed by electro n i cand reliability engineers from manufacturers’ datasheets and other sources, ortaken directly from existing public sourc e s .
IsoLib's ever- g rowing Electronic Parts Library currently contains many thousandsof parts and can be imported directly into other Isograph analysis tools to pro d u c esystem failure data quickly.
IsoLib also contains two existing non-electronic libraries: the NPRD-95 library formechanical component failure data and the IAEA-TECDOC-508 library forcomponent reliability data. Again, the data can be swiftly imported into otherIsograph tools.
The libraries are regularly upgraded with new parts. New library versions aremade available to users with a library maintenance contract at regular interv a l s .Users with a library maintenance contract may also request Isograph to addspecific parts to the library if the part is not currently defined. A limited numberof requested parts are added per annum to the libraries at no extra charg e .
To find out more about the Isolib Parts Libraries contact ARMS ReliabilityEngineers on +61 3 5255 5357 or visit www. re l i a b i l i t y. c o m . a u
IsoLib Project Management
The IsoLib Project Management program is a powerful tool that can be used tomanage all the project files associated with Isograph software.
S o f t w a re Details
The IsoLib Project Management program is a powerful tool that can be used tomanage all the project files associated with Isograph software. It provides fullp roject control and historical tracking to those using the software in a corporateor enterprise situation.
The product maintains the project files from all Isograph products and store sthem in a SQL Server database. The IsoLib Project Management program contro l saccess to these projects, using a checkin/checkout methodology, pre v e n t i n gmultiple users from working on an individual project at the same time. An auditlog is maintained so that details of who created, modified and deleted a pro j e c tcan be determined. Users can then follow this audit trail for each pro j e c t .
The use of the SQL Server database format means that not only can the pro d u c teasily sort and filter many project files, but all file handling is done very quickly.All the projects are compressed to minimise storage space, without sacrificinghandling speed. The SQL format allows access over a local area network as wellas across an Internet connection.
To find out more about the Isolib Project Management application contact ARMSReliability Engineers on +61 3 5255 5357 or visit w w w. re l i a b i l i t y. c o m . a u
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L c c Wa re
l c c Wa re allows the user to define the cost elements during the system lifetime,s t a rting at the conception stage and continuing through re s e a rch, development,design, operations and maintenance and ending with system disposal.
S o f t w a re Details
Life cycle costing is a methodology for calculating the whole cost of a systemf rom inception to disposal. The system will vary from industry to industry andcould for instance be a building, a ship, a weapon system or a power station.Whatever the system, the life cycle costing technique will be the same, the majoritems of cost will be defined through its life. These items could include re s e a rc hand development, construction, operation and maintenance and disposal.L c c Wa re makes the calculations of these costs easy and comprehensive, and isthe perfect decision making tool for managers, engineers and anyone involvedin the decision making of assessing equipment life or analyzing altern a t i v e s .
By using the LCC method to compare product alternatives, the true lifetime costsof each alternative are compared and the most cost-effective alternative can bechosen.
Cost Studies using LCCWa reo Lifecycle cost calculationo Evaluation of alternative pro c u rement optionso Payback analysiso Maintenance scenario comparisono Cost of failure pre d i c t i o no Cost of downtime pre d i c t i o n
To learn more about how LccWa re can help your business visitw w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
NAP - Network Availability Pro g r a m
The latest addition to the Isograph RAMS Suite, the Network Availability Pro g r a m(NAP) enables users to predict the availability and reliability of communicationnetworks.
S o f t w a re Details
The Network Availability Program (NAP) enables users to predict the availabilityand reliability of communication networks. The NAP network availability modelutilises an extended Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) methodology that addre s s e sthe specific characteristics of network elements and their connections. In additionto predicting network availability, NAP also provides criticality rankings thatidentify weak spots in the network. NAP provides many time-saving features toallow users to quickly construct the network diagram. These include a part sl i b r a ry facility that allows users to import their parts data in convenient gro u p i n g s ,a network element library facility that allows users to construct common networkelement diagrams and a fully interactive network diagram construction facility.
Complex or simple networks may be modelled using NAP. One of the import a n tf e a t u res of NAP is that it allows the modelling of data flow in diff e rent dire c t i o n salong the same network path. This means that users need not be specific aboutthe direction of data flow in selected parts of the network. NAP will thenautomatically determine the allowable paths between a source and target, andhence determine the minimal cut sets that determine the availability of thenetwork.
To learn more about how NAP can help your business visit w w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
RCMCost
Reduce maintenance costs, increase operational perf o rmance and meet risk, safetyand environmental goals using the powerful decision making tool, RCMCost.
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S o f t w a re Details
Many of the worlds leading companies are using Reliability Centere dMaintenance Strategies as a means to decrease maintenance costs, incre a s eoperational perf o rmance, reduce risk and meet safety and environmental goals.A c ross the globe companies are turning to RCMCost to provide them with the fullframework for building the RCM model to accurately re p resent data and analyseoptimized maintenance alternatives. RCMCost is empowering users with adecision making tool to understand the contribution of their assets to businessp e rf o rmance, and help optimize their maintenance decisions to further enhancep roductivity through increased re l i a b i l i t y.
RCMCost supports RCM standards such as SAE JA1011, MSG-3 and MIL-STD-2173(AS) by providing a stru c t u red method for entering FMECA data and simulatingthe effects of diff e rent maintenance strategies on cost, safety, the enviro n m e n tand operational issues. The RCM decision making process is there f o resubstantially enhanced by the ability to quickly simulate the effects of pre v e n t i v etasks, inspection tasks and condition monitoring taken into account ageing, hiddenf a i l u res, maintenance crew costs, spares costs and availability etc.
Maintenance Studies using RCMCost:• Maintenance task optimisation• FMEA analysis• FMECA analysis• RCM analysis• F a i l u re effect prediction and risk threshold studies• Lifecycle cost pre d i c t i o n s• Maintenance plan development• Automatic production of maintenance work instruction sheets as doc files• Z e ro based budget pre d i c t i o n• Repair versus replace decisions• Comparison of alternative maintenance strategies• Evaluation of inspection and monitoring regimes
To learn more about how RCMCost can help your business visitw w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
R e a l i t y C h a rt i n gR e a l i t y C h a rting™ is a user friendly software solution created to help people betterunderstand their problems and identify effective solutions that prevent re c u rrence.
S o f t w a re Details
R e a l i t y C h a rting™, a program specifically designed to help conduct root causeanalysis investigations using the Apollo Methodology. RealityCharting™ off e r sthe perfect platform for collating and re p o rting an Apollo Root Cause Analysisinvestigation. RealityCharting™ is a tool that adds great value by expediting youranalysis consistent with the rules of the Apollo method.
When investigators use the same format, it's easier to add information to ananalysis as well as communicate the results across the org a n i z a t i o n .R e a l i t y C h a rting™ guides the user through each step in the Apollo process, helpingto ensure that relevant information is captured in a consistent form a t .R e a l i t y C h a rting™ uses drag and drop features that make creating and org a n i z i n gthe Apollo cause and effect chart extremely easy compared to other techniques.It ensures that solutions are directly attached to causes and provides a final re p o rtthat lists action items and due dates.
Maximise your investment in Apollo Root Cause Analysis by utilizing a tool thathelps to keep your re p o rting in a standardized professional re p o rting tool. A 30day free trial can be downloaded by accessing our websitew w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au . Copies of RealityCharting™ are also included in all ApolloRoot Cause Analysis training courses.
Business Benefits of RealityChart i n g ™
I m p roved Eff i c i e n c y• The amount of time spent in incident investigations is greatly reduced when
R e a l i t y C h a rting™ is used to help facilitation and capture re l e v a n ti n f o rmation in a consistent manner.
• Cuts down on the time needed to pre p a re the RCA chart and re p o rt by 50%
P rovides Standard i z a t i o n• R e a l i t y C h a rting™ provides standardization in your incident investigation pro c e s s
and allows you to ensure the Apollo method is being followed every time.
C o m m u n i c a t i o n• Sharing what you know about a problem with others is one of the most
critical steps in problem solving because it creates a better understanding
of the problem which leads to better solutions and buy-in from allstakeholders.
• any problem analysis by providing guidance and stru c t u re that is absent inother charting software.
Reliability Workbench
Reliability Workbench, the integrated environment for perf o rming ReliabilityP rediction, Maintainability Prediction, Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis(FMECA), Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, Event Tre eAnalysis and Markov Analysis.
S o f t w a re Details
Reliability Workbench is the market leading reliability tool that accommodates allthe reliability needs of a maintenance and reliability professional. Whether youhave a new project that is still being designed or an existing facility that you wishto improve, our simple to use Reliability Workbench software provides solutionsso your operation can realize outstanding results.
This comprehensive tool is sold as separate modules or as a complete packageto allow users the flexibility of purchasing the part of the application that is mostapplicable to their needs. Other modules can be added at any time and there arecost benefits for purchasing multiple modules at the same time. Below is a listof the various modules and calculations that Reliability Workbench feature s :• Reliability Pre d i c t i o n• Maintainability Pre d i c t i o n• F a i l u re Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)• Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD)• Fault Tree Analysis• Event Tree Analysis• Markov Analysis
F a i l u re rate predictions are calculated from the Bellcore standard for electro n i cp a rts, the MIL-HDBK-217 standard for electronic equipment, the IEC TR 62380s t a n d a rd for electronic equipment (as well as the RDF 2000 standard for electro n i cequipment) and the NSWC-98/LE1 Handbook for mechanical part s .
Reliability Workbench also features the Isolib Parts Libraries. The IsoLib Part sLibraries contain many thousands of modern electronic and non-electronic part sand provide a comprehensive source of failure data for users of Isograph’sreliability products. The libraries have been constructed by electronic andreliability engineers from manufacturers’ datasheets and other sources, or takend i rectly from existing public sourc e s .
To learn more about how Reliability Workbench can help your business visitw w w. re l i a b i l i t y. c o m . a u
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
R i s k Vu
R i s k Vu can be used as a ‘Living PSA’ (PSA stands for Probabilistic SafetyAssessment) tool or as a risk monitor. It may also be used as a management tool toallow users to try out ‘what-if’ scenarios without knowing anything about theunderlying fault and event tree models
S o f t w a re Details
Fault and event tree analysis methods are widely applied to system availabilityand reliability problems in most engineering disciplines. They may be used top redict the perf o rmance of a system at various stages of the design process andindicate reliability weak spots in the design. Experienced reliability engineers maymodify the stru c t u re of the fault and event trees in order to compare pre d i c t e dsystem perf o rmance from diff e rent design options. The computer pro g r a mF a u l t Tree+ is used by thousands of engineers to hold the fault and event tree data,analyse the system, and re p o rt on the results. A detailed understanding of faultand event tree construction methods and the reliability logic for the systems beingmodelled is re q u i red to allow possible design changes to be reflected in the faultand event tree stru c t u res.
The RiskVu computer program provides a high level interface to the FaultTre e +p rogram allowing system designs to be compared by personnel with noexperience in fault or event tree analysis methods. RiskVu also provides a morec o n t rolled framework to compare and re c o rd design options and the pre d i c t e dp e rf o rmance parameters.
To learn more about how RiskVu can help your business visitw w w. re l i a b i l i t y.com.au
Full working demonstration versions and online demonstrations can be arr a n g e dt h rough our website.
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C ATLOC C ATLOC is a sophisticated life cycle costing tool with a new unique flexiblea p p roach to LCC modeling.
Company Information: Name: Systecon ABA d d ress: Box 5205, SE102 45 Stockholm, SWEDENContact: Oskar Te n g oEmail: [email protected] Web: w w w.systecon.se
S o f t w a re Details
C ATLOC is a new whole life costing tool for calculations and comparative analysesof costs for development, production, operation and maintenance of technicalsystems throughout their life cycle.
C ATLOC offers a unique flexible approach to LCC modelling. Firstly, it allows costequations and cost break down stru c t u res to be fully defined by the user.S e c o n d l y, in the analysis, it allows the user to categorize, slice and dice costs inalmost any dimension including time.
C ATLOC has intuitive input views as well as flexible graphical result views foraccurate analysis and interpretation of results. It is ideal for identifying costd r i v e r s .
Enterprise Reliability Manager Company Information: Name: Oniqua Pty Ltd A d d ress: Level 4, 303 Coronation Drive, Milton QLD 4064, Australia Contact: S h e rry Chen Email: s h e [email protected] Web: w w w.oniqua.com
S o f t w a re Details
Description of main functional capabilities, cost, system re q u i rements and specialf e a t u res. • Analysis of historical strategy conformance and effectiveness leading to
actionable information that can be used to immediately improve companyp e rf o rm a n c e .
• Sustainability based methodologies that ensure enduring optimization ofmaintenance and supply functions
• S t a n d a rdization of equipment information, tasks and bills of materials thatreduce the cost of breakdowns and preventive maintenance
• Optimal spares holdings as demand changes and supplier perf o rm a n c ec h a n g e s
• Supplier ranking and scoring• What if analysis• Easy to use portal that enables infrequent users to access to maintenance
and supply inform a t i o n• Multi-user enterprise level application for large volumes of inform a t i o n
eTaskMaker®e TaskMaker® is a parametric planning and estimating tool.Name: Interplan Systems Inc.Address: P.O. Box 590131, Houston, Texas 77259, USAContact: Mr. Dick ErtlEmail: [email protected]: www.interplansystems.com
S o f t w a re Details
e TaskMaker® is a front end planning and estimating tool that generatescustomized, re s o u rce loaded project schedules according to user definedparameters for export to leading project management software. eTa s k M a k e rincludes an extensive and customizable planning library including over 150modules for oil re f i n e ry and petrochemical plant maintenance.
e TaskMaker is a flexible platform that standardizes your best practices in planningand estimating across the enterprise. Video demonstrations of the system (anda free demo version of the software) are available from the eTaskMaker pro d u c tpage on our website.
Operating Systems: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
Cost: Starting at $ 4,630
I n v e n t o ry Cash Release™ Action andImplementation Pro g r a m
Reduces inventory investment by using the Inventory Cash Release TM Process toi d e n t i f y, re c o rd and track inventory reduction implementation actions and outcomes
Company Information: Name: OMCS Intern a t i o n a lA d d ress: 1 Slough Rd Altona Vic AustraliaContact: Steve Tu rn e rEmail: s t e v e . t u rn e r @ o m c s i n t e rnational.com Web: w w w.pmoptimisation.com.au
S o f t w a re Details
The Inventory Cash Release™ software program allows you to safely reduce youri n v e n t o ry by creating a re c o rd of the actions and outcomes of this process.
This is achieved using an action tracking approach for easy control ofimplementation actions, timing and approvals. Users import inventory data andthen apply the Inventory Cash Release™ Process to sort the data and apply the‘7 Actions for Inventory Reduction’. They can then allocate the ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘when‘ and ‘how’ for all of the actions used to reduce their inventory. This creates anaudit trail for actions, responsibilities and outcomes and tracks the implementationof the process. More than that, however, this software also enables multi useraccess to documents with real time updates on pro g ress.
This unique software program provides the ‘follow through’ for implementationthat most other systems ignore. POA. The package can be installed with eitherSQL Server or MS Office environments. The Inventory Cash Release™ Actionand Implementation Program puts the tools for successful implementation ofi n v e n t o ry reduction at your fingert i p s .
M a D C ATM a D C AT is a tool for categorization and analysis of experience data from themaintenance pro c e s s .
Company Information: Name: Systecon ABA d d ress: Box 5205, SE102 45 Stockholm, SWEDENContact: Oskar Te n g oEmail: [email protected] Web: w w w.systecon.se
S o f t w a re Details
M a D C AT (Maintenance Data Categorization and Analysis Tool) has specialemphasis on analysing development of re l i a b i l i t y, cost and system perf o rm a n c eover time.
For breakdown and accumulation of data (cost, number of events etc), MaDCATuses a unique flexible combination of user-defined hierarchical stru c t u res, costelements and information categories.
M a D C AT analyses events as a function of time or any other time-based parameter.Trend analysis is used to discover changes in event flows. Sequential test planscan be applied to verify failure flows. Analysis of failure intensity is used tod e t e rmine maintenance interv a l s .
Data is easily imported and exported from customer’s data sourc e s .
M a i n t e n a n c e M a x ®MaintenanceMax® electronic perf o rmance support software provides maintenancetechnicians with web-based troubleshooting assistance, Interactive Electro n i cTechnical Manual data, and training clips.
Company Information: Name: REI Systems, Inc.A d d re s s : 8603 Westwood Center Drive #400, Vienna, Vi rginia USAContact: Anna Liisa Van MantgemEmail: a v a n m a n t g e m @ reisys.com Web: w w w. m a i n t e n a n c e m a x . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
Developed for the U.S. Department of Defense, MaintenanceMax® electro n i cp e rf o rmance support software includes: S1000D-compliant Interactive Electro n i cTechnical Manuals display, context-specific training clips, a knowledgemanagement/knowledge capture tool, a content authoring console, animatedschematics and diagrams, an Illustrated Parts Breakdown, maintenance re p o rt i n gfunctions, and a system administrator console for managing access privileges.Integrate MaintenanceMax® with your EAM/CMMS for maximum eff e c t i v e n e s s .
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MaintenanceMax® is deployed on rugged mobile computers for instant accessto maintenance data at the point of work. Cost ranges from $30K USD to $800KUSD. Runs on all Microsoft Windows® PCs and Internet Explorer® browser; canbe wired or wireless.
Oniqua Analytics Suite - Maintenance Analytics S t a n d a rdise, analyse and optimize preventative maintenance data,
Company Information: Name: Oniqua Pty Ltd A d d ress: Level 4, 303 Coronation Drive, Milton QLD 4064, Australia Contact: S h e rry Chen Email: s h e [email protected] Web: w w w.oniqua.com
S o f t w a re Details• Facilitates visibility of maintenance perf o rmance, at site, business unit,
region and enterprise level• Advanced statistical forecasting methods• Automation enables efficient and regular review and update of the entire
maintenance framework• Ability to work with groups of items at a time• O ff-line processing designed to facilitate the analysis of huge volumes of
transactional data without impacting the corporate ERP system• Enables “what if” analysis before implementing decisions• R e p o s i t o ry for corporate maintenance knowledge• Historical information to provide recommendations that are justified by
practical experience• Flexible and intelligent re p o rt i n g• E n s u res policy and re p o rting compliance• Systematic and sustainable
O P U S 1 0OPUS10 is a comprehensive and flexible tool for spares optimisation and logisticss u p p o rt analysis, enabling maximum availability at minimum cost.
Company Information: Name: Systecon ABA d d ress: Box 5205, SE102 45 Stockholm, SWEDENContact: Oskar Te n g oEmail: [email protected] Web: w w w.systecon.se
S o f t w a re Details
OPUS10 is the world-leading tool for cost effective spares optimisation, lifes u p p o rt costing and evaluation of maintenance and supply concepts. Furt h e rm o reit includes the powerful LORA XT for system based, optimal allocation of re p a i rre s o u rc e s .
OPUS10 features a very flexible multi indenture, multi echelon model thataccommodates any technology or support organisation. It can modelflexible/lateral re - s u p p l y / b a c k o rder priority, preventive/ corrective maintenanceas well as repairables, discardables and partly re p a i r a b l e s .
The optimisation is made from a system perspective and will facilitate incre a s e davailability combined with savings of 20-40% compared with other methods.
PMO2000™ Version 3PMO2000™ software “An Enterprise Approach to Reliability Assurance”
Company Inform a t i o n :Name: OMCS Intern a t i o n a lA d d ress: 1 Slough Rd Altona Vic AustraliaContact: Steve Tu rn e rEmail: s t e v e . t u rn e r @ o m c s i n t e rnational.com Web: w w w. reliabilityassurance.com
S o f t w a re Details
The PMO2000™ software is an efficient tool for managing maintenance strategyand asset reliability at site, corporate or enterprise level
At OMCS International, our focus over the last two years has been to furt h e r
develop the PMO2000™ software as a flexible and efficient tool for managingmaintenance strategy. PMO2000™ V3 is designed with improved simplicity andp e rf o rmance in mind. One of the biggest improvements is the upgrade of thedatabase. Many of our prolific users have large volumes of data and re q u i re highend perf o rmance. PMO2000™ V3 can now be set up to operate on a MS SQLS e rver database while continuing to support MS Access databases for smallerusers. With PMO2000™ V3 SQL Server comes additional opportunities for thecorporate user. A central database promotes the transfer of knowledge andsharing of information and analysis, and the creation of asset perf o rmance re p o rt sthat are standard and reconcilable. The V3 SQL Server version can also bedeployed in a Client Server or via Presentation Serv e r. For off site analysis, userscan “check out” areas of the database for re v i e w, and then update the centraldatabase on re t u rn “check in”.
Our vision of greater post analysis functionality has been continued with theaddition of modules that formally manage plant perf o rmance data collection andfeed back into the PMO2000™ software when failure occurs. The total packageof three modules, PMO, RIMSys® and OEE, integrated with the CMMS is knownas Reliability Assurance.
qRA To o l k i tqRA Toolkit is locally developed software for qualitative Risk Analysis in accord a n c ewith AS/NZS 4360, 3931 and MDG 1010
Company Information: Name: The Asset Partnership Pty LtdA d d ress: Suite 1, 2 Culdees Road, BURWOOD, NSW, 2136 AustraliaContact: Shane ChiddyEmail: m a i l @ a s s e t p a rtnership.com Web: w w w. a s s e t p a rt n e r s h i p . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
qRA Toolkit is a unique software program to make possible the management ofrisk in a stru c t u red, systematic, defensible and informed manner.
The qualitative approach does not re q u i re group members to be skilled inmathematics but is designed to create a valid and defensible risk assessment,even when hard data is not available, by leading the risk analysis Facilitatort h rough the risk identification and management process as defined by AS/NZS4360, 3931 (IEC 60300-3-9) and MDG 1010.
This software, off e red in stand-alone and network versions, is developed inAustralia specifically for Australian and New Zealand Industry and is fullys u p p o rted with comprehensive training.
The qRA Toolkit features a powerful re p o rt generator which provides the completerisk analysis re p o rt in the right order in addition to:• Documentation of the analysis systems and sub-systems• Documentation of hazards, effects and existing contro l s• Selection and analysis of hazards requiring additional contro l s• Relative risk calculations using the probability/consequence matrix• Documentation of additional control, their cost/benefit and associated
action plans • Automated sorting in risk, consequence, person responsible and re q u i re d
d a t e• Common secure database for all risks• Built in audit and review capability
RCA Rt Incident Management & Root CauseA n a l y s i s
A tool that can document a powerful process that identifies underlying pro b l e m sand helps identify practical solutions. The embedded action management systemc o n v e rts “understanding” into “re s u l t s ” .
Company Inform a t i o nName: RCA Rt Pty LtdA d d ress: GPO Box 407 Melbourne 3001 AustraliaContact: Melissa Cameron P h o n e : +61 3 9796 1100 Fax: +61 3 9697 1101Email: M e l i s s a @ s i rf rt.com.au Web: w w w. rc a rt . c o m . a u
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S o f t w a re Details
E ffective defect elimination will provide an edge in today’s competitive markets.A major challenge facing organizations is their ability to engage people at alllevels in identifying, properly understanding and eliminating failures and defects.The RCA Rt process and supporting software provides a framework that bringsthe shopfloor together with technical re s o u rces to eliminate defects.
The RCA Rt incident management and root cause analysis software helps manageincidents, failure analysis and defect elimination across one site or multiple siteswith ease. It is essential that understanding is followed by action so the softwareincludes a powerful action management system. Simple re p o rts help trackp ro g ress of actions against forecast dates to help focus eff o rts on the essentialt a s k s .
The software is user configurable. Screens, fields and re p o rts may be easilya l t e red to ensure that the existing successful methods already in place ares u p p o rted and enhanced. There are many approaches to problem solving thata re valuable and appropriate in diff e rent circumstances. The framework pro v i d e dby the RCA Rt software is flexible so that these diff e rent approaches may beb rought together to produce the desired outcome.
The RCA Rt Software consists of five core elements;• An Incident Management System,• A Root Cause Analysis tool complete with user friendly cause tre e
development tool, • An Analysis tool to assist in identifying repeating faults and causes acro s s
the database of incidents.• An action management tool to track actions and close the loop, so that
recommendations become re s u l t s .• User Configurable model to build a program that is site specific.
The software is highly user configurable and features: • Embedded Root Cause Analysis Process and training materials• Incident management and re p o rting facilities• Action re p o rts to manage and track pro g re s s• Ability to link to the Computerised Maintenance Management Systems and
other databases• Intuitive fault tree building process • Incident trending and tracking • New: Risk Assessment and priority tool. How do you know which
p ro b l e m / p roject to tackle first? This new feature will help to prioritize RCAinvestigations.
RCM To o l k i tSpecifically designed to support SAE JA1011 compliant RCM, this proven androbust software makes your RCM analysis easy and fast.
Company Information: Name: The Asset Partnership Pty LtdA d d ress: Suite 1, 2 Culdees Road, BURWOOD, NSW, 2136 AustraliaContact: Stephen Yo u n gEmail: m a i l @ a s s e t p a rtnership.com Web: w w w. a s s e t p a rt n e r s h i p . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
This software supports an RCM II process that fully complies with SAE JA 1011and is used by the world leaders in the application of RCM.
The RCM II process develops the most appropriate strategies to manage theconsequences of equipment failure and this software quickly leads the RCMfacilitator through the analysis to determine the most appropriate maintenanceat the right balance of risk, cost and perf o rmance. A particular feature of thiss o f t w a re is the way in which the most appropriate management policies aredeveloped using the Failure Finding Interval (FFI) calculator.
This software provides all the features expected of an SAE JA1011 compliantRCM analysis in addition to a wide range of re p o rts including work packagess o rted by task, frequency and skill set, fault finding guide (which allows for easysystem fault diagnosis and hence a faster re t u rn to service), analysis statisticsplus many more .
The user can also easily merge maintenance tasks and create maintenance taskpackages for migration to your CMMS while maintaining the all important auditt r a i l .
The software is fully supported by a proven and world class training program andunlimited technical support. Available as standalone, network and intern e tversions.
RCM Tu r b oLeading expert decision support methodology for the implementation of theprinciples of reliability centred maintenance and development of new, optimisedmaintenance schedules.
Company Information: Name: Strategic Corporate Assessment Systems Pty LtdA d d ress: P.O. Box 427 Heidelberg, 3084 AustraliaContact: Chris KellyPhone: 03 9455 2211Fax: 03 9455 2233Email: c h r i s . k e l l y @ s t r a t e g i c o r p . c o mWeb: h t t p : / / w w w. s t r a t e g i c o r p . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
RCM Turbo was developed by and for maintenance professionals. Its pro c e s sincorporates the established principles of reliability centred maintenance, witha strong business-based approach. It is a sound platform for the development ofrevised maintenance practice and evolution from reactive environments thro u g hto planned, lower cost, higher process reliability enviro n m e n t s .
The thrust of an RCM Turbo assessment is to put before assessors all the bestavailable information re q u i red to facilitate and justify decisions. A number ofe x p e rt components are combined to provide an information flow which leadsd i rectly to new, optimised maintenance schedules ready for export andimplementation in the existing computerised maintenance management system.These include a criticality assessment, which prioritises equipment forassessment and strongly contributes to the 'thoughtware' component of areliability analysis.
The detailed failure modes and effects analysis component of an RCM Tu r b oassessment encourages assessors to explore alternative scenarios in order togauge the resultant effects on both reliability and cost to the business. RCM Tu r b oseeks first to explore whether any predictive maintenance is technically (then ona cost basis) effective. If a predictive task cannot be found, then any pre v e n t a t i v eactions are explored. The full implication of doing no maintenance (or operate tof a i l u re) is then examined, so that in every significant decision there is a clearcomparison between any new, planned environment and a scenario of operatingto failure. RCM Turbo then provides a primary task optimisation module to supportthe decision on how often to perf o rm these cost effective inspections.
All the assessment is aimed at the minimisation of business consequence in theevent of both operational and safety/environmental failure .
Final optimised schedules are generated by RCM Turbo after a process ofautomatic generation of user-defined workgroups along with a workflowsmoothing facility which matches the newly optimised activities to availablemaintenance re s o u rc e s .
The successful usage of RCM Turbo is dependent on the level of assessorknowledge and understanding of reliability principles. RCM Turbo is not just apiece of software, it is a platform underpinning the methodology. Thus animplementation of RCM Turbo is carefully planned in the format of a high pro f i l ep roject, with defined deliverables and expected outcomes. Appropriate end usertraining is always scheduled as part of the pro j e c t .
The importance of local ownership, buy-in and commitment cannot beu n d e restimated in an implementation of a project aimed at a review ofmaintenance strategy across a site.
Strategic provides support services at all stages of a reliability project, care f u l l ybalancing local ownership implications with the need to provide the re q u i re dd e l i v e r a b l e .
RCM Turbo is a 32 bit Windows (9x, NT, XP) application provided on CD-ROM forstandalone or network use. Licences are provided on a perpetual basis, forunlimited users.
H a rd w a re re q u i red is Pentium level or better.
Costings including training, implementation, audit, review and corporate licencesa re provided on application.
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RCM WorkSaver™ and RCM Wo r k S a v e rEnterprise Edition™
P e rf o rms both classical and abbreviated RCM analysis including boundarydefinition, FMEA, task selection, sanity check, and task packaging steps.
Company Information: Name: JMS SoftwareA d d ress: PO Box 23131, San Jose, CA 95153 USAContact: Nick Jize or Joe SabaEmail: [email protected] Web: w w w. j m s s o f t . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
RCM WorkSaver™ Enterprise is a web/server RCM application allowing accessto your RCM database from anywhere on your network. This full function RCMtool along with our standard single user product meets all RCM standard s .Classical as well as abbreviated methods can be perf o rmed.
A typical analysis can be perf o rmed in one-third the time. Feed forw a rd dataf e a t u res provide increased accuracy and consistency. A professional re p o rt, invarious formats, is just one click away. Additionally, data export features arep rovided.
RCM WorkSaver works on all standard PC systems. Prices vary depending onnumber of seats purchased. Email us for details.
RCS To o l k i tR e l i a b i l i t y - c e n t red Spares (RCS) Toolkit is the leading edge technology foraccurately matching spares holdings to maintenance and operational needs.
Company Information: Name: The Asset Partnership Pty LtdA d d ress: Suite 1, 2 Culdees Road, BURWOOD, NSW, 2136 AustraliaContact: Stephen Yo u n gEmail: m a i l @ a s s e t p a rtnership.com Web: w w w. a s s e t p a rt n e r s h i p . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
RCS Toolkit is applicable to any engineering inventory whether it is fast movingconsumables or slow moving insurance spares. The software algorithms re f l e c tthe true reality of maintenance spares holdings and are configurable to re f l e c tyour operating context.
Because the RCS logic takes into account both commercial and maintenancere q u i rements, the outputs are defensible justifications for the holding of key‘insurance’ items that the Asset Manager, the Finance Manager and the InventoryManager can all understand.
While best results are achieved by using your RCM analysis outputs, if you wishto assume your current maintenance strategy is correct, then RCS Toolkit pro v i d e sa quick and definitive answer to the question of what engineering stocks shouldbe held and where, as well as allowing you to you see the effect of uncert a i n t i e sin downtime costs, part costs and lead times. Seeing the impact allows you tobetter manage your inventory and understand the risks.
RCS Toolkit allows you to effectively manage the risk inherent in holdingengineering spares and takes the guesswork out of deciding what to holdp resented in table, text recommendations or graphical form a t .
This software is fully supported by training and technical support.
RelCode Weibull analysis of failure data to determine burn-in, random or wearout failurep a t t e rn, mean life, preventive replacement intervals and spares re q u i re m e n t s .
Company Information: Name: Albany Interactive Pty LtdA d d ress: 16 Wellesley Road, Ringwood North, Victoria 3134, Australia Contact: Nick HastingsPhone: 03 9876 7188Fax: 03 9876 6138Email: A l b a n y. i n t e r a c t i v e @ b i g p o n d . c o mWeb: w w w.albanyint.com.au
S o f t w a re Details
Statistical analysis of failure and successful perf o rmance data, by fitting theWeibull and/or bi-Weibull distribution. Estimates the mean life and otherdistribution parameters, and graphically indicates the failure pattern as burn - i n ,random or wearout, or a combination.
Works from direct data entry, from spreadsheet data, or from parameterestimates. Calculates optimal preventive replacement intervals andc o rresponding spare parts re q u i rements. Tabular and graphic outputs to scre e nor printer.
C u rrent version 10.04. New features allow user to include notes on specificf a i l u res and to flag specific failures in or out of analysis. Graph of mean re m a i n i n gl i f e .
Runs on IBM-PC. Cost: Single user license $1750. Site license $4400.
RIMSys® Reliability Incident ManagementP ro g r a m
RIMSys® is a software program aimed at managing the investigation, re s o l u t i o nand elimination of reliability incidents.
Company Information: Name: OMCS Intern a t i o n a lA d d ress: 1 Slough Rd Altona Vic AustraliaContact: Steve Tu rn e rEmail: s t e v e . t u rn e r @ o m c s i n t e rnational.com Web: w w w.ReliabilityAssurance.com
S o f t w a re Details
RIMSys® is specifically designed to re c o rd and manage the investigation ofequipment failures or incidents that cause unexpected downtime or operationalloss and re q u i re further investigation to prevent these failures from re c u rr i n g .RIMSys® is a corporate defect and failure management system that creates ane fficient means of communication and administration.
RIMSys® works on a single database with dispersed users being able to log on.To reduce the need for novice users to input directly into the system, initial re p o rt sand logging of failures requiring investigation can be input via a MS Wo rdtemplate that can be launched from a desktop and sent electronically into thedatabase via email.
The whole system has email broadcasting to promote the use of the knowledgein an organisation. Failures and equipment can be categorised and mail listsc reated in these categories. When investigations are re g i s t e red against thesecategories, emails describing the initial causes can be emailed automatically tothe appropriate mailing lists.
The system is simple to use. It defines management process in seven steps; 1. re c o rding, 2. allocation of responsibilities, 3. investigation, 4. recommending actions, 5. a p p roving actions, 6. implementation, and 7. c l o s u re of an incident.
Another advantage of RIMSys® is the ability to attach MS Wo rd documents orother re p o rts, photos, and any other information relating to the incident for laterre f e rence. The system can link to RCA software. RIMSys® can be configured toi n t e rface with most CMMS systems and interfaces with the PMO2000™ software ,which there f o re also allows you to review your maintenance. strategy. This ise x t remely useful as it allows a complete cycle of re c o rding incidents, re s o l v i n gthe incident and reviewing current PM’s to continuously improve on operationale fficiency and minimise bre a k d o w n s .
s p a resFinder MasterpieceAw a rd winning software Masterpiece, cleans and manages large engineeringdatabases. Masterpiece provides a cost effective solution to cleaning ‘dirty’ data.
Company Information: Name: The Asset Partnership Pty LtdA d d ress: Suite 1, 2 Culdees Road, BURWOOD, NSW, 2136 Australia
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Contact: Stephen Yo u n gEmail: m a i l @ a s s e t p a rtnership.com Web: w w w. a s s e t p a rt n e r s h i p . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
Masterpiece is spare s F i n d e r ’s award-winning automated system for cleaningl a rge engineering inventory databases. Masterpiece delivers a cost eff e c t i v e ,web-based solution to a long standing problem of poor quality data in larg ei n v e n t o ry databases.
The system has been designed to address the needs of large, complexo rganisations, particularly where improving and then maintaining data quality toa common standard will allow them to properly leverage their ERP softwareinvestments. As well as a multi-lingual user interface, the system is designed top rocess legacy data supplied in many languages to produce a descriptive outputin the desired language and form a t .
Masterpiece operates independently of private cataloguing schemes ands t a n d a rds, and allows you to choose the approach which best suits your businessneeds. Masterpiece enables each line of your data to be cleaned in the most coste ffective way.
The sophisticated cleaning tools, pattern recognition capabilities and inventorydictionaries automate the task wherever 100% certainty of output is possible.W h e re manual intervention is re q u i red, the system provides a sophisticatedi n t e rface to stru c t u re definitions and control the workflow and approval pro c e s s .
Masterpiece encourages a focus on value, allowing you to get data cleaned inthe way which gives you most business benefit.
S I M L O XSIMLOX is a powerful and versatile tool for event based simulation and analysis ofcomplex operational and logistic support scenarios.
Company Information: Name: Systecon ABA d d ress: Box 5205, SE102 45 Stockholm, SWEDENContact: Oskar Te n g oEmail: [email protected] Web: w w w.systecon.se
S o f t w a re Details
SIMLOX is a powerful and versatile tool for simulation and analysis of complexoperational and logistic support scenarios. It will simulate how perf o rm a n c evaries over time given certain operational profile, support stru c t u re, spare sa s s o rtment and maintenance re s o u rces.
SIMLOX is ideal for capability assessments. Accurate simulations will identifyand correct problems, bottlenecks and shortages before real world operationsa re compro m i s e d .
SIMLOX provides graphs on system availability, re s o u rce utilisation, actual vsrequested mission time etc.
SIMLOX handles any technology or organisation. It will accommodate for“ robbing”, battle damages, batched transports, lateral support, scheduledtransfers (of systems, items or re s o u rces) and more .
S p a res Optimisation System (SOS)Unique expert decision support methodology for establishing whether or not tohold a spare and if so, in what max/min quantities
Company Information: Name: Strategic Corporate Assessment Systems Pty LtdA d d ress: P.O. Box 427 Heidelberg, 3084 AustraliaContact: Chris KellyPhone: 03 9455 2211Fax: 03 9455 2233Email: c h r i s . k e l l y @ s t r a t e g i c o r p . c o mWeb: h t t p : / / w w w. s t r a t e g i c o r p . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
SOS is a Windows based software application which provides users with a
consistent, auditable platform for deciding whether or not to hold a spare part. If
the decision is to hold, then SOS will recommend an appropriate max/min quantity.
SOS is unique in that it utilises an expert approach to the decision making pro c e s s .
T h rough a criticality assessment taking consideration of a combination of
technical and business implications, SOS will make a holding re c o m m e n d a t i o n
ready for export to the existing computerised maintenance management system,
or will justify the introduction of new items to the store .
SOS does not rely on the mathematical manipulation of movement history, thus
it can be applied to new equipment spares and equally to slow moving items. A
final decision will be a direct reflection of current maintenance practice.
Developed by and for maintenance engineers, SOS is an optimising tool, not a
'slash and burn ' approach. Where the business is exposed to risk thro u g h
i n s u fficient holdings, SOS will clearly indicate the implications. A cost/risk module
is provided for the assessment of contentious, expensive and capital/insurance
items, where the cost and risk of stockout is graphically compared to the holding
costs of the item.
SOS is also a 'what if ?' tool. Users can explore the effect on re c o m m e n d e d
holdings based on alternative lead times, usage and repairability implications.
This functionality can clarify the path to new, vendor arrangements while
quantifying the eff e c t s .
SOS is a 32 bit Windows (9x, NT, XP) application provided on CD-ROM for
standalone or network use. Licences are provided on a perpetual basis, for
unlimited users.
H a rd w a re re q u i red is Pentium level or better.
Costings including training, implementation and corporate licences are pro v i d e d
on application.
Strategic also offers spares optimisation services through its aff i l i a t e
S p a resoptimization.com. See www. s p a resoptimization.com
Trim™ reliability software (aka RCMtrim™ or RCT™)
Using failure risk and equipment templates, builds and loads standard equipmentp reventive maintenance (PM) work orders into CMMS systems.
Company Information:
Name: CORE, Inc.
A d d ress: 5915 Braun Wa y, Arvada, CO 80004 USA
Email: [email protected]
Web: w w w. p m o p t i m i z a t i o n . c o m / w w w. rc m t r i m . c o m
S o f t w a re Details
Automates scheduled maintenance work orders. Includes eighty complete
industrial equipment PM templates. Simplifies, standardizes and develops
complete maintenance plans removing rote data manipulation. Results identify
equipment reliability risk, strategy, and service. Users select re p o rts fro m
d ropdown menus. Menus speed navigation, template application, re p o rt
generation, speeding development improving pro d u c t i v i t y. Simple feature s
e fficiently manage very large installations with 10,000+ equipment tags. Vi s u a l l y -
c o l o red risk trees present complete analysis for browsers. MS Office Access
2002/3xp combined or split front/backend serv e r. MS SQL Server optional.
Minimum cost two system analysis project with size-dependent license fee, or
included with full project. Installation extra. Demo available.
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Reliability Strategy Leader,Ivara Corporation. Canada, www.ivara.com
Ricky Smith
ean Reliability
Lean thinking has been widely adopted in manufacturing operations. Toyota set the standard in discrete manufacturing industriesfor producing products in the quickest and most efficient way. Other leading companies have also adopted pro d u c t i v i t y - e n h a n c i n gmanufacturing techniques. Yet in highly capital-intensive industries, including mining, metals, pulp and paper, and power generation,equipment reliability plays a far more critical role in business success because degradation in equipment condition results inreduced equipment capability. Equipment downtime, quality problems and the potential for safety and/or environmental incidentsa re the result of poor perf o rming equipment. All of these can negatively impact plant output.
This whitepaper explains how traditional Lean thinking and principles can be applied specifically to the equipment re l i a b i l i t yp rocess to achieve bre a k t h rough perf o rmance improvement. This business process focuses people on managing physical assetreliability to meet the business goals of the company. Lean Reliability brings together Maintenance and Operations personnel tomanage the equipment reliability process in a way that reduces waste and continuously improves the process. Lean Reliabilityfocuses on managing asset health to achieve optimal perf o rmance at optimal cost.
The Evolution from Lean Manufacturing to Lean Maintenance to Lean Reliability
Lean Manufacturing has been implemented in many organizations to optimize the production process. Lean improvement eff o rt shave successfully reduced manufacturing lead times, reduced work in process, and generally improved the work enviro n m e n tand manufacturing operation. Yet many companies continue to face major issues due to poor perf o rming capital assets (either notmeeting capacity re q u i rements or overspending in Maintenance to achieve re q u i red perf o rmance levels). These companies havenot seen the full benefits of Lean. The reason for this underachievement is the lack of integration of Maintenance as a true part n e rof Manufacturing in achieving optimal perf o rmance of the physical assets that contribute to achieving company goals. Maintenanceneeds to “join the lean team” and contribute as a partner to the operation.
For some companies, the old way of thinking about Lean within Maintenance simply meant cutting the Maintenance budget by 20to 30%, sometimes by even 50%, then demanding that Maintenance do more with less. This approach was known as the “slashand dash” approach. As a result, plant perf o rmance suff e red while management struggled to cope with acute reliability issuesand a disgruntled workforc e .
For other companies, Maintenance was simply a necessary evil and a creeping Maintenance budget was the result - spendingtoo much money for the re q u i red uptime or equipment availability. As Ron Moore, author of “Making Common Sense CommonPractice” defined it, “(companies have) too much maintenance in their reliability”. If your maintenance budget continues to riseand reliability either stays the same or decreases, you’re maintenance program is the pro b l e m .
And for yet others, reliability and maintenance issues remain a hidden problem – even though they are the root cause of thecompany losing large amounts of money by the minute.
When we compare maintenance costs within a typical company to world-class (see Table 1), we recognize that there is a hugeo p p o rtunity to improve. In the U.S, alone, billions of dollars are spent unnecessarily on maintenance expenditures due to lack ofc o n t rol, lack of pro c e s s .
Metric “ Typical” “ World Class”
Maintenance Cost / Replacement Asset Value (RAV )
Maintenance cost must include labor (including overtime), material, 3.5% – 9% 2.0% - 3.0%contract maintenance and capital replacements / maintenance ( replacing worn out assets because they were never properly maintained).
Maintenance Material Cost / Replacement Asset Value (RAV )
Maintenance material cost must include material in store room stock, 1.0% - 3.5% .25% - .75%plus material in other storage locations (maintenance shop, plant floor, etc.).
Many companies have shut their doors and used many excuses including not being able to compete with cheaper labor overseas.We, in maintenance and operations, can either improve our plant operational perf o rmance and control our destiny or someoneelse will, by closing the plant.
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Lean Reliability
Table 1
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Managing Asset Perf o rmance to Meet Customer NeedsCustomer expectations are normally defined in terms of product quality, competitive pricing, service levels, on-time delivery, andoverall solution delivery. Within our organization, we can determine, measure and control the perf o rmance re q u i rements of ourphysical assets to meet business goals and market demand. (eg. quality, availability and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE),cost/unit, safety and environmental integrity). To achieve our asset perf o rmance re q u i rements, we must manage three inputs;p rocess technology, standard operating practices and asset care practices. See graphic below.
The three inputs to manage asset perf o rm a n c e .
The first input is process technology that simply delivers the inherent capability of the equipment "by design" to meet the equipmentp e rf o rmance re q u i rements. The second input is the operating practices that make use of the inherent capability of pro c e s sequipment. The documentation of standard operating practices assures the consistent and correct operation of equipment tomaximize perf o rmance. The third input is the asset care practices that maintain the inherent capability of the equipment.Deterioration begins to take place as soon as equipment is commissioned. In addition to normal wear and deterioration, otherf a i l u res occur. Failures happen when equipment is pushed beyond the limitations of its design or operational errors occur.Degradation in equipment condition results in reduced equipment capability.
Equipment downtime, quality problems or the potential for accidents and/or environmental incidents are the visible outcome.
In Lean, one of the goals is to reduce the losses associated with product quality, plant capacity and safety.
Market DemandsQuality, Delivery, Price, Service, Solutions
Meet Needs of the Customer“100% of the time”
Quality Product DemandedQuantity Product DemandedOn time delivery Demanded
.... At the lowest cost
Plant Capacity /Asset Availability /
Asset Utilization
Lean Reliability Partership- Joint equipment ownership
Joint reliability ownership
Safety andEnvironmental
Integrity
• Breakdowns• Scheduled Outages• Product Changeovers• Breaks / Lunch• Shift Change• Equipment Start-up
• Operator Adjustments• Raw Material Problems• Equipment not operated
to specs
• Accidents• Environmental excursions
Product Quality
Lean Manufacturing Lean Maintenance
Organizational ObjectivesSafety, Environment, Quality, Availability, Throughput, Cost/Unit
Equipment Condition
Asset Care Practices Standard OperatingPractices
Process Technology
A Lean Reliability Partnership is Key to Meeting Customer Needs
Figure 1
Figure 2
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Plant capacity, asset availability and asset utilization losses are affected by scheduled and unscheduled downtime. This downtimeincludes equipment breakdowns, scheduled outages, product changeovers, breaks / lunch, shift changeovers and equipment start -up. Product quality losses can be affected by both maintenance and operations but are the responsibility of both parties. Qualitylosses include operator adjustments/errors which are as a result of equipment reliability issues; raw material problems could becaused by the supplier (low chance), storage or transfer issues which could be operations or equipment reliability problems. Safetyand environmental integrity losses can affect the health of the plant workers and health of the community. This category is diff i c u l tto place a specific hard value to but the results nonetheless can be measure d .
E v e ryone in an operation from senior management to floor level personnel must understand that these losses can cause a plantto lay off employees or worst - shutdown. In most cases plant layoffs and shutdowns could have been avoided if addressed jointlyin a lean reliability initiative (because of the huge financial impact increased reliability provides). The specific financial value ofthe initiative must be determined in terms of addressing the major losses. Jointly the plant leadership team, along with thec o m p t ro l l e r, can determine the opportunity in the short and long term .
The New Lean Te a m
To achieve and sustain Lean Reliability, there is a joint responsibility between Maintenance and Operations. Ownership of equipmentand reliability is a shared responsibility which must be demonstrated and proven through reduction in cost and risk to the business.Working together at all levels (from the plant floor to management), Maintenance and Operations are the new “Lean Te a m ” ,p roviding a solution to address the major losses that can be caused by equipment reliability issues. This new team needs to drivereliability from the floor level and monitor pro g ress of reliability by establishing targets for improvements and measure pro g re s swith KPIs (Key Perf o rmance Indicators). Only then can this team leverage a sense of shared ownership in Lean Reliability to achieveb re a k t h rough perf o rm a n c e .
Lean Reliability re q u i res a business process to manage asset re l i a b i l i t y. This process needs to be jointly managed by Maintenanceand Operations working together to optimize asset reliability at optimal cost.
A Proactive Asset Reliability Pro c e s sEvolving from Lean Manufacturing to Lean Reliability re q u i res the development of a Lean Asset Reliability Process. The output ofthis proactive process is optimal asset reliability at optimal cost. The core concept in a Lean Asset Reliability Process is pro v i d i n ga sound technical basis to focus on the right work at the right time – re g a rdless of who is conducting the work (the operator ort r a d e s p e r s o n ) .
In the majority of plants with high maintenance costs (excluding perhaps nuclear power generation plants), we find re a c t i v eactivities. By our very nature, we resist change and are trapped in this reactive environment, We become such good fire fighters,that we are re w a rded for our reactive behaviour – so we believe this reactive culture is a good thing, that is until the next timethe equipment breaks down, causing a major downtime incident (hero one day, enemy the next).
Changing from a reactive culture to a proactive culture cannot happen overnight. It is a journey that starts with implementing ap rocess for achieving re l i a b i l i t y.
Companies that have been successful in transitioning to a proactive asset reliability focused culture all have one ingredient incommon – they are following a formal business process to govern the work done to maintain their assets. The reason for this factis that the reliability of assets is far more related to the things people do than it is to anything else. With the right process in place,we can ensure that people are doing the right things to maintain plant assets.
While most plants have in place a process to govern the work done in maintenance, the typical process includes only the planning,scheduling, work execution and follow-up elements of the above process. These process elements, shown in the blue box of thep rocess diagram, are necessary elements but they do not re p resent an effective, proactive pro c e s s .
F i g u re 3. An Asset Reliability Pro c e s s
47
B e f o re we discuss the other re q u i red elements of a reliability process, we should first understand the definition of “optimal assetreliability”. Optimal asset reliability means that for the least possible cost, we achieve the level of perf o rmance we need from ourequipment in order to meet our business goals (plant or company level goals). Equipment perf o rmance in this case is not pro d u c t i o noutput, but should be described instead in terms of the re q u i red level of uptime (such as Mean Time Between Failure, or MTBF)and or in terms of the maintenance cost needed to assure the desired perf o rmance. Given that we need to understand the businessgoals to be supported by the equipment, the asset reliability process must include this connection to business goals, as shown inthe green box of the process diagram.
Next, we determine the assets that are most critical when they fail, and where the risk is highest in terms of impact on businessp e rf o rmance. For these assets, we establish specific perf o rmance targets. This stage focuses maintenance reliability impro v e m e n t son the perf o rmance targets of critical assets that contribute most to the company's success.
The Assess stage then compares the asset perf o rmance targets to the maintained asset’s actual perf o rmance which is learn e din the blue box as we execute work. This stage identifies and prioritizes gaps in perf o rmance by perf o rming specific Perf o rm a n c eAnalyses. In this process, functional failure is defined as the inability to meet perf o rmance re q u i rements, and so a perf o rm a n c egap is really a functional failure .
In the Improve stage, the team selects an appropriate Work Identification strategy in order to understand and address all causesof failure for the specific asset under consideration. One of the toughest challenges on the road to improved asset reliability is tod e t e rmine the prescription of proactive work that should be done to maintain the assets so that they deliver the reliability we need(at optimal cost). This topic is also known as “work identification”, and it re p resents the cornerstone of an effective asset re l i a b i l i t yp rocess. The resulting asset reliability program for an asset will include some mix of preventive maintenance, detectivemaintenance, predictive maintenance and some ru n - t o - f a i l u re decisions. The outcome of the Work Identification element is theright work at the right time (the right work defined in terms of the tasks and the timing for conducting them).
The process is self-sustaining, with opportunities to continuously improve and evaluate the overall effectiveness of the AssetReliability Process as well as revisit reliability programs and continuously improve. These activities optimize the effectiveness ofthe Lean Te a m .
S u p p o rting Reliability Practices and Te c h n o l o g yThe new Asset Reliability Process creates an opportunity for maintainers, operators and management to learn new things andg row into new roles and responsibilities. Implementing one-system-at-a-time, you can gradually transform your maintenance andoperations employees into experts in re l i a b i l i t y. Much of the knowledge of the equipment and how to maintain it to ensure optimalreliability lies within your existing workforce. The knowledge from these equipment experts can be formalized and made availablet h rough the reliability process. This knowledge can be leveraged across all employees, assets and even across other plants.
The transition to a reliability focused approach to asset care will result in the need to manage an enormous amount of equipmenthealth data. Successful Lean Reliability initiatives use technology to their advantage to capture the knowledge of equipment expert sand to then manage plant assets from an online picture of the health. Rather than reacting to equipment failures, Operators andMaintainers proactively maintain optimal equipment health.
The Basic Principles of Lean ReliabilityThe three basic principles of Lean Reliability are :1. Eliminate waste2. Continuously impro v e3. Teaming Maintenance and Operations
Eliminate Wa s t eT h e re is a huge opportunity to eliminate waste when we implement a proactive asset reliability process. Fundamentally, peoplea re, for the most part, doing the wrong work. The wrong work is a combination of work done that is too much too early, or too littletoo late. The classic example of the wrong work is justified as "we have always done it this way". There is a very significant financialo p p o rtunity associated with identifying the right work to do.
F i g u re 4. The right work to do
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In a reactive environment, the focus of maintenance work is repairing failed equipment. In a fully proactive environment, the focuson maintenance work becomes inspections of asset heath to enable proactive intervention prior to failure. To transition to ap roactive asset reliability program, you need effective work identification capabilities.
The right work is the minimum amount of work necessary to ensure the asset provides the necessary level of performance. Sincethe majority of failures occur randomly, and are not related to age, other techniques such as asset heath monitoring are needed toallow us to intervene prior to loss of asset function. Work identification is the cornerstone of reliability improvement and re p re s e n t sthe fundamental shift from conventional time-based maintenance to an asset reliability approach to maintenance. Yet, the answeris not as simple as solely identifying the right work. In a reactive environment, a binder filled with proactive tasks is not a solution.The solution must be a proactive process for guiding people's activity. In addition, to successfully executing the process, employeesmust be trained on the latest reliability thinking and practices, and equipped with tools to manage the data inherent in a proactivee n v i ronment. Finally, an appropriate change management implementation approach must be used. To implement a proactive solutionin a reactive culture requires a unique approach; one that transforms the culture, one asset at a time.
D e t e rmining the right reliability program for an asset is no easy task. It might seem that the longer a company has been aro u n dthe more effective the asset maintenance programs would be. Unfort u n a t e l y, this is not always true. The effectiveness of a re l i a b i l i t yp rogram has little to do with the number of years a company has been doing maintenance. Most companies are doing too muchmaintenance too soon, or too little too late, either of which has cost consequences to the org a n i z a t i o n .
To begin, we must first understand how equipment really fails.
Understand the New Definition of FailureReliability studies over the last 30 years say that 80% of asset failures are random. This is quite a depart u re from what we wouldexpect, yet re s e a rch has proven that for the majority of components, there is no correlation between age and how likely they areto fail. However, with the right practices and technologies, you can detect early signs of random failure by monitoring the healthindicators to determine whether asset health is degrading. The P-F interval is the time between the detection of a potential failure(P) and functional failure (F), as demonstrated in the diagram below. Proactive corrective action is scheduled before functionalf a i l u re occurs.
Take a step back and review the way you manage equipment perf o rmance. If equipment continues to fail after pre v e n t i v emaintenance or overhauls, then something must change. Rethink conservative time (or age) based restorations and re p l a c e m e n tdecisions with asset health monitoring. If a PM task is not tied to a failure mode (root cause), question why you are doing it.
Make sure you understand the function of an asset and its operating context,o t h e rwise, your eff o rts are wasted. Understanding the function of an assetand its perf o rmance re q u i rements can have a profound effect on how thatequipment is operated and maintained and hence can affect the overallreliability of the asset. This can be a challenging task, needs to involve theoperators and maintainers of the asset because they know best what theasset must do to achieve the operating targ e t s .
C a p t u re the Knowledge of your AgingWo r k f o rce – Before they RetireThe imminent aging workforce issue has made asset reliability a hot topic atthe executive level of most capital intensive companies. Executives haverecognized the challenge in retaining valuable maintenance and equipmentreliability knowledge as their workforce re t i res. During their tenure, well-seasoned operators and maintenance veterans become intimate with theirequipment and can quickly repair to avoid downtime. But this acquire dknowledge is rarely documented or transferred to others and will be lost ifcompanies do not systematically collect this important information as to howemployees perf o rm their jobs, all of this knowledge will be lost upon re t i re m e n t .
F i g u re 6. Knowledge Lost When Experts Retire is Wa t e f u l l
F i g u re 5. New Definition of Failure
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The reliability program captures the knowledge of the equipment experts, the operators and maintainers who know the equipmentbest. In many companies, these employees have worked with the equipment daily for decades, and so their knowledge is invaluable.The challenge is to find a way to store this information so that all employees can take advantage of it for their daily work. Reliabilitys o f t w a re captures this knowledge and makes it available.
During the development of the asset reliability program, these maintainers and operators will be asked to contribute their knowledgeof the ways the asset fails and the ways they have found to detect or prevent failure. In the context of a well defined failure analysis,their knowledge is captured, formalized by linking proactive tasks to specific failure modes. The detail that was previously carr i e da round in personal pocket books becomes readily available as the new Asset Reliability Program is defined and deployed.
I t ’s not a matter of if the aging workforce issue will affect you & your organization but when… Don’t waste this expertise, don’tlet it walk out the door. If we don’t act now, the problem will worsen.
By capturing the knowledge of your experts within a system, you can also reduce the amount of time wasted each day manuallycalculating condition data. For example, the screen shown below, captures the calculation to determine the effectiveness of aheat exchanger.
You no longer need to remember the engineering calculation since software can store the expression, making it perm a n e n t l yavailable for all to use. Combine data from various indicators to determine the overall effectiveness of the heat exchanger andwhen a non-normal value is found, prompt the user with the pre d e t e rmined corrective action (which was once only known by thee x p e rt). You can also consolidate islands of data from multiple sources within the plant to evaluate current asset health. Thise n s u res you can get an accurate picture of asset health in a timely manner.
Automate paper check sheetsThe majority of inspections involve rather subjectiveassessments of the equipment condition. Visual or others e n s o ry inspections can be logged via hand-held datare c o rders (PDA’s). Non-normal readings will trigger alarms andfollow up work tasks to suggest more rigorous inspections orc o rrective work.
This also removes the subjectivity of the inspection byp roviding the inspector with the ability to choose a statementthat corresponds to the observed condition, from a pre d e f i n e dlist of such statements. This approach will enable eachemployee that conducts the inspection do so in a consistentm a n n e r.
T h e re are many more opportunities to eliminate waste whena proactive asset reliability process is implemented. Theseideas are just the tip of the iceberg.
Continuous Impro v e m e n tContinuous improvement in Lean Reliability has some very basic principles which must be met in order to be successful. Mostcompanies never obtain true continuous improvement because one or more of these basic principles are not met and thus theirLean eff o rt never provides all the re w a rds available in the way of lower total cost, higher asset re l i a b i l i t y, higher asset availability,and higher capacity. These principles include:1. Work flow processes based on known “best practices” and periodically re v i e w e d .2. Having the discipline to follow the established work flow processes. Defining clear roles and responsibilities as well as KPIs
helps to ensure adherence to pro c e s s .3. Development of pre-planned job packages which have defined pro c e d u res, specifications, material, tools, safety and other
items re q u i red to ensure repeatability of the maintenance work. These pre-planned work packages provide a means for
F i g u re 7. Ivara EXP captures the knowledge of your maintenance experts and eliminates manual calculations
Automating paper check sheets improves consistency and quality of data.
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maintenance work practices to be improved based on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). With pre-panned work packagesmaintenance work can continue to improve and reduce the potential for lost time, lost knowledge, and maintenance inducedf a i l u re s .
4. Defining “right work at the right time” (preventive, predictive, detective maintenance) utilizing a technically sound pro c e s swhich is defined and managed by both maintenance and operations. Analyzing known failures and improving the re l i a b i l i t yp rogram (learn from mistakes). An automated system makes this a simple pro c e s s .
5. Don’t let the magnitude of failure data prevent you from succeeding. Monitoring and dissemination of asset health usingPdM, visual inspections, PLC Data, etc. becomes more manageable once a system is in place.
You have the option to not follow all of these principles but with every principle that is not followed there comes with it a risk ofLean not meeting the goals you expect. Is it worth the risk? Most companies select the principles that are easiest to put in placeor that they understand first.
Teaming Maintenance & OperationsThe third and most important element of Lean Reliability is the teaming of Maintenance and Operations to manage the physicalassets re q u i red to achieve the goals of the company. Asset management needs to be a shared responsibility between Operationsand Maintenance. To g e t h e r, this team can provide a solution to address the major losses caused by equipment reliability issues.
Lean Reliability can only be successful when maintenance and operations become true partners in managing assets. With ap roactive process focusing on value-added functions re q u i red to produce optimal equipment reliability at optimal cost, LeanReliability is about people and creating a permanent environment focused on reliability of equipment as a way of life in Maintenanceand Operations. After all, it is the Operators and Maintainers that are the equipment experts – they know how the equipment canfail. They know how to detect early signs of failure. They need to understand whether or not it matters to the business if the assetf a i l s .
This new team needs to drive reliability from the plant floor level and support it from the top to be successful.
How Lean Reliability Aligns with TPM, Kaizen, 5S and Six SigmaOver the years, there has been a multitude of manufacturing improvement initiatives (eg. TPM, Six Sigma, 5S, Kaizen) to impro v eoperational effectives and eff i c i e n c y. Lean Reliability applies these concepts to the Equipment Reliability Pro c e s s .
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)The basis principle of TPM is to empower employees to get involved with process improvement in order to prevent unplannedequipment downtime and minimize waste. With the objective to lower costs and improve re t u rn on assets, the basic asset carephilosophy is about “autonomous maintenance” or “operator-driven maintenance”. While this concept of basic care is a valuables t a rting point towards optimizing asset perf o rmance at optimal cost, it falls short in the technical validity of the asset re l i a b i l i t yp ro g r a m .
One of the ways that we transition from reactive to proactive is to enhance the work identification process. Rather than re l y i n gon our current program of reactive work requests, mostly time-based OEM suggestions, potentially unjustified, work that workthat we’ve always done, we create a process that is based on an understanding of the relative risk of the asset, followed by atechnically sound failure analysis using a formal work identification methodology, to understand all of the asset’s failure modes.Using one or more of these work identification methodologies, we then define, for those failure modes that will be managed thro u g hthe maintenance function, the complete Asset Reliability Program, or the list of tasks that will be used to mitigate the consequencesof those failures. About 80% of the Asset Reliability Program tasks will on average be health based, requiring that we define norm a land non-normal values, and corresponding alarms. With this process we maximize the extent to which our maintenance functionis proactive, and we there f o re improve the bottom line through improved re l i a b i l i t y.
Figure 9
K a i z e nKaizen, like Lean, focuses on eliminating waste and continuous improvement. Kaizen is about empowering employees to getinvolved with their own work organization. With a Kaizen mindset, the employee that does a job is the expert of that job. Maintenances u p e rvisors are typically encouraged to lead stru c t u red improvement eff o rts in their own work areas. Kaizen helps the superv i s o rto stimulate his employees’ cre a t i v i t y. While this philosophy has merit on its own, the missing element that would enable asustainable change is a proactive asset reliability process supported by appropriate tools and practices. Nevertheless, thephilosophy is a good one and guides the people responsible for creating and implementing Lean Reliability.
5 S5S in the traditional manufacturing world, is a methodology for organizing the workplace. It involves sorting, setting in ord e r, shining,s t a n d a rdizing and sustaining the environment. 5S can be applied to Lean Reliability as follows:
S O RT – Organize assets based on risk, allow maintenance and operations eff o rts to be jointly focused on the right targets fori m p roved asset reliability and plant perf o rmance. When “sorting” is well implemented, communication between workers isi m p ro v e d .
SET IN ORDER – Organize the work - create sound asset reliability programs. Ensure you are doing “the right work at the righttime”. Use a work identification methodology that delivers a technically sound program. Involve operators and maintainers andc reate and implement the asset reliability programs one asset at a time.
SHINE – Take pride (and ownership) in the reliability of assets. Identify the health of an asset based on indicators.
S TANDARDIZE – Focus on standardizing maintenance work. In pre-planned job packages, document everything needed to perf o rmthe maintenance work to save time and avoid the potential for a self induced failure. Maintenance labor loss and pre c i o u sp roduction downtime is kept to a minimum. Orderliness and control is the core of “standard i z a t i o n ” .
S U S TAIN – Focus on discipline and commitment; without a focus on “sustaining” re l i a b i l i t y, you can easily re v e rt back. Crucial foryour team to be trained on the process, and equipped with supporting practices and tools. Employees empowered to maked e c i s i o n s .
Six SigmaSix Sigma focuses on removing defects (failures) and reducing variation in a process. Six Sigma uses a variety of statistical analysistools to analyze reliability data.
The best application of Six Sigma in Lean Reliability is through Six Sigma’s DMAIC Process. We can overlay the DMAIC Pro c e s son top of the Lean Reliability Process – a perfect fit.
Step 1: Define a reliability strategy and plan aligned with the goals of the company. To define where to focus eff o rts, prioritizeassets according to relative risk to the business. Relative risk must be calculated (consequence of failure multiplied by fre q u e n c yor probability of failure ) .
Step 2: M e a s u re the level of the reliability and perf o rmance for the highest priority assets. To measure asset utilization, ensurethat availability is consistently measured and includes both planned and unplanned downtime).
Step 3: P e rf o rm an Analysis on the asset working with operators and maintenance together. Your goal in the early stages shouldbe to put in place proactive asset reliability programs for your critical assets (starting with highest priority). Statistical methodslike Weibull can be used to analyze the perf o rm a n c e .
Step 4: Continuously i m p rove the asset’s reliability program using a formal work identification methodology. For example, you maychoose to use Reliability Centered Maintenance, or Maintenance Task Analysis to get started quickly. The method of workidentification you use for an asset should be determined by the level of knowledge and definition (documentation) of an asset’sc u rrent reliability program and the relative risk of the asset to the business.
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Step 5: Develop a Control plan for Maintenance and Operations. An asset’s proactive asset reliability program dictates a new wayof life for Tradespeople and Operators – including a new sense of ownership and willingness to care for assets. Six Sigma’s DMAICp rocess can add quick value to a Lean Reliability initiative.
Key Elements to Implement and Sustain LeanWhen implementing any Lean initiative, there are key elements to successfully implementing and sustaining the improvement. Theelements are the areas which will bring true success to your initiative.
Education: Education is so important in order for personnel from senior management to floor level personnel to truly understandall aspects of Lean Reliability impacts the operation. Everyone in a plant should understand the definition of reliability and what itmeans to the success of the company. Operators and maintenance personnel need to understand the reality of how equipmentfails and learn to manage asset health.
Getting Support from Senior Management: The easiest and fastest way to get support from Senior Management is to develop thebusiness case. The business case must be developed with the Plant Leadership Team identifying the opportunity based on thebusiness goals of the company. It should include an assessment to determine gaps between current and future state and identifyspecific opportunities for improvement, both financial and non-quantifiable impacts. An action plan should also be included withcost and a re t u rn on investment before you will obtain senior management support. Without executive support, the entire pro j e c tis a waste of time – it either won’t get off the ground, will not succeed or will not be sustainable. When assessing the org a n i z a t i o nand setting the plan, ensure employees are involved so later they feel the ownership and are empowered to make decisions.
E ffective Change Management: Implementing Lean Reliability is all about people. Changing the way people think - the culture ofa company - is very difficult. Don’t expect to change the culture within the plant overnight. Change happens gradually. With theright practices and tools to support a Lean project, you can implement one asset at a time and realize a significant ROI faster thanyou would expect. Remember the 5S and the DMAIC process, and focus on one asset at a time. This will provide the change youneed and it will be sustainable change.
Technology Support: Technology can make a data intensive process easier to manage. Ensure the systems you choose can beintegrated and work effectively together.
Value stream mapping: This mapping process is critical to the success of Lean. It is used to determine current work pro c e s s e sagainst the future state eliminating non-value added elements of the process. In manufacturing, this refers to work flow pro c e s s e sfor product output. In re l i a b i l i t y, this refers to the work flow processes for reliability output such as asset criticality assessment,work identification, planning, scheduling, etc.
Roles and Responsibilities defined: Map the tasks re q u i red to manage and execute the asset reliability process to the ro l e sre q u i red in the organization and to the responsibilities of those people associated with equipment re l i a b i l i t y. The goal is to ensurethat improved equipment perf o rmance is achieved and sustained. The output of the workshop is clearly defined role descriptionswith associated responsibilities. Everyone must focus on executing the asset reliability process. Start by analyzing the businessp rocess tasks, and then identify the duties re q u i red for each role to ensure that optimal equipment perf o rmance is sustained.
Key Perf o rmance Indicators: KPIs in Lean begin with the manufacturing KPIs (quality, throughput, OEE, asset utilization, safety)and all other KPIs must align to them. KPIs should be defined as leading and lagging. The key lagging (or results) indicators forreliability are failures (MTBF is the recognized measure of reliability), downtime attributed to maintence and cost. These KPIs willdemonstrate everything done right, or wrong in a lean process. Lagging indicators cannot be managed because they are the re s u l t sof everything done. Leading (or process) indicators provide an indication of where problems are occurring before they affect thelagging indicators. Leading indicators are what we manage. Reliability process metrics are identified to drive specific actions inthe pro c e s s .
T h e re are many other valuable metrics that can be identified for the purpose of benchmarking but we focus on the metrics thatdrive the execution of a successful reliability process and directly measure its impact. As an example, wrench time is a usefulmetric to benchmark maintenance eff i c i e n c y, but it doesn’t tell you what to do to improve it. However, by acting on process metricsfor Planning, Scheduling and Execution, wrench time can be impro v e d .
S u m m a ryIn today’s competitive world Lean Reliability is key to a company’s survival. Eliminating non-value added tasks and continuouslyi m p roving must be a part of every o n e ’s daily life. As lean reliability pro g resses, reactivity begins to vanish and a proactive LeanAsset Reliability becomes the focus. The hidden plant is finally found where the plant experiences more capacity and assetavailability and lower cost than anyone ever imagined.
Do not think this journey is easy or without sacrifices because it is not. However once you have traveled this journey you will neverre t u rn .
About the Author
Ricky Smith, CMRP, CPMM, Reliability Strategy Leader, Ivara Corporation
Ricky Smith is renowned in the world of reliability and maintenance. He has more than 30 years of experience working in over 400plants world wide in reliability and maintenance management and training —and holds designations as a Certified Maintenanceand Reliability Professional from the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) and a Certified PlantMaintenance Manager from the Association of Facilities Engineering (AFE).
Well-known on the speaking and lecture circuits, Ricky is a respected author of “Lean Maintenance” and “Industrial Repair, BestMaintenance Repair Practices”.
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OMCS International, www.reliabilityassurance.com
Steve Turner
n 1933 Albert Einstein wrote "The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and asfew as possible without having to surrender the adequate re p resentation of a single datum of experience"
This statement is often paraphrased as "Theories should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."
I n t ro d u c t i o n
Papers presented at conferences the world over show clear evidence that management of maintenance and reliability is movingf o rw a rd rapidly. Challenges discussed in today’s forums are quite diff e rent to what they were a decade ago. Enterprise levelreliability software is now available and corporations are taking advantage, launching global approaches to maintenance strategydevelopment, data collection and reliability incident management. They know there is value in corporate knowledge sharing andthese enlightened industries are aiming to cash in.
A l a rmingly though, it seems that there is a passion to use complex problem solving algorithms and models when a vast majorityof the problems can be solved using simple methods and simple graphical re p resentation of datas. The fundamentals of pro b l e msolving are being overlooked in favour of statistical methods and models. The problems we are concerned with here come inmany forms and include various forms of reliability modelling the derivation of maintenance strategy using RCM or similara p p ro a c h e s .
Obviously adding complexity to a problem increases the analysis time which is a negative outcome of its own. More import a n t l yh o w e v e r, complex analysis often overlooks the basics and comes to the wrong solution. In the hands of the inexperienced, thes o f t w a re can be allowed to generate the answers, neglecting information from the people that know why the data is what it is. Insuch instances, software programs can remove the need to think.
The other practical problem with complex analysis is that it takes the onus of analysis away from the very people who understandthe plant (the operators and tradesmen) as these people are often not sufficiently computer literate to run the complex softwareand almost always not statistically competent. The PM program or other initiatives can easily end up being owned by the engineerin the back room with the computer rather than the folk who do the work and who know what works and what does not.
Variances and tenuous assumptions result in a program that is easily discredited on the basis of the assumptions and the unverifiedand lack of re c o rded data. When attempts are made to deploy the new approach, buy-in is lost as is the enthusiasm to create aliving program that is simple to understand and simple to make logical changes.
T h e re are of course instances where complicated computer based statistical simulation applications can work with great successin industry, however the limitations of the data and the assumptions that need to be made must be kept in mind. It is no doubt funfor engineers to play with data and simulation, but the practical reality is that maintenance analysis is rarely the place for this kindof approach.
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Sharing ReliabilityT h e o ry With Yo u r
Wo r k f o r c e.- Do Complex Analysis Methods Deliver?
Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this somewhat controversial article are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the AMMJ.
A i mThis article is aimed at providing readers with a simple approach to maintenance analysis that does not re q u i re complex statistical
methods. It promotes the use of PM Optimisation (PMO) as opposed to Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) to avoid ‘re i n v e n t i n gthe wheel’ and proposes the use of empirical methods, that ask the right people the right questions as opposed to makingassumptions and taking complex statistical approaches to problem solving.
The opinions are supported by some case study material that readers will hopefully find interesting.
Making Good Use of what you have using Planned Maintenance Optimisation
PMO is a process of rationalisation and review of an existing maintenance program (formal or informal) or a program re c o m m e n d e dby the equipment supplier (vendor) that is in use on other similar equipment or components.
These days, several permutations of the PMO process exist. Some modern variants not only rationalise the existing maintenancep rogram, but also identify and analyse failure modes that are not managed by the existing maintenance program. These variantscan create the same maintenance program output as RCM2 in 1/6th of the time (Tu rner 2001). PMO2000™ is one of those pro c e s s e sthat can.
The rationale behind PMO stems from the premise that most assets have some form of maintenance program (whether formal ori n f o rmal) and that the program contains a significant amount of good.
PMO2000™ consists of 9 steps described below:
Step 1 Task Compilation
Gathering in one place all the formal and informal maintenance tasks applied to the asset.
Step 2 F a i l u re Mode Analysis
Listing the failure modes that each task is meant to manage.
Step 3 Rationalisation and Failure Mode Analysis (FMA) Review
Identifying duplication and adding failure modes to the list where there is no maintenance task for that failure mode.
Step 4 Functional Analysis (Optional)
Defining the functions of the asset.
Step 5 Consequence Evaluation
Defining the consequences of the failure modes.
Step 6 Maintenance Policy Determination
The determination of the tasks and intervals using RCM task selection criteria.
Step 7 G rouping and Review
C reating a viable and efficient maintenance plan.
Step 8 A p p roval and Implementation
Making the new plan happen.
Step 9 Living Program
Continuous impro v e m e n t
It should be noted that during Step 1, there is a focus on the operating context and functional re q u i rements, and the consequencesof failure of the asset to be studied. No analysis program should start without a clear understanding of these parameters.
Much more could be written describing the steps in detail, however for the purpose of this article, the focus will be on Step 6which is maintenance policy determ i n a t i o n .
Analysis using Empirical Methods
Stripped of all the jargon, maintenance policy determination is not complex. Plant components fail and the failure modes can behidden or evident. There are four maintenance options for hidden failures and only three for evident failures. The options are tomonitor condition to predict and prevent the failure, or replace or refurbish components at fixed intervals without inspection top revent failure or do nothing to prevent the failure,. For hidden failures, the tasks that finds out if failure has already occurred canbe another option.
Condition Monitoring Interv a l s
For practical and economic reasons, the pre f e rred preventive approach is usually condition monitoring. For this reason, theo v e rwhelmingly large majority of preventive maintenance activity deployed in industry is condition based. It is widely acceptedthat the intervals of inspection for condition monitoring are primarily driven by the rates of decay of assets. The practical pro b l e mis that the rates of decay of an asset at failure mode level are rarely measured or collected with any degree of rigor (if at all) hencet h e re is rarely sufficient reliable data available to support the interval chosen. If the right questions are asked of the right people,the best assessment of the rates of decay are usually answered very quickly, whereas if there is reliance on complicated statisticalmethods, there may never be data in sufficient quantities to make reasonably confident predictions. In cases where simulationmodels or statistical methods are used, the answer will be heavily reliant on the quality of a number of assumptions.
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Fixed Replacement and Failure Finding Interv a l sThe intervals of fixed time replacement and failure finding tasks rely on information re g a rding the failure patterns and theconsequence of failure. In most industrial applications, there are two “in a sense contradictory” situations surrounding the collectionof data to create a failure pattern :1. If the component has a dominant failure mode which is age related and has a high fre q u e n c y, then the maintainers will
usually know what that frequency is because they change the component re g u l a r l y. They do not need a sophisticateddatabase for this.
2. If the failure is age related and low fre q u e n c y, then it will take a long time to get any statistically significant data unlesst h e re are lots of these components in the same serv i c e .
For evident failures, in order to collect the data, it could easily be suggested that maintenance has failed, as its primary task is toremove the failures before they occur. So, in order to get the information that is so desperately needed to succeed, failure mustoccur first. This makes no sense.
For hidden failures, the data may be collectable, but, once again, it is not easy to collect good data in large quantities so this datais likely to be lacking in statistical significance.
So, once again, in an industrial application, there are two options to choose between: 1. Make sweeping assumptions about means and distributions and input the numbers into simulation algorithms which then
have questionable validity. 2. Take an approach which relies on intuition, engineering training and valued judgment of experienced people who have
p robably dealt with similar failure modes many times before.
Option 1 will be suboptimal compared to the empirical solutions based on Einstein’s proposition stated in the opening paragraph.
Case StudiesIn over ten years of perf o rming PMO analyses, the authorhas found a consistent pattern that most maintenancep rograms contain a lot of good. Conversely, they alsocontain elements that are overly intensive as well aselements that are not intensive enough. Furt h e rm o re, allmaintenance programs analysed by the author containsignificant elements of work that add no value due to thet a rget failure mode being random and instant or because itis effectively managed by other forms of maintenance.
The good news is that most maintenance programs areexcessive. In general, we try to do too much maintenance!This is good news because it suggests that we can do lessp reventive maintenance and get better re l i a b i l i t y.
The two case studies that follow come from a library ofp rojects with similar results. All of these projects start e dwith PMO2000™ as the baseline for the analysis and noneused any form of statistical analysis other than graphicalre p resentation of failure rates on histograms. Both involvedpeople that knew the equipment and were able to supplyempirical data to allow the analysis to proceed withconfidence and with a very good rate of pro g re s s .
Case 1 - New Major Equipment Purc h a s eF i g u re 1 shows the results from a PMO2000™ analysis of a vendor maintenance program supplied with a $100M capital equipmentp u rchase in the mining industry. The change categories presented in the pie chart re p resent percentages of maintenance tasksthat needed to be changed, deleted or added based on RCM task selection criteria. Figure 1 shows that the PM program suppliedby the vendor did not suit the local operations and operating context as since less than 40% of vendor recommended maintenancetasks survived the review without change using RCM decision logic.
By multiplying the revised tasks by their associated downtime, annualising the totals and comparing the new re q u i rements withthe initial vendor program it was found that, the vendor recommended program re q u i red 2% of total time for PM whereas therevised program re q u i red a little over 1%. 1% of total time re p resented a significant benefit when the target downtime overall wasonly 4%. Every component in the project was analysed and the complete study took 25 days to complete. Pro g ress was considere dfive times faster than similar analyses in the past based on RCM methods.
Case 2 - Existing Assets This site considered that they were overly reactive in their approach to maintenance. There was a large backlog of PM andc o rrective maintenance tasks . Production demands on the plant were increasing. The reactive approach to maintenance fru s t r a t e dboth the shop floor staff and the management. Lower than budgeted machine availability put pre s s u re on the plant maintenanceand reduced the windows for maintenance activity. Fears of failure to supply customers were growing.
F i g u re 1 - Results of a mining project PMO Analysis
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A typical example of the PM task transformations undertaken can be seen in Figure 2. This pie chart highlights the significantchanges to the tasks after perf o rming PMO2000™ on an engine and compressor set. As shown, 50% of tasks were altered in somesignificant manner. Due to the elimination of some very conservative and labour labour-intensive maintenance, one man year oflabour was released when this analysis was rolled out to the 50 compressors that were operated by this site. The workshop tookfour days to complete and had four participants, with the one day PMO training the all up total cost was 20 man days. Overall, thelabour re t u rn on this project was about one month and together with some other design and perf o rmance initiatives the pro j e c tre t u rned over $4M in annualised revenue from increased availability.
F i g u re 2 - Results of an Engine and Gas Compressor PMO2000™ Analysis.
Over the course of the assignment, the reliability group grew from three to eight people. The additional re s o u rces were re a s s i g n e df rom reactive maintenance activities. The program resulted in maintenance related downtime being halved. The dollar valued i rectly attributed to the PMO program across the site was estimated at over $20M per year. The labour hours applied to thep rocess (including the training of 150 employees) paid back in labour productivity terms within 4 months.
C o n c l u s i o nThe programs illustrated above have been successful primarily because of the following:• The PMO process generated the results very quickly and in 1/6th of the time that would be re q u i red using RCM. This
p rocess does not try to “reinvent the wheel”. • Each case produced a high payback on labour re s o u rces as well as revenue. Supervisors of team workshop part i c i p a n t s
received direct benefit in productivity terms that paid back quickly. They fully supported the programs when they could seep roductivity gains.
• The analysis methods were empirical and easily understood by the shop floor. That approach enables a commonunderstanding of reliability principles and provides the basis for those principles to be used as a continuous impro v e m e n tp rogram that lives easily on the shop floor. The analysis was fast and the results are immediate enough that people do notlose intere s t .
In conclusion, capital intensive organisations embarking on improvement programs should be considering factors such as simplicityand speed of analysis when they make decisions about what analysis tools to use.
PMO coupled with a simple and effective analysis program based on asking the right people the right questions provides a veryfast and sustainable approach to maintenance analysis compared to than approaches such as RCM that start from scratch andor deploy complex methods of analysis using statistics that depend on data and assumptions.
R e f e rences 1. Tu rner S J (2001) “PM Optimisation - Maintenance Analysis of the Future”
ICOMS Annual Conference Melbourne 2001
2. RCM is described in SAE JA1011
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Craig Lawrence
n t ro d u c t i o n
In the past, maintenance was viewed by many as a necessary evil, a function that cost money but re t u rned nothing. In the integratedsteel plants of 20 or more years ago, re p a i rmen were among the lower paid employees, even though their job re q u i red the mosttechnical skill, knowledge, and training. Fort u n a t e l y, that thinking has changed. In modern mills, maintenance is recognized as akey part of the production process. Its importance is obvious; well maintained plants are usually profitable, poorly maintained onesusually are not.
As with any process, the maintenance function must continuously improve. The goals are simple; minimize maintenance costs,maximize equipment availability and perf o rmance. Costs are minimized by minimizing waste; of time (man-hours) and of material.Waste is often the result of inadequate planning, the refusal to consider new ways of doing things, and/or the failure to pay attentionto detail. Maximizing equipment availability and perf o rmance usually re q u i res re-engineering. This does not have to mean larg ee x p e n d i t u res for new equipment; substantial gains can often be realized with minor, inexpensive changes that can be done entire l yin-house. In general, plants operate on the 80-20 basis; 80% of the maintenance costs are caused by 20% of the machinery. These‘ p roblem machines’ need to be identified and focused on.
An often overlooked benefit of top-notch maintenance - an intangible if you will - is improved employee moral, and as a re s u l ti m p roved pro d u c t i v i t y. Nothing drains the spirit out of workers faster than working in a poorly maintained plant. Also, poorlymaintained plants are often unsafe. A well maintained plant will foster a positive attitude in employees, and they will accomplishm o re work of better quality.
In the following sections are suggestions on what we believe are the ‘vital few’ for reducing maintenance costs and incre a s i n guptime. Understand that most of the improvements in maintenance will be accomplished on the shop floor. ComputerizedMaintenance Management/Enterprise Asset Management systems and high tech Predictive Maintenance instruments are import a n ttools, but they’ll have little impact if repairs are n ’t planned and done well. Given the choice between a ‘world class’ CMMS/EAMSand ‘world class’ re p a i rmen, we’ll take the re p a i rmen every time. Understand also that there will be very few, if any, ‘home ru n s ’ .Steady gains will be made by targeting problems - prioritized by financial impact - and eliminating them one by one. Paying attentionto detail is paramount. Take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves.
Always be on the lookout for better ways of doing things; always try to think ‘outside the box’. Just because a job has been donea certain way since day one doesn’t make the established pro c e d u re the best one. If someone has a new idea about anything,take a hard objective look at it. If there is no change, there can be no improvement. Do what you’ve always done, and you’ll getwhat you’ve always gotten.
Suggestions For Reducing Maintenance Costs & Increasing Uptime.
1. Scheduled shutdowns• Schedule only repairs that re q u i re outages. If there are jobs that can be done while the plant is operating, don’t schedule
them during a major shutdown. This will reduce the cost of the major shutdown and level maintenance spending.• Consider alternatives for all jobs, especially the major ones. Is there a faster way? A cheaper way? Can it wait a year? Can it
be made better than original to reduce future maintenance costs?• Do not use outages to perf o rm invasive inspections or time-based replacement of rotating machinery. With the pre d i c t i v e
technologies available today, time based maintenance on rotating equipment has become obsolete and unnecessarily costly.Plan repairs only on equipment where the PDM program has indicated pro b l e m s .
• Plan in depth, down to the smallest detail. Prior preparation prevents poor perf o rmance. With any major job, anticipatep roblems and have alternative plans ready to go.
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Improving PlantMaintenance &
Equipment Reliability(Editor’s note - This is a very useful set of improvement suggestions.)
• Clearly define the scope of major repairs before the shutdown begins. Nothing adds cost and time like change orders. Stayon the critical path.
• Make sure everyone involved with major repairs understands exactly what needs to be accomplished and what their role is.This goes for contractors as well as plant personnel.
Applying these principles will result in:• Better estimates of cost and better control of spending.• I m p roved reliability of machinery.• Fewer major outage jobs and better control of them.• No unnecessary component re p l a c e m e n t .• Fewer contractor man-hours.• Reduced overt i m e .• Reduced maintenance costs.
2 . C o n t r a c t o r s• Define to the contractor exactly (and in writing) what the scope of his work will be. Take him to the site and explain the job in
d e t a i l .• Try to define the work so fixed price bids can be obtained. If the amount of work cannot be clearly defined, use the time and
material method. • For each contractor bidding on a job, consider:
> What are their labor rates (hourly and supervision, straight time and overt i m e ) ?> What are their equipment rental costs?> What are their per diem expenses?> Have they worked at your plant in the past and, if so, was their perf o rmance satisfactory ?> If they haven’t worked at your plant before, can they provide re f e re n c e s ?> Have they perf o rmed similar work in the past?> What will the plant have to provide for them?
• Assign a plant supervisor to follow the job and coordinate activities between the contractor and plant personnel. Considerassigning senior craftsmen as contractor supervisors. Freed from ‘turning wrenches’, their expertise on plant equipment willenable the contractor to perf o rm more efficiently and more accurately.
• Each day, the contractor must submit for approval a time sheet showing the hours worked in the last 24 hours and thecumulative hours worked on the job. This is especially important on time and material jobs. The hours must be entered in theC M M S .
• On time and material jobs, the contractor must submit on a daily basis a list of materials and equipment used.• Any change orders must be approved by plant management prior to the start of work.
3 . P re d i c t i v e / p reventive maintenance• Time-based inspections need to be replaced with predictive techniques.
> Vibration analysis> Motor testing (static and dynamic)> Therm o g r a p h y> Oil analysis> Other
• The PDM (predictive maintenance) program should be used to steer the PM (preventive maintenance) program. Time basedPM - outside of lubrication and visual inspections - should not be used except where PDM is not applicable. No invasive PMinspections on rotating machinery should be undertaken unless a problem is indicated by the PDM program. In this way, theman-hours which would have been spent inspecting perfectly good equipment can be used on project or enhancementw o r k .
• Invasive inspections on a time basis are expensive and often introduce problems into a machine that was perfectly healthy(machine life curv e ) .
• The test interval on critical or complex machinery should be one month. Some may consider monthly condition monitoringtoo expensive, but in almost every case it’s far less costly than an unexpected failure, particularly when the pro d u c t i o np rocess has no parallel path. Less critical equipment can be tested bi-monthly or quart e r l y. This is especially true wherestand-by spares are installed. Remember that if running to failure is the cheapest way to operate, then that’s what should bedone. However, that is rarely the case.
• The PDM contractor must be provided with complete and accurate machine data. The more information they have on amachine, the more accurate their analysis will be.
• Implement a motor testing program for large or critical AC motors. Do not send them out for rebuild on a time basis.Diagnostic testing will detect any electrical issues, and vibration analysis will find any bearing pro b l e m s .
• Implement annual or semi-annual thermographic inspections of electrical equipment.• Implement/expand oil sampling programs. Many lubricant suppliers provide this service free or for a minimal price. Always
be on the lookout for better lubricants. If there ’s a better lube available made by a competitor, your supplier most likely won’ttell you about it.
• Reliable information on the condition of machinery will provide the following benefits:> Early warning of impending problems will provide more time to plan repair jobs and enable you to take machinery off line
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at times of your choosing.> Since problems will be detected earlier, there will be more time to pro c u re replacement parts. There f o re, the spare s
i n v e n t o ry can be gradually re d u c e d .> Unexpected failures almost always mean overtime. A good PDM program will there f o re reduce labor costs while
i n c reasing equipment on-line time.• Critical equipment must be visually inspected once per shift. These inspections must be documented and the inspection
sheet signed by the inspector. Less critical equipment should be visually checked anywhere from once a day to once aweek, depending on the impact its failure would have on the operation. These inspections are just as important as the PDMp ro g r a m .
• If not already in place, implement a documented lubrication pro g r a m .• Establish a documented, machine specific time based PM inspection program for equipment on which PDM is not
applicable: Conveyor belts, crane cables, elevator chains, stru c t u res, etc., and slow moving rotating equipment such as akiln or a caster turre t .
• Maintenance needs to be refined to the point where there are no unexpected electrical or mechanical failure s .
4 . Doing Maintenance Wo r k• The quality of maintenance work has a significant effect on re l i a b i l i t y, since a machine that is re p a i red incorrectly will not
last as long or perf o rm as well as one serviced corre c t l y.• T h e re are four parts to any maintenance job:
> Detection/diagnosis: A problem is detected. It’s determined that corrective action is necessary.> Planning: A work order is created in the CMMS. The necessary spare parts, tools, mobile equipment, safety equipment,
etc., are moved to the job site. The personnel who will do the work are briefed on the job. Lock out, flag, and tagp ro c e d u res are stressed. All necessary documentation on the equipment is made available.
> Execution: The re p a i rmen do the work safely, respecting established specifications. When work is complete, the machineis test operated. The area is cleaned up; tools and spares that were not used are re t u rned to storage. The failedcomponents are saved for failure analysis.
> Follow-up: The work order is closed in the CMMS. Any detailed information, such as special tools that were needed orspecial safety pro c e d u res, is saved in the equipment history for future re f e rence. The spare parts that were used are re -o rd e red. The mode of failure is analyzed, and methods for preventing re - o c c u rrence are considered and implemented, ifpractical. If a Safe Job Pro c e d u re doesn’t exist for the job, take this opportunity to write one (see section 5, CMMS). Ifone exists, update it if a better/safer way of doing the job was found.
• D o n ’t stop after the execution phase; follow-up is critical for reliability impro v e m e n t .• In a breakdown situation, the detection and diagnosis of the problem will most likely be apparent. The planning phase and
execution phase will overlap, i.e., disassembly will commence while spare parts are being moved to the job and the worko rder can be created while the repair is in pro g ress. Although a breakdown demands faster planning and execution, safetyand precision cannot be sacrificed for speed. Also, in such a situation the follow-up is extremely important, since the objectis to eliminate all unexpected failure s .
Consider aMaintenance
Action Strategy
Are CMTechniquesApplicable?
Is CBM Cheaper than
Failure?
Implement aCBM Strategy
Review StrategyOn Plant/Process
Change
Is Unit LifeConsistant With
Use?
Is UBM Cheaper Than
Failure
Implement aUBM Strategy
AppropriateMaintenance
Strategy Applies
Is Unit Life
Consistant?
Is FTM Cheaper than
Failure?
Implement a FTPStrategy
Is Designed-InRedundancy
Cost Effective?
Implement aDesign in (DIR)
Strategy
Consider aDesign Out
(DOF) Strategy
Implement aQTF Strategy
Consequence ofFailure?
Are CMTechniques
Cheaper ThanFailure?
Are CMTechniquesApplicable?
ConsiderUpgradeStrategy
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YESYES
NO
NOLarge
Small
NO
NO
NO
NO NO
NO
NO
Start
Figure 1. Modified Idhammer Diagram (ref 1)
Key: - UBM = Usage Based Maintenance, FTM = Fixed Time Maintenance,OTF = Operate to Failure, CBM = Condition Based Maintenance
5 . C M M S• Fill in the Bills of Material in as much detail as possible.• When creating a work order include as much information as is known:
> Parts, tools, and material re q u i re d .> Mobile equipment needed and estimated cost, if re n t e d .> Cost of part s .> Estimated man-hours of work and estimated cost.> Special information from previous work done on the particular piece of equipment. This data should be in history.> The reason for the repair and how the condition was detected.> The name of the individual responsible for the execution of the work.
• When closing the work order include:> Parts and material actually used and the actual cost for each item.> Mobile equipment used and the actual rental cost, if applicable.> Actual man-hours of work and actual cost.> Any new information which will help in the future .> The results of the failure analysis> Steps to be taken to prevent re - o c c u rre n c e .
• Develop step-by-step Safe Job Pro c e d u res for all maintenance work and keep them in the CMMS. Start with the mostcomplex and most hazardous jobs. Modify them as better ways are found to do each job and/or as equipment is modified.These SJPs will pro v i d e :> A checklist of safety pro c e d u res to follow for each job.> A consistent, best practice way of doing each job.> Instructions for new employees.
• Use the CMMS to measure improvements in equipment reliability annually or semi-annually by utilizing the inform a t i o ne n t e red in the failure analysis section of work orders. There should be steady decreases in the frequencies of couplingf a i l u res, bearing failures, gear failures, failures due to lack of lubrication, etc.
6 . Maintenance (in general)• I n t e rnal labor cost is not fixed cost. Overtime can be controlled. Multi-crafting of re p a i rmen will enable a plant to gradually
reduce its maintenance workforce through attrition or increase the efficiency of the workforce and gradually re d u c econtractor usage.
• Develop training programs for re p a i rmen, both on general maintenance and machine specific topics. Training dollars arenever wasted.
• Reduce the use of contractors. If plant personnel are available and able to do a particular job, use them.• S t ress safety. A safe worker will invariably out-perf o rm an unsafe worker with equal abilities because the safe individual is
paying attention to what he’s doing.• U p g r a d e / e n h a n c e / re-engineer equipment as needed to continuously improve perf o rm a n c e .• To as large an extent as possible, the same contractors should be used for special jobs in all your plants. You may be able to
get corporate rates and save significant money.• Reduce the spare parts inventory to as low a level as possible.• When buying replacement equipment or parts, understand that they don’t necessarily have to come from the OEM. After-
market suppliers often supply parts of equal or better quality for less money.• Keep shift crew size at a minimum. If large repair gangs are needed on the off shifts to keep the operation running (fire
fighting), maintenance practices need significant modification. Once unexpected breakdowns are minimized, the man-hoursthat were used to fight fires can be directed to project work, i.e., modifying/upgrading problem machines to incre a s ereliability and reduce maintenance costs.
• Contractor hours can then also be reduced, since plant work forces will be more available.• Use the CMMS to track costs, work backlogs, parts inventories, and to keep machine data and history. • Establish reliable vendors for commonly used parts and supplies so that Just-In-Time pro c u rement can be instituted. As
reliable vendors for uncommon and infrequently used parts are found, these parts may also be pro c u red on a Just-In-Ti m eb a s i s .
• Practice ‘Opportunistic Maintenance’; always have an up-to-date ‘next time down’ list handy so no time is wasted in theevent of an unexpected outage.
I m p l e m e n t a t i o n• In each area, identify the three most troublesome machines. These are the ones that will be attacked first. Redesign and
modify as needed to achieve desired re l i a b i l i t y. When the first three are complete, attack the next three most tro u b l e s o m e .Continue until all machinery is operating as desire d .
• Evaluate CMMS usage. No work should be done that doesn’t have a work order entered for it. All costs (parts and labor)must be captured in the work ord e r, as well as all details of the job.
• In each area, evaluate contractor usage. If there is work being done by a contractor that plant forces can handle, get rid ofthe contractor. If there are specialty jobs that a contractor can do better and cheaper (e.g., motor re p a i r, balancing,aligning), use the contractor. The rule of thumb is: If contractors are working while plant forces are under-utilized, money isbeing wasted.
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• In each area, identify the three most difficult maintenance jobs. For example, in a BOF melt shop they might be replacing avessel bearing, replacing a tilt drive bull gear, and replacing one of the bridge wheel main equalizers on a ladle crane. Foreach of these jobs, write a detailed Safe Job Pro c e e d u re - SJP. If an SJP exists, review it to be sure it’s accurate. After thet h ree toughest jobs have SJPs, pick the next three toughest. Continue until (at least) all major jobs have SJPs.
• In each area, evaluate the PDM/PM program (see previous section). Are the PDM re p o rts being properly utilized? Are therestill machines or components being replaced on a time basis? Is the PM program documented on machine specificinspection sheets? The condition of every critical machine must be known, so a time until failure can be estimated. If nota l ready in place, institute documented visual inspections of critical equipment (Daily? Every shift?).
• Evaluate the skills of the re p a i rmen. If not already in place, set up training courses for electrical, mechanical, welding,rigging, pipefitting, etc. Vendors are often helpful for training. Always stress safety. If you are not already doing so, considermulti-crafting re p a i rmen. Obviously, their wages will increase, but the increased workforce flexibility will be more than wort hit.
• Minimize the spare parts inventory. Wherever possible, use the same motors, reducers, hydraulic cylinders, pumps, re l a y s ,switches, etc., in every area of the plant. In the case of a multi-plant operation, make every eff o rt to standardize betweenplants as well. Clearly, changing to standard parts will take time, but the reduction in inventory will more than offset the costof the changeover. For example, if there are four critical applications in a plant that use 100 HP, 1780 RPM motors, and all ared i ff e rent frames; four spare motors have to be carried. However, by modifying the bases in three of the applications so allcan use the same motor, the spares inventory can be cut to one motor, a substantial savings.
Negotiate contracts with local suppliers of bearings, couplings, seals, lubricants, small motors, fasteners, welding supplies,etc., where the vendor will supply any part covered by the contract in an agreed to period of time (usually 12-24 hours). Thisgets inventory off the books.
As discussed pre v i o u s l y, a solid PDM/PM program can reduce the need for spares because the early detection of impendingp roblems will allow time to pro c u re spares well before failure is imminent.
When installing new equipment, standardize as closely as possible to existing machinery already operating in the plant. Eveninstallations as diff e rent as a melt shop and a rolling mill have common machines (motors, hydraulic pumps, water pumps,electrical controls, etc.).
• Sometime in late summer or early fall of each year, create the maintenance budget for the following year. It is imperativethat maintenance department heads are involved. Too often a dollor number for maintenance spending is assigned bycorporate management, and they may not be fully aware of what the maintenance needs of the plants are. The plants areexpected to hit this number, realistic or not. Usually this number is too low, and jobs that would have increased equipmentp e rf o rmance and/or reduced downtime are cancelled or postponed in an eff o rt to ‘make budget’. By involving themaintenance department supervisors, a more accurate estimate of re q u i red work and its cost will be acquired. Refer to thePrinciples section above.
On the other hand, the budget must not be intentionally over-estimated so it’s easy to reach. Only jobs or major spares that aregoing to reduce costs and/or improve run time should be considered. Costs for various supplies, small parts, and services willalso have to be estimated.
The budget number should be as low as possible without omitting any critical jobs or spare parts. Ideally, it should be possibleto ‘make budget’ only if everything in the budgeted year works perf e c t l y. In the real world, if you’re about 10% over you haveessentially ‘made budget’. It’s better to have a lean budget and fall just short, than to have a padded one and make it easily.
During times of poor business conditions, it may not be financially feasible to spend what seems to be necessary on maintenance.When this occurs, clearly some large jobs will have to be postponed; gambles will have to be taken. Again, when deciding whatto cancel it’s important to have the input of the maintenance department heads.
• Set the dates for major outages as far in advance as possible. These weeks should be designated as ‘no vacation’ weeks.This will increase the size of the internal workforce and reduce the need for contractors. As soon as it is decided whatmajor jobs will be undertaken, begin planning them in detail. Make up lists of needed parts, mobile equipment, and tools. Ifan SJP doesn’t exist for a particular job, write one.
One to two months before the outage starts, make sure all necessary parts are on hand and visually inspect them. Make sureall special equipment is either on hand, or will definitely be on site prior to the start of the outage. Decide what crews ands u p e rvisors will be working on what jobs and give them pre l i m i n a ry briefings on what the expectations are and what the planis to accomplish them. If a certain job is to be done by a contractor, get their supervisor on site for a briefing. Above all, makes u re everyone understands the lock out/tag out pro c e d u re s .
One week before the start of the outage, begin staging all jobs. Move spare parts as close to the job sites as possible. Loadc rew boxes for each project with the necessary tools and equipment, clearly labeling each box so they get delivered to thec o rrect locations. Check to make sure any rental equipment will definitely be on site prior to shutdown. Once again, brief thei n t e rnal crews and/or contractors that will man each job. Once again, go over the lock out/tag out pro c e d u re s .
Once the outage starts, change orders must be kept to an absolute minimum because they add time and cost like nothing else.U n f o reseen circumstances occur during the execution of almost all major jobs; however, solid planning and anticipation willeliminate most of them.
Beyond the Te c h n i c a l
Too often, it is believed that technology (e.g., PDM instruments, CMM/EAM systems, project planning software, etc.) is the solutionto all maintenance problems. Sadly, that is not the case; if it were, every company that could aff o rd the latest technology wouldhave ‘world class’ maintenance, but most don’t.
Plants that have top notch maintenance all have one thing in common; maintenance departments staffed by individuals who arecommitted to doing a good job, from the manager to the line foremen and re p a i rmen. Some of these plants are relatively low-tech,but the lack of technology is more than made up for by the enthusiasm, re s o u rcefulness, eff i c i e n c y, and plain hard work of themaintenance employees. The eventual addition of technology will make them even better. If maintenance employees aredemoralized and feel unappreciated, maintenance perf o rmance will be bad no matter how much software or how many newi n s t ruments are purchased.
The following principles are practiced in the successful plants we’ve seen:• To as large an extent as possible, let people do jobs the way they want to do them. There have to be guidelines, obviously,
but don’t micro-manage. Employees will take more pride in their work and feel a sense of ownership if they are allowedsignificant input to the planning and execution of pro j e c t s .
• Give credit where credit is due. If anyone comes up with a helpful new idea, make sure the whole plant knows about it, andmake sure the individual knows that they know.
• Compliment good work. Small acknowledgements of nice work are worth a lot in terms of morale and positive attitude.• Lead by example. All supervisors in the maintenance department - up to and including the maintenance manager - must be
willing to occasionally ‘get in the trenches’ with the re p a i rmen and give hands-on assistance. A supervisor whodemonstrates he has some skills as a re p a i rman and isn’t afraid to get dirty will command much more respect from hiss u b o rdinates than one who stands by with his hands in his pockets barking orders. One demonstration is worth a thousande x p l a n a t i o n s .
• The maintenance manager must instill in his subordinates the feeling that what they do is important, that they’re making ad i ff e rence. Share information such as costs, profits, and delay time. When a maintenance project is completed that impro v e sthe operation, make sure everyone who was involved knows all the details, such as how much costs were reduced and howmuch run time was increased. Most import a n t l y, make sure everyone knows their eff o rts in the successful execution of thep roject are appre c i a t e d .
• Criticize constru c t i v e l y. When mistakes occur - and they will - do not berate the individuals responsible but rather take stepsto ensure they don’t make the same mistakes again. Remember that failure is an opportunity to begin again morei n t e l l i g e n t l y.
• Always explain why a particular job is being done and/or why it’s being done in a certain way. Ask for feedback; someonemay have a better idea. Any project is more likely to reach a successful conclusion if the individuals involved thoro u g h l yunderstand why and how it’s being done.
S u m m a ry• Maintenance is - and should be re g a rded as - an integral part of any manufacturing process. • The goals are: Minimize maintenance costs, maximize equipment availability and perf o rmance. Minimize cost by minimizing
waste. Increase equipment run time and perf o rmance by re-engineering the machinery and/or the process itself.• Use PDM instead of time based PM wherever applicable. Do invasive inspections on rotating equipment only when one of
the PDM technologies indicates the need. Establish daily or every shift visual inspection routes for critical equipment.• Use time based PM on machines/stru c t u res for which PDM does not apply.• Use the CMMS to track open work, history, and costs. Fill in the Bills of Material. Develop Safe Job Pro c e d u res for at least
l a rge and/or complex jobs.• S t ress safety.• S t ress quality work.• Minimize the spare parts inventory.• Make good use of major outages. If a job can be done while the plant is running, don’t schedule it for the outage. Plan in as
much detail as possible.• Use contractors wisely and as needed. They are not the solution to every pro b l e m .• Establish training programs for re p a i rmen and line fore m e n .• Budget for what the maintenance needs of the plant are, not for what you wish they were .• Instill in maintenance personnel a desire to give their best.• D o n ’t be afraid of change. If the object is to continuously improve the maintenance function, change is inevitable and
n e c e s s a ry.
R e f e re n c e s( 1 ) . Maintenance strategy flowchart by Christer Idhammer, IDCON.
Modified by Industrial & Technical Services Pty Ltd, Australia.
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Invensys Avantis (USA)
he cement industry is one of those unusual markets in which supplier companies can never quite make as much pro d u c tas they can sell. That’s not a bad situation to be in, except that it means in order for a company to increase its revenues annuallyit has to be ingenious at finding ways to increase pro d u c t i v i t y. Cement is a commodity that is price sensitive as well, so pro d u c e r shave to either find new ways to fine tune their processes or to get more product out of existing production operations.
T h a t ’s exactly what management at Ash Grove Cement has done at their Durkee, Oregon, US, plant.. In the past three years theplant capacity has been doubled from 1,500 tons of portland cement each day to about 3,100 tons per day - first by adding newequipment to increase capacity to 2,700 tons per day, then by tuning the production process and by enhancing equipmentmaintenance so the plant can run 24 hours a day, virtually nonstop. These changes have made the Durkee plant perhaps the moste fficient of the eight Ash Grove cement plants operating in the U.S. - with total production of nearly one million tons of port l a n dcement out of the combined plants’ annual total of 6.1 million tons.
Key to the enhanced operations was installation of a computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) that enhancedthe efficiency of equipment and production systems such that, with the exception of an annual two-week preventive maintenance(PM) shutdown, the plant can produce 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the year. These applications run on an Av a n t i senterprise asset management solution from Invensys Process Systems, Foxboro, Massachusetts, USA.
P o rtland cement is basically a construction adhesive that sets and hardens by reacting chemically with water. It’s commonlymixed with water, sand, gravel, and crushed stone to form concrete, the world’s most versatile and most used construction material.P o rtland cement can be made in either wet or dry processes, both of which re q u i re enormous equipment and machinery,t remendous heat for creating the chemical reaction, and sophisticated computer and control technology to manage the pro d u c t i o np rocess. Every step of the process is monitored and tested to ensure product quality and minimal environmental impact.
Despite its outward appearance of being a mechanical process - because of the extensive mining operations, mechanicalconveyance, silo storage and bulk distribution operations deployed in its production - cement making really is a chemical pro c e s s .It transforms primary minerals (calcium, silica, alumina and iron components), which are found in limestone, clay and sand, into“cement clinker” material that is ground and processed to create varieties of cement that possess specific setting times andh a rdness pro p e rties. The chemical transformation of these mineral components occurs at temperatures from 2,700˚ F to 3,000˚ Fduring processing in the cement kiln. The Durkee kiln is essentially a large, rotating oven that measures 14 feet in diameter and225 feet in length. It rotates at about 3.5 RPM and the finely ground mineral materials are gravity fed and processed through itslength until the transformation to “cement clinker” is complete.
Enhancing Maintenance Eff i c i e n c y“Our original need was maintenance functionality and some cost tracking information, so when we saw what Avantis could pro v i d e ,we were pretty excited,” said Bern a rd Sherin, maintenance manager at the Durkee plant. “There ’s a lot of functionality to thes o f t w a re and, in fact, we still probably don’t utilize it nearly to its capacity. We originally used this thing as a ‘get it into the systemso we don’t lose the data’ type of solution. We were successful there but we didn’t take advantage of some of the planning ors o rting functions. We’ve now begun to use those features as well, as part of a new corporate program we call our MaintenanceExcellence Process (MEP).
“This program is designed to improve the reliability of our equipment and process to world class levels,” Sherin added. “It start e dwith a pilot site at our Seattle plant with the formal rollout here at the Durkee plant. . We’ve found that being able to manage thebacklog through Avantis has been really easy and we have a much better handle on our workload since we started using someof the other features such as criticality, value lists and priority value list.”
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T
Ash Grove Cement IsUsing EAM System To
Streamline PlantM a i n t e n a n c e
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Avantis provides the features that let Ash Grove management link operations that are diverse in type as well as spread out overthe several square-mile area of the mines and cement plant. The CMMS system uses the “entity” concept to facilitate re c o rd i n gof costing and maintenance activity re c o rds for anything users wish to track. “Parent-child” relationships can be set up easily tobuild hierarchies for cost rollups and operating statistics. Work management features ensure that maintenance personnel havec o n t rol of incoming work while providing a flexible way to track work in pro g ress. Planning functions include information on labor,materials, tools, drawings and instructions, and subcontractor re q u i rements. All of this detail can even be included on work ord e r s .P reventive maintenance (PM) functions can be stru c t u red in libraries of standard jobs with automatic work order generation,inspection checklists and PM routine specifications.
Avantis.PRO builds a detailed history of equipment information based on day-to-day maintenance activities. Equipment statisticsinclude hours of operation, cause and frequency of downtime, and labor and material changes, all of which can be easily re v i e w e dand analyzed.
“One of the features that we've taken advantage of is the ability to look at historical data and trend it to evaluate whether we needto spend more or less eff o rt in a particular area,” Sherin said. “It's given us an easy way to determine whether a particular pieceof equipment has had an inordinate amount of work done on it. With proper cost justification, we can judge whether we shouldreplace any equipment that’s costing too much to maintain.”
Using the detailed history of equipment information that is developed via day-to-day activities, supervisors can analyze failurehistories, track failure causes and take action accord i n g l y. Maintenance parts inventories can be better managed, especially whendealing with large numbers of unique and low unit value items that can often be subject to unpredictable demand. Workflow canbe better planned and purchasing and pro c u rement functions can be tied directly into maintenance pro g r a m s .
The pro c u rement functionality in Avantis is instrumental in Ash Gro v e ’s ability to manage their supplier base as well. Critical vendori n f o rmation such as pricing, lead times and manufacturers’ cro s s - re f e rences are easily stored and retrieved. This information isused to automate the replenishment, and tracking of inventory items.
“Maintenance efficiency became a critical part of equipment redeployment as we upgraded the plant to increase production - allthe way from mining of minerals in the quarries behind the plant to the conveyor systems, to production equipment, and bulkdistribution of product to trucks and railcars,” Sherin said.
It starts with the crushing system located near the mountain where raw materials are mined.
“After the rock is blasted it’s hauled by truck to the main cru s h e r, where rock is broken down to ‘head size’ of about 10 inches ind i a m e t e r,” he explained. “The new crusher can handle up to 1,200 tons an hour of rated capacity and it was designed witho v e rcapacity so it only had to be run 25 hours a week. Our old crusher could only handle about 400 tons an hour, so it had to ru njust about all the time in order to keep up with the plant demand. Since we had created historical files on crusher perf o rm a n c e ,the new system was designed with preventive maintenance in mind. We now only have to run it a few days a week, which givesus the rest of the time to maintain it, as needed.”
Ash Grove uses a cement-specific application developed by a system house to run the cement making process, since corporatemanagement wanted to standardize on a single control system for all its plants. Staff at the Durkee plant plan on using data from thec o n t rol system to trigger PMs based on alarms or events and will use the Avantis system to enhance control capabilities. Gatheringoperating data from all production equipment via the control system has helped standardize PM work throughout the plant.
Figure 1 - Durkee Cement Plant
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In order to perf o rm PMs when the plant is running 24 hours a day, the Durkee maintenance staff takes a predictive approach totheir PM schedules, using new techniques for monitoring equipment operation.
“ We’ve pushed preventive and predictive maintenance in this plant for a long time and we’re going to continue building on thatusing the features of Avantis,” Sherin said. “We use techniques such as vibration analysis, thermography and even oil analysisof our large gear boxes. We still do some failure mode firefighting occasionally, but we’re trying diligently to get away from that.”
Using the corporation’s Maintenance Excellence process, the Durkee plant staff is committed to daily scheduling and will bemoving to weekly scheduling and then three week scheduling of PMs. At that point they expect 85% of their work to be pre v e n t i v e .This approach has worked well and maintenance now has a commitment from production departments to schedule equipment tobe down at appropriate times so the PM work can be done on it. The end result is that it takes a lot less downtime to do a PM thanto respond to a breakdown.
“One of the disadvantages of the cement process is that it is indeed a process - if you shut it down for five minutes, it’s really nota five-minute shutdown,” Sherin explained. “You lose enough heat in the process that it takes time to come back up and get itrunning again. You have to ramp it down, then ramp it back up. If you don’t have that kiln temperature up to snuff when you go toput material back in it, you make bad product. We do not want that.”
Because of the nature of the production process, the Durkee plant has an amazingly broad range of equipment to track - rangingf rom very large process fans to a wide array of belt, bucket and pressurized air conveyors; specialized dust collecting equipment;heavy duty compressors; a ball mill for grinding finished product the cement kiln itself; and rolling equipment in the form of gigantico ff road haulers, pickup trucks, railcars, etc.
S t a ff now has taken advantage of the assembly functionality in Avantis to implement a standard assembly stru c t u re across theo rganization. They have set up three levels of hierarchy: the work area, the assembly entity and the particular piece of equipment.For example, in the case of an air pollution control device (APCD), the hierarchy would include a fan, motor, contro l l e r, housings t ru c t u re, tipping valve and chute work.
C o n t rolling Environmental Quality
“When I first came here in 1995, I was told that we basically were in the dirt grinding business,” Sherin laughed. “They were n ’tjoking. Being a complex, dry production process generates a lot of dust and fine powder in the air. It raises issues for pro d u c t i o nas well as for air quality. Using air pre s s u re to blow the finely ground, ultra hot components from one production step to the nextmeans that we need a closed system. Any lean or malfunction could cause dust to spew all over. In addition, we have stricte n v i ronmental limits on releases of dust at any point in the plant, for air quality purposes. Another concern is the hot material thatis a part of the pyro p rocess. If a plug should occur in the material transport system, a pipe or vessel may become pressurized ande x t remely hot material could be expelled and possibly cause serious injury to personnel or equipment damage. So it’s import a n tthat we maintain everything in top notch ord e r. ”
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed a new regulation in 2000, called the Portland Cement MaximumAchievable Control Te c h n o l o g y, or PC MACT and all cement plants must be fully compliant. At the Durkee plant, managementcounts on the Avantis system to be the data collector for supporting this particular pro g r a m .
Figure 2 - Bernard Sherin, Maintenance Manager, Durkee Plant
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“ I t ’s truly a compliance issue. In the past, the way the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) approached the air qualityp e rmits was to re q u i re manufacturers to re p o rt air quality events by exception,” Sherin said. “If you were running OK and didn’thave any problems, you didn’t have to do any re p o rting. If you had an excursion, or an excess emission out the stack, you werethen obligated to fill out a re p o rt and fax it to the DEQ within a certain period of time. You then had to follow up with re m e d i a t i o nplans so it wouldn’t happen again.
“This approach has been turned around 180 degrees now,” he added. “Companies now need to be in continuous compliance andthey’ll be audited. We have to tell the DEQ how we’ll comply, they’ll review that plan and let us know if it’s an acceptable way toc o m p l y, then they’ll monitor our re c o rds to make sure we’re doing it. One of the primary focuses of this particular mandate isp reventive and predictive maintenance on all of your equipment that can be considered a fugitive source for dust or other airpollutants. In our case, since we make dust for a living, that essentially encompasses the entire plant.
“One of the critical issues in the PC MACT program is to have PMs set up and documented, including standard operating pro c e d u re sthat demonstrate to them that we’ve followed these pro c e d u res,” he explained. “We know we’ll be depending on Avantis to maintainour history of all operations to meet these new re q u i re m e n t s . ”
New Corporate Operations, To o
Based on its success so far, Ash Grove Cement is now also using the Avantis system to track capital projects. All capital pro j e c t sa re assigned an entity number at the beginning of the project and then tracked to completion. “We even write work orders for ouroperations folks as well, not just maintenance people. It’s now being used across the entire plant and there are indications thatwe’ll use it to keep track of corporate work as well,” he said.
The Durkee plants currently has 113 employees, 85 of whom are hourly people, including 30 craftsmen. All workers have beene m p o w e red to and are now expected to use Avantis to write and review work re q u e s t s .
The Durkee maintenance group includes 18 mechanical specialists, such as oilers, welders, re p a i rmen and machinists, plus 10electricians who handle all instrumentation and electrical work. Departmental support staff includes a maintenance planner, amaintenance clerk, two mechanical supervisors and an electrical superv i s o r. The purchasing and warehouse managers also re p o rtto maintenance now, since the department is the largest purchaser of parts and goods for service and re p a i r. The plant spendsclose to $3 million a year on maintenance, Sherin noted.
“ I t ’s a challenge to schedule maintenance work when you run 24 hours a day, but usually we get a two-to-four week outage oncea year to do major overhauls,” he said. “Typically what drives our maintenance outages is the re f r a c t o ry life inside the kiln. Wecan get about a year out of the lining, but we want to extend that maintenance outage to a two-year cycle instead of an annualoutage. We feel we can get there by doing good predictive maintenance and consistent PMs, and getting to know the conditionof the equipment. We feel if we study the data gathered in Avantis to see any trends, we can further extend the PM interv a l s . ”
Figure 3 - Cement Kiln
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m a i n t e n a n c enewsAdvanced SKF condition monitoring systems at BMW, Opel and VolvoCars Engine Skˆvde.
Engine factories at leading automotive companies such asBMW (plant Steyr), Volvo Cars Engine Skˆvde and Opel(GM Powertrain plant Vienna) have invested heavily in themost advanced production and transfer lines for themanufacture of all major parts of the engine; crankcase,crankshaft, cylinder head and connecting rods.
Many manufacturing processes with high degrees ofautomation suffer from a certain percentage of unplannedstoppages due to some form of component wear or failure.In the case of automotive engine manufacture, onerecurring cause of unplanned stops was from bearingdamage in the machine tool spindles. Such damagedeveloped after many hours of operation.
The auto makers wanted to apply the best technology toenhance their production rates and at the same time givethem greater insight into the cause and solution of suchbreakdowns.
The basic components of the SKF on-line system are;
• Vibration sensor(s) to be fitted close to the bearings on the machine tool spindles to be monitored.
• Multilog Local Monitoring Units (LMU) to receive the vibration signals from the installed sensors, convertit into spectra (FFT) and deliver this data to locally placed standard PCs for further storage and analysis bySKF software.
• SKF's Prism4 or Machine Analyst software to store, analyse and display vibration spectra and otherperformance data.
• Off-line measurements can be made using SKF Microlog systems. Data from SKF Micrologs can bedownloaded into Prism4 or Machine Analyst.
One of the pilot installations.
The pilot installation at one of the plants consisted of 2 LMUs; one in a cylinder head production line and one incrankshaft housing production line. In total there were about 50 sensors installed on about 25 spindles. SKFPrism4 was the analysis software used. The goals of the pilot test were;
• to determine how early in advance bearing damage could be detected
• to use the system for predictive condition-based maintenance, instead of a time-based or run to failureschedule, so that focused maintenance could be planned in advance
• reduce the number of unplanned stoppages due to bearing failure or other - machine induced - failure(spindle unbalance, misalignment, resonance etc)
• develop an understanding of the system and to build overall system know-how
From applications in many industrial applications the SKF engineers had learned that as well as selecting thecorrect type of sensor, the location of the sensors is also critical to getting good data. And the location dependedon the spindle design, the machine construction, the spindle speed, the distance from sensor to LMU etc. Makingand fixing special thread adaptors to allow quick and easy connection of the sensors on some difficult-to-reachspindle locations achieved this.
The latest SKF on-line monitoring system uses a new improved condition monitoring unit; the “CMU" and a newonline version of SKF Machine Analyst software.
If such systems are implemented in new factories the automakers will have trend and spectra from their MachineTools and spindles starting from a really new condition. This allows follow up of the trend and spectra developmentduring manufacturing much better than starting in a production line, where the spindles have been in operationalready for years before.
A d d i t i o n a l l y, by use of off-line SKF-FFT-Data collectors, automakers will be able to check the spindle-repair- s e r v i c efrom external and internal workshops against the desired spectra, before the spindles are mounted again into themachine tools. This means that production will be continued with fully compliant spindles that will ensure thecontinuing high quality of components and engines.
Colin Roberts; SKF Group Te chnical Press, c o l i n . r o b e r t s @ s k f . c o m
Damaged Bearing
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New Fixturlaser XA, for shaft alignment.
Fixturlaser has during the last two years developedthe technical platform for the next generation ofalignment instruments. The first new productbased on this platform, fits into the pit stopphilosophy now launched: “Using a tire wrench inthe pit won’t get you a pit stop of 7 seconds”. Thesystem is developed to, as quickly as possible,check a machine. Thereafter, the operator canchoose to align the machine if necessary, i e“Measure more, align less”.
The Fixturlaser XA, which consists of a handheldcomputer unit and two sensor heads, is an entirelynew product, utilising the latest technology in bothhardware and software. The sensors use a laserformed into a line, making set-up and roughalignment easier. The receiver units are made ofCCD elements, a digital technology replacing thecommonly used PSDs.
The CCD technology is well established within camera and instrument manufacturing since many years and offersa wide range of advantages where the unrivalled linearity and the high quality are most significant. Fixturlaser isthe first company within the field of alignment systems that utilises this technology. The unit shows the operatorwhat to do and in what order by using animated graphic. Fixturlaser XA is also available in a wireless version.
w w w. f i x t u r l a s e r.se .
Vibration modules reduce unplanned downtime
New from Rockwell Automation, the Allen-Bradley XM-160 series of overall machinery vibration modules allowplant engineering and maintenance personnel tocontinuously--and cost-effectively-- monitor and protectcritical plant-floor assets. A recent addition to the Allen-Bradley XM series of intelligent, distributed I/O modules,the XM-160 series is a complete and networked solutionfor detecting system deterioration. The modules providemaintenance departments with the intelligence necessaryto correct issues before productivity is impacted.
Positioned as stand-alone monitors, or as part of a broadernetworked solution, the XM-160 series can be deployedon an open, standard industrial bus. Modules can beintegrated easily with DeviceNet and other XM protectionmodules, PLCs, distributed control systems andconditioning monitoring systems, and display devices.
S p e c i f i c a l l y, the Allen-Bradley XM-160, XM-161 and XM-162 modules support applications requiring real-timemonitoring of overall vibration levels. The modules are compact, easy to install and easy to maintain. Each measuresand reports the overall vibration level between selected high and low pass filters, as well as the bias (gap) voltageper channel.
For stand-alone applications, the XM-160 series includes comprehensive alarm logic per channel. It also supportsthe linking of up to two XM-441 expansion relay modules, providing a total capacity of up to eight relays.
The XM-161 overall vibration module offers the same capabilities as the standard XM-160, but also includes a 4-20mA output for each channel. The XM-162 incorporates a DC power supply suitable for powering standard -24Veddy current (proximity) probe drivers.
Ross Va u g h a n ,R o ck well Automation Australia Ltd, E-mail: rva u g h a n @ r a . r o ck we l l . c o m
Implementation Made Easier
OMCS International and Initiate Action have formed an alliance to make it easier for companies to implementtheir plans. By combining OMCS’Action Management Software with Initiate Action’s Inventory Cash Release™Process we will shortly release the ICR™ Action and Implementation Program.
OMCS and Initiate Action have signed a licensing agreement enabling OMCS to apply Initiate A c t i o n ’s copyrightedprocess in their software. The new software program focuses specifically on indirect inventory holdings including,
Fixturlaser XA
XM - 160 Vibration Module
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MRO inventory, engineering spares, customer service spares, after market parts, service parts and project inventory.This initial release will be the first in a number of planned software releases that will provide more tools to helpmake implementation easy!
OMCS is a world leading developer of software for maintenance optimization and the tracking of operationalincidents. With its global headquarters in Melbourne Australia, OMCS provides service and training through anetwork of licensees and partners in Australia, the USA, Canada, Mexico, the Middle East, Europe, South Africa,Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia.
w w w.pmoptimisation.com.au
Mainpac Named Microsoft Gold Partner
Mainpac Pty Ltd, developer of asset and maintenance management software, has been named a Gold Certifiedpartner of Microsoft in the category of independent software vendor (ISV).
It is one of 52 Gold Certified partners in Australia to have achieved an ISV software and solutions competency.
The newest release of Mainpac’s software, the Mainet suite of enterprise asset and maintenance managementapplications, is based on Microsoft’s leading edge .NET architecture and tools.
Mainpac CEO James Kirk said the achievement is evidence that Mainpac is regarded by Microsoft as being at thehighest level of technical certification.
Mr. Kirk said Mainpac is the first developer of an asset maintenance and asset management system worldwide toachieve Gold Partner status.
To be named a Gold Certified partner, Mainpac had to demonstrate its competencies as an independent softwarevendor, be reviewed by its clients and subject its software to extensive testing on Microsoft platforms.
w w w. m a i n p a c.com.au
MicroMain’s Capital Planning Software
MicroMain Corporation has announced the release of its capital planning and asset management softwareMicroMain CM.
MicroMain CM is designed to allow customers to self-assess the current condition of their buildings and assets.Customers contracting assessments through architectural or engineering firms can also have the firms useMicroMain CM to capture the data in a central database that will be used by the customer in developing capitalplans. MicroMain CM will also be available to architects and engineers providing assessment services.
The assessment begins the capital planning process by determining current conditions of building componentsand cataloging deferred maintenance needs. The software then enables users to easily determine maintenancepriorities and estimate costs for major repairs, renovations, replacements, and acquisitions. Organizations may alsoreceive capital requests - from staff, other departments, or other appropriate bodies - and establish priorities andcosts for these, as well. An industry-standard Facility Condition Index (FCI) is then automatically calculated, basedon deferred maintenance costs compared to current replacement value.
With this detailed information, users create capital plans, which can be used to justify funding requests.
w w w. m i c r o m a i n . c o m
Agility Supports Q-Park’s Commitment To Quality In Parking
SoftSols has announces that Q-Park UK Ltd, part of the innovative European car parking organisation the Q-ParkGroup, has purchased its web-based maintenance management system - A g i l i t y. Agility will support Q-Park indelivering its exceptional quality of service to its UK customers.
Q - Park UK operates 62 car parking sites across the country, providing spaces for 45,000 vehicles. With operationsspanning airports, rail terminals, city centres and NHS trusts, it is one of the UK's leading car parking organisations.
Using Agility, Q-Park site managers will be able to log and raise work orders, which will be out-sourced centrallyto a network of national contractors. A total support package will allow Q-Park to build an organisation-wide pictureof its facilities, monitoring equipment and analysing the performance of contractors. The reliability of Q-Pa r k ’sbarriers, pay stations, CCTV, lighting, lifts, air-conditioning, IT equipment and welfare facilities is paramount formaintaining its high standards, and in providing a consistent experience across all car parks.
Tony Hamilton, Facilities and Property Manager for Q-Park explains: “Since Agility is fully configurable, the systemwas designed to meet our specific needs. It is easy to use, does everything and has the ability to grow with ourbusiness. Agility will help us to cut administration, gain the best possible value from our contractors and increasethe reliability of our equipment. It all adds up to a better experience for our customers, and reflects what Q-Parkstands for - Quality in Parking.”
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Q-Park has grown rapidly in the UK during the past four years, building new sites and refurbishing existing ones.Maintenance had been carried out by individual site managers using external local contractors on an ad-hoc basis,with an internal group system listing assets, their likely maintenance requirements and approximate associatedcosts, provided the only company-wide view. The system was merely capturing data, rather than providing themeans to manage and control assets and facilities.
David Hipkin, Managing Director of SoftSols Group concludes: “Because Agility is web-based, it is a powerful toolin helping organisations like Q-Park to maximise control and visibility of their assets across a number of widely-dispersed sites. Agility will help Q-Park achieve a consistent standard, maximise its revenues and provide the levelof customer service it requires to continue its rapid growth."
w w w. g e t a g i l i t y.co.uk www. g e t a g i l i t y. c o m
Easy-Laser®/Damalini AB has developed a new product for use inintrinsically safe areas (EX-ATEX approved).
The new Easy-Laser® Extreme™ is an intrinsically safe ATEX-approved shaft alignment system for use in explosiveenvironments. This is one of the most extreme systems on the market, rugged in design and made of stainless steelfor use in extreme and harsh environments.
Easy-Laser® Extreme™ is shockproof, waterproof, dustproof and classified according to IP67.
The Easy-Laser® Extreme™ is designed for the most demanding type of applications and environments, andtherefore also comes with the best 4 year warranty conditions on the market.
Easy-Laser® Extreme™ is developed under same conditions and philosophy as all Easy-Laser® products whichstands for: Simplicity, Reliability, Flexibility and Ease of use.
SKF Reliability Systems is the exclusive Australian distributor for the Easy-Laser® range of shaft alignment systemsand carry an extensive range of products for all industries.
For further information, please see www. e a s y l a s e r e x t r e m e . c o m
Children's Hospital Selects Capital Asset Lifecycle Management Solutionto Manage Hospital Capital Assets
St. Croix Systems has announced that Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota is deploying the company’sCapital Asset Lifecycle Management applications to automate the management, maintenance, safety, and capitalplanning for all hospital capital assets - including clinical, facility and IT.
St. Croix Systems Capital Asset Lifecycle Management solutions manage the planning, acquisition, tracking,utilization, maintenance, safety and risk management, and retirement of all capital assets through one single,comprehensive source of integrated data. Its scalable foundation supports the hospital enterprise, connecting corefunctions and integrating with other hospital information systems, including ERP, ADT and hospital billing, tocapture real-time data critical to optimizing the use of assets and resources throughout the environment of care.
w w w. s t c r o i x s y s t e m s. c o m
DataSplice Releases Mobile Integration Suite 3.0: Software AccessesCMMS and Multiple Databases with a Single Application
DataSplice, LLC, has announced the release of their CMMS Mobile Integration Suite 3.0. The popular mobilehandheld plug-in for field maintenance software offers additional connectivity options as well as backwardscompatibility with CMMS software, such as MRO’s MAXIMO 4.0.1 through 6.0 (MXES)
The updated facilities maintenance software, based on Microsoft’s .NET technology, enables users to access multipledatabases using a single application, and can streamline data entry with its highly “customizeable” interface. Userscan work in real time, offline or a combination of both, depending on connectivity availability. The field servicepackage is popular amongst utilities, public works departments, manufacturing and other public and private sectorconcerns requiring a mobile CMMS interface to assist in inspections, workorder access and equipment managementdata access while in the field.
Kat Pullen, Head of Business Communications remarked “We are very excited by the release of 3.0. Now, fieldservice technicians have even more flexibility in data entry and access while on the road or at a job site.” Sheadded, “Administrators can quickly configure the input screens to combine tasks, and provide data entry optionsnot generally provided out of the box by desktop applications. Purchasing agents will love the concurrent licensingprogram, and management will appreciate the time savings by elimination redundant tasks and paperwork.”
w w w.datasplice.com
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MSC Acquires Sigma Energy Solutions
Maintenance Systems are proud to announce its acquisition by Sigma Energy Solutions which became effectiveon Monday 31 July. For MSc and our valued customers it will be business as usual. We will continue to providethe same high level of customer service and support that we pride ourselves in through the same personnel youare used to dealing with day in, day out.
Both Sigma and MSc wanted to enhance our collective product offerings to both our customer bases and saw thatwith MSc there was an excellent synergy both geographically and with product delivery and service. This will allowus to get closer, more often, to you our customers.
You will see that over time you will be exposed to many of the excellent services that Sigma has available whichwill further assist you in receiving better value from this union.
For more details on Sigma Energy Solutions and their services you can visit www. s i g e n e r gy. c o m / a u s
Meridium’s RCMO v1.1 is now SAP xApps Certified
Meridium Inc is pleased to announce that RCMO™ v1.1 is now an “SAP® xApps™ Certified - Powered by SAPNetWeaver®” solution.
"RCMO™ has generated tremendous interest in the SAP customer base,” according to Hans Joachim Lockermann,SAP Director of EAM Solution Management. “SAP customers who have seen the RCMO solution are impressedwith the ease of use and seamless integration with SAP Service and Asset Management™. We expect RCMO toproliferate the use of the RCM methodology, because now customers can really make it a living practice bycontinuously monitoring and fine-tuning their strategies leveraging SAP NetWeaver."
RCMO is a Reliability Centered Maintenance and Optimization solution designed to operate exclusively with theSAP® Service and Asset Management™ solution. The product was co-developed by SAP and Meridium, and wasreleased to Ramp Up customers in December 2005. Ramp-Up customers include TransAlta, Queensland A l u m i n aLtd, Iluka, and PT Excel.
RCMO:
• Offers a browser-based user interface integrated into SAP Enterprise Portal
• Provides the framework for users to define maintenance strategies based upon RCM and Failure Modes andEffects Analysis (FMEA) principles.
• Integrates the recommendations from an RCM analysis into SAP Maintenance Plans, Items andNotifications.
• Integrates with SAP Business Warehouse to drive automated re-evaluation of maintenance strategies toensure effectiveness is constantly measured for continuous improvement.
For more information on RCMO™, visit www.rcmo.com
The New BUILDSCANIR Network
Stockton Infrared Thermographic Services, Inc. announces the launch of BuildScanIR? Network Web Site to helpthe Home Inspection Industry.
Membership in the network is free and the site is geared toward home inspectors, building inspectors, homeowners,building managers, and service providers looking for information specifically related to building infrared. Membershave access to forums message boards, and articles, infrared training, infrared equipment, and expert advice. Inaddition to the information exchange, the site offers published papers that can be read on-line and access to expertsin IR thermography in the building IR community. Also, through special arrangements with infrared cameramanufacturers, the network offers a rental pool, camera exchange and targeted training classes, which are gearedtoward home inspectors with a building background who wish to upgrade their services to include infraredinspections.
Becoming part of the network makes infrared thermography an economically viable add-on service by providingthe home inspector with access to an infrared camera and the training necessary to get started, until he can buildhis business to the point that he can afford to buy one. “This is a fantastic opportunity for the NACHI homeinspector interested in infrared technology to get trained, rent an imager from a pool and later buy an imager atdiscount prices”, says Nick Gromicko, founder of NACHI (National Association of Certified Home Inspectors).
For more information on the network and benefits and to sign up visit www. b u i l d s c a n i r. c o m .
To learn more about infrared thermography or SITS, please visit www. s t o cktoninfrared.com
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ABB introduces FoundryPlus to guarantee higher availability and longerservice life for foundry robots.
ABB, the global power and automation technology group announces that it is ensuring the extended life of robotswithin harsh and hostile environments, by offering complete protection with its ‘FoundryPlus’ foundry protectionsystems.
Six-axis industrial robots have ramped up the efficiency of the foundry processes; such as die-casting, precisioncasting and sand casting.
Robots, however, are sensitive to the harsh environments in which they operate and few environments are tougheron equipment than the foundry. Incessant showers of sparks, harsh lubricants and metal ‘spits’ expose the equipmentto excessive wear, which will eventual result in increased operational downtime, repairs, and reduced service life.
In die-casting, for example, up to 100 litres of lubricant and coolant are used in every cycle - and a large volumeof that splashes over the robot manipulator. Mixed with tiny metal particles, these fluids become abrasive andcorrosive. To cope in these hostile environments, robots must be manufactured to be durable and robust.
Most robot suppliers offer foundry protection in some form, but most of them only provide partial protection,leaving out parts of the manipulator. The wrist is the part of a robot that is normally in closest contact with damagingcoolants and lubricants - and hence the component that is most subject to wear. Consequently, the wrist is generallywell protected - with practically every robot manufacturer providing wrist protection.
Unfortunately, few manufacturers offer protection of the upper and lower arm system and the base. Due to theirposition, these assemblies, which usually house vital and sensitive parts such as motors and electronics, are oftensubject to large amounts of fluid splash.
Hardly surprising then that motor failure is one of the most common robot breakdowns in foundry applications.The cost of materials and repairs alone often amount to 2000-2500 euros per breakdown. Add to this 12-24 hoursunplanned downtime, and some idea of the real costs of a robot motor failure can be appreciated.
Robots protected by FoundryPlus are completely sealed - from base to wrist. FoundryPlus offers protection thatmeets and exceeds IP67 according to IEC 529, which in practice means that the robot is totally sealed against theingress of any solid or fluid substances.
Only ABB’s FoundryPlus offers complete protection of the robot. FoundryPlus also offers protection of additionalaxes, such as track motions. FoundryPlus is a cost-effective insurance against premature failures and operationalproblems, which pays off rapidly - often within a year.
w w w. a b b.com
Industrial web gateway with alarm management and data logger
Halmstad, Sweden, September 29 -- IntelliCom, is proud to announce a new web gateway with built-in alarmmanager and data logger.
The new web Gateway is an industrial serial to Ethernet gateway. It gives remote access to serial devices overEthernet, Internet, LANs, Telephone modems, GSM and GPRS. The gateway contains built-in features for alarmhandling (SMS, E-mail, SNMP), data logging and web-based data access.
The NetBiter® webSCA DA Gateway has a built-in web server that is used for all configuration and data presentationthrough normal web browsers. Therefore, the user can easily and secure, access devices from anywhere at anytime.
Main features
- Built-in web server for data access using standard web browsers
- Alarm / Status management by email, SMS and SNMP
- Data logging into built-in memory with historical trend graphs
- No Windows tools or HTML editors are needed
- No licenses or royalties
- GSM, GPRS and Telephone modem support
- Built-in I/O’s
- OPC Server available
- Transparent Modbus RTU/TCP Gateway
- Multi language support
- webSCADA Design Kit available for designing custom web pages
More information here: http://www. n e t b i t e r.com
Kimberly-Clark To Use Meridium’s APM Software
Meridium Inc., has announced that Kimberly-Clark Corporation has signed an agreement to use a combinationof Meridium’s asset performance management (APM) software solutions to enhance the reliability of data gatheringand analyses of K-C’s company-wide assets.
According to the agreement, K-C will leverage Meridium’s APM solutions to help improve the performance of theequipment the company uses to manufacture its health and hygiene products and the efficiency of its many millsand distribution facilities.
“Implementing Meridium’s APM solution into our asset management process will help K-C establish morestandardized asset data structures and reliability practices, and improve asset problem resolutions, data integrityand the streamlining of data extraction from SAP® systems,” said Mark Bennett, Director of Kimberly-Clark’sTotal Asset Life-Cycle Management Center of Excellence.
K-C chose Meridium’s APM solutions following a seven-month pilot program last year. During the pilot, Meridiumprovided Kimberly-Clark an array of its APM software and services including:
* Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)
* Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
* Inspection management
* Calibration management
* Asset strategy management
* Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and scorecards
“We investigated other asset performance management tools and service providers, but a number of factors led usto choose Meridium, including their relationship with and knowledge of SAP systems, as well as their industryreputation in the areas of reliability and statistical analysis,” said Bennett.
w w w.meridium.com
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station selects Ivara reliability softwareto support nuclear industry reliability guidelines
Ivara Corporation has announced that the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), is using Ivara EXPreliability software to support their implementation of AP-913 - an equipment reliability process descriptionestablished by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO). With EXP, SONGS has improved its ability tomanage asset performance and align its reliability processes with the AP-913 processes.
INPO assists their member utilities in efficiently maintaining high levels of safe and reliable plant operation.I N P O ’s AP-913 process recommendations integrate and coordinate a broad range of equipment reliability activitiesto:
• Identify and evaluate critical station equipment
• Develop & implement long-term equipment health plans
• Monitor equipment performance and condition
• Make continuing improvements to the maintenance program
While already adhering to the principles set out by AP-913, SONGS required a solution to better align and automateits maintenance and reliability processes with the best practices set out by INPO. SONGS is using Ivara’s EXPsoftware to integrate their reliability processes and support their compliance with AP-913.
“From performance monitoring to continuous improvement, of the applications reviewed, EXP was the solutionthat most closely modeled INPO’s reliability processes,” says Darryl Barney, Monitoring and Asset Reliability Systemproduct manager, SONGS. “Our goal was to develop a professional and consistent approach to managing compliancewith the AP-913 guidelines. The Ivara solution has allowed us to develop a single, integrated and coordinatedapproach to reliability that automates AP-913 processes and improves our ability to manage asset performance.”
Ivara EXP reliability software collects equipment condition data from sources such as visual inspections andpredictive maintenance technologies. EXP then consolidates and analyzes all condition data, identifying degradingtrends and potential failures. The results are presented visually through flashing alarms and trending graphs,allowing initiation of the right maintenance work at the right time - a core principal of AP-913.
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74
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AMMJ - Maintenance BooksPrices are valid until 30th Dec 2006. All prices are AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS. Prices for Australia Include Postage and GST.Prices for the rest of the World add the following shipping charges: One book add Aus$40; Each additional book add Aus$20.
1. MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENTAUDITING - In Search Of Maintenance Management ExcellenceAnthony Kelly 2006 328pp $120
Auditing the management of the maintenance of both productive plant and infrastructures. Case studies demonstrate the application of this procedureto comprehensive audits of several weeks duration, to ëfingerprintí audits taking perhaps a day or so, and to benchmarking exercises. Contains aquestionnaire of over 1000 questions that is based on the ideas and concepts of business centered maintenance.
2. TOTAL PRODUCTIVE MAINTENANCE - Reduce or Eliminate Costly DowntimeSteven Borris 2006 448pp $210
With equipment downtime costing companies thousands of dollars per hour, many turn to Total Productive Maintenance as a solution. Short on theoryand long on practice, this book provides examples and case studies, designed to provide maintenance engineers and supervisors with a framework forstrategies, day-to-day management and training techniques that keep their equipment running at top efficiency.
3. PRODUCTION SPARE PARTS - Optimizing the MRO Inventory AssetsEugene C Moncrief 2006 307pp $110
Spare parts stocking theory and practice. Uses the Pareto Principal to achieve superior results with a minimum of investment of time. Includes thefollowing topics: the risks inherent in setting inventory stocking levels, setting the reorder point, setting the reorder quantity, determining excessinventory, how to avoid unnecessary purchases of spares, and how to set and monitor goals for inventory improvement.
4. IMPROVING EQUIPMENT PERFORMANCE - Reliability and Maintainability of Tooling & EquipmentMark A Morris 2006 288pp $110
This book contains essential information necessary to achieve improvements in reliability and maintainability to support cost-effective and competitiveprocesses. It addresses the needs of the manufacturing community, suppliers, and their component suppliers. People who buy machines, or buildmachines, or use machines, or make machinery components, will benefit greatly from the information in this book.
5. MANAGING FACTORY MAINTENANCE 2nd EdJoel Levitt 2005 320pp $110
This second edition tells the story of maintenance management in factory settings. . World Class Maintenance Management revisited and revised,evaluating current maintenance practices, quality improvement, maintenance processes, maintenance process aids, maintenance strategies,maintenance interfaces, and personal development and personnel development.
6. THE MAINTENANCE SCORECARD - Creating Strategic AdvantageDaryl Mather 2005 257pp $110
Provides the RCM Scorecard, which is unique to this book and has not been done previously to this level of detail. Includes information and hints oneach phase of the Maintenance Scorecard approach. Focuses at length on the creation of strategy for asset management and details the differencesbetween various industry types, sectors and markets.
7. RELIABILITY CENTRED MAINTENANCE - Implementation Made SimpleNeil Bloom 2005 448pp $175
This book introduces innovative approaches to simplify implementing and managing the RCM process and shows Plant, Mechanical, and MaintenanceEngineers how to: Identify systems functions, functional failures, and the consequences of those failures. Understand how to functionally analyze asystem. Identify Run-to-Failure components and their limitations. Understand hidden failure modes.
8. IMPROVING MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY THROUGH CULTURAL CHANGEStephen J Thomas 2005 356pp $115
This unique and innovative book explains how to improve maintenance and reliability performance at the plant level by changing the organizationísculture. This book demystifies the concept of organizational culture and links it with the eight elements of change: leadership, work process, structure,group learning, technology, communication, interrelationships, and rewards.
9. PRACTICAL MACHINERY VIBRATION ANALYSIS & PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCEScheffer & Girdhar 2004 272pp $135
Develop and apply a predictive maintenance regime for machinery based on the latest vibration analysis and fault rectification techniques.Build a working knowledge of the detection, location and diagnosis of faults in rotating and reciprocating machinery using vibration analysis.Gain an understanding of the latest techniques of predictive maintenance including oil and particle analysis, ultrasound & thermography.
10. LEAN MAINTENANCE - Reduce Costs, Improve Quality, & Increase Market ShareR Smith & B Hawkins 2004 304pp $125
This Handbook provides detailed, step-by-step, fully explained processes for each phase of Lean Maintenance implementation providing examples,checklists and methodologies of a quantity, detail and practicality that no previous publication has even approached. It is required reading, and arequired reference, for every plant and facility that is planning, or even thinking of adopting ëLeaní as their mode of operation.
11. MANAGING MAINTENANCE SHUTDOWNS & OUTAGESJoel Levitt 2004 208pp $110
Brings together the issues of maintenance planning, project management, logistics, contracting, and accounting for shutdowns. Includes hundreds ofshutdown ideas gleaned from experts worldwide. Contains procedures and strategies that will improve your current shutdown planning and execution.
12. EFFECTIVE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT - Risk and Reliability Strategies for Optimizing PerformanceV Narayan 2004 288pp $110
Providing readers with a clear rationale for implementing maintenance programs. This book examines the role of maintenance in minimizing the risksrelating to safety or environmental incidents, adverse publicity, and loss of profitability. Bridge the gap between designers/maintainers and reliabilityengineers, this guide is sure to help businesses utilize their assets effectively, safely, and profitably.
13. MACHINERY COMPONENT MAINTENANCE & REPAIR 3rd EdBloch & Geitner 2004 650pp $250
The names Bloch and Geitner are synonymous with machinery maintenance and reliability for process plants. They have saved companies millions ofdollars a year by extending the life of rotating machinery in their plants. Extending the life of existing machinery is the name of the game in the processindustries, not designing new machinery. This book was the first and is still the best in its field.
14. LEAN TPM - A blueprint For ChangeS McCarthy & Rich 2004 224pp $170
Lean TPM accelerates the benefits of continuous improvement activities by challenging wasteful working practices, releasing the potential of theworkforce, targeting effectiveness and making processes work as planned. Unites world-class manufacturing, Lean Thinking and Total ProductiveMaintenance [TPM]; Shows how to achieve zero breakdowns; Delivers benefit from continuous improvement activities quickly.
15. DEVELOPING PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR MANAGING MAINTENANCE 2nd EdTerry Wireman 2004 288pp $110
While the previous edition concentrated on the basic indicators for managing maintenance and how to link them to a companyís financials, the secondedition addresses further advancements in the management of maintenance. One of only a few comprehensive collections of performance indicators formanaging maintenance in print today.
16. RELIABILITY DATA HANDBOOKRobert Moss 2004 320pp $275
Focusing on the complete process of data collection, analysis and quality control, the subject of reliability data is covered in great depth, reflecting theauthorís considerable experience and expertise in this field. Analysis methods are not presented in a clinical way - they are put into context, consideringthe difficulties that can arise when performing assessments of actual systems.
17. ENGINEERING DISASTERS - Lessons To Be LearnedDon Lawson 2004 272pp $255
Thoroughly researched accounts of well known disasters and failures and draws out the lessons to be learned in each case. Engineers have to take intoaccount all the potential failures of people, including other engineers, as well as failures of equipment and materials. Design engineering is a structuredprocess using both art and science to create new or improved products and building on experience.
18. HANDBOOK OF MECHANICAL IN-SERVICE INSPECTIONS - Pressure Vessels & Mechanical PlantClifford Matthews 2003 690pp $430
This comprehensive volume gives detailed coverage of pressure equipment and other mechanical plant such as cranes and rotating equipment. There isa good deal of emphasis on the compliance [UK standards] aspects and the duty of care requirements placed on plant owners, operators, and inspectors.
19. COMPUTERIZED WORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR UTILITY & PLANT OPERATIONSRoop Lutchman 2003 207pp $180
The author demonstrates step-by-step the justification, selection, and implementation of CWM systems. The book gives managers the know-how to makethe right decisions in applying CWMS techniques. Case studies and troubleshooting guidelines are included for managers and maintenanceprofessionals in water, wastewater, electrical generation, solid waste, and other public facilities.
20. BENCHMARK BEST PRACTICES IN MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENTTerry Wireman 2003 228pp $110
This book will provide users with all the necessary tools to be successful in benchmarking maintenance management. It presents a logical step-by-stepmethodology that will enable a company to conduct a cost-effective benchmarking effort. It presents an overview of the benchmarking process, a selfanalysis, and a database of the results of more than 100 companies that have used the analysis.
21. RCM - GATEWAY TO WORLD CLASS MAINTENANCEA Smith & G Hinchcliffe 2003 337pp $125
Includes detailed instructions for implementing and sustaining an effective RCM program; Presents seven real-world successful case studies fromdifferent industries that have profited from RCM; Provides essential information on how RCM focuses your maintenance organization to become arecognized ëcenter for profití. It provides valuable insights into preventive maintenance practices and issues.
22. INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY REPAIR - Best Maintenance Practices Pocket GuideR Smith, R K Mobley 2003 537pp $100
The new standard reference book for industrial and mechanical trades. Industrial Machinery Repair provides a practical reference for practicing plantengineers, maintenance supervisors, physical plant supervisors and mechanical maintenance technicians. It focuses on the skills needed to select, installand maintain electro-mechanical equipment in a typical industrial plant or facility.
23. MAINTAINABILITY, AVAILABILITY & OPERATIONAL READINESS ENGINEERING HANDBOOK - Volume 1Dimitri B Kececioglu 2002 803pp $230
Preventive maintenance engineering can significantly contribute to productivity and cost-reduction in any industry dependent upon machinery andequipment. Once equipment has been purchased, anywhere from four to forty times its purchase price may be spent on maintenance and repairs. Theability to monitor, quantify, and predict maintenance needs ensures the highest equipment availability at the lowest cost.
24. AN INTRODUCTION TO PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE 2nd EdKeith Mobley 2002 337pp $190
This second edition of An Introduction to Predictive Maintenance helps plant, process, maintenance and reliability managers and engineers to developand implement a comprehensive maintenance management program, providing proven strategies for regularly monitoring critical process equipment andsystems, predicting machine failures, and scheduling maintenance accordingly.
25. MAINTENANCE PLANNING, SCHEDULING & COORDINATIONDan Nyman and Joel Levitt 2001 228pp $130
Planning, parts acquisition, work measurement, coordination, and scheduling. It also addresses maintenance management, performance, and control;and it clarifies the scope, responsibilities, and contributions of the Planner/Scheduler function and the support of other functions to Job Preparation,Execution, and Completion. This book tells the whole story of maintenance planning from beginning to end.
26. COMPUTER-MANAGED MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS 2nd EdMobley and Cato 2001 200pp $150
A comprehensive, practical guide that covers selection, justification, and implementation of an effective CMMS in any facility. In this new edition, theauthors have added a chapter specifically on the latest technology, Application Service Providers [ASPs], that has revolutionized the way computer-managed maintenance systems are used and the benefits they can offer to a business.
27. RELIABILITY, MAINTAINABILITY AND RISK 7th EdDavid Smith 2001 336pp $145
Reliability, Maintainability and Risk has been updated to ensure that it remains the leading reliability textbook - cementing the bookís reputation forstaying one step ahead of the competition. Includes material on the accuracy of reliability prediction and common cause failure .This book deals with all aspects of reliability, maintainability and safety-related failures in a simple and straightforward style.
28. ASSET MANAGEMENTAND MAINTENANCE - THE CDNicholas A Hastings 2000 820 slides $190
Asset Management and Asset Management Overview; Life Cycle Costing; Maintenance Organisation & Control; Spares & Consumables Management;Failure Mode and Effects Analysis; Risk Analysis and Risk Management; Reliability Data Analysis; Age Based Replacement Policy Analysis; Availabilityand Maintainability; Measuring Maintenance Effectiveness; Reliability of Systems; etc.
29. ENGINEERING MAINTAINABILITY - How To Design For Reliability & Easy MaintenanceB S Dhillon 1999 254pp $215
Maintainability Management; Maintainability Measures, Functions, and Models; Maintainability Tools; Specific Maintainability Design Considerations;Human Factors Considerations; Safety Considerations; Cost Considerations; Reliability-Centred Maintenance; Maintainability Testing, Demonstration, andData; Maintenance Models.
30. TUBULAR HEAT EXCHANGER INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE AND REPAIRAndreone and Yokell 1998 523pp $195
This handbook provides a bounty of inspection checklists and cost-containment tips that minimize the need for new equipment. It addresses inspection,maintenance and repair of shell-and-tube heat exchangers ranging from simple pipe-size shop-fabricated exchangers to large field-erected ones. Specialattention is given to finding locations and causes of failures and techniques of plugging, ferruling and sleeving.
31. TURNAROUND MANAGEMENTTom Lenahan 1999 183pp $180
This text looks at those unique aspects of turnaround management. Initiating the turnaround; validating the work scope; pre-shutdown work; contractorpackages; planning the turn a round; the turn a round organization; site logistics; the cost profile; the safety plan; the quality plan; the communicationspackage; executing the turnaround; terminating the turnaround.
32. MAINTENANCE PLANNING & SCHEDULING MANUALRichard D Palmer 1999 400pp $210
This text enables maintenance managers and maintenance planners to dramatically improve the productivity of their maintenance plan; Identifies the sixbasic principles of planning and the six associated principles of scheduling; Provides how-to information on implementing a planning function, using workorders, and performing in-house work sampling. An excellent hands-on text.
33. HANDBOOK OF MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENTJoel Levitt 1997 476pp $180
This unusually comprehensive book is designed as a complete survey of the field for students or maintenance professionals, as an introduction tomaintenance for non maintenance people, as a review of the most advanced thinking in maintenance management, as a manual for cost reduction, aprimer for the stockroom, and as an element of a training regime for new supervisors, managers and planners.
34. RELIABILITY CENTRED MAINTENANCE 2nd EdJohn Moubray 1997 448pp $165
Reliability-centred maintenance is a process used to determine, systematically and scientifically, what must be done to ensure that physical assetscontinue to do what their users want them to do and is widely recognized by maintenance professionals as the most cost-effective way to develop world-class maintenance strategies. The second edition has been comprehensively revised to incorporate more than 100 pages of new material on conditionmonitoring, the analysis of functions and failures, human error, the management of risk.
Condition Monitoring Standards Volume I, II & IIIThe CMS documents (color pictures) explain the condition monitoring actions as well as why and how each of these tasks should be executed. EachCMS contains brief inspection points, detailed instructions and suggested intervals.
35. CONDITION MONITORING STANDARDS VOLUME 1Torbjorn Idhammar 2001 124pp [Colour] $330
CMS: Motor AC; Coupling Tire; Coupling Sure flex; Coupling Grid; Coupling Thomas; Coupling Wrap flex/Atra flex; Coupling Gear; Coupling Jar;Coupling Magnetic; Coupling Torus; Pump Vacuum Nash; Pump - Vertical - Multistage; Tank ; Conveyor Screw; Valve solenoid; Air Breather - Des Case;Flinger; Gear Reducer; Conveyor Belt; Conveyor Drag; Fan Axial; Agitator/Mixer; CompressorRotary Screw - Quincy; Dryer System - Air desiccant; Steam Joint - Valmet
36. CONDITION MONITORING STANDARDS VOLUME IITorbjorn Idhammar 2001 130pp [Colour] $330
CMS: Motion Detector; Backstop; Pump, Centrifugal; Heat Exchanger; Bearing, Pillow Block; Chain Drive; Hydraulic Unit; Feeder; Mech. Seal;Packing; Check Valves; Screen Reciprocating; V Belt Drive; Screen - Vibrating; Screen - Disc; Screen - Centrifugal; Lubrication Reservoir; Fan Radial;Pump Vane; Pump Gear; Pump Piston; Steam Trap Mechanical; Steam Trap Thermostatic; Steam TrapThermodynamic; Valve with Actuator.
37. CONDITION MONITORING STANDARDS VOLUME IIITorbjorn Idhammar 2003 115pp [Colour] $330
CMS: Universal Joint; Rope Sheaves; Regulator - Air; Pump - Progressive Cavity; Blower - Rotary Lobe; Belt - Cog; Brake Disc; Bolts and Nuts;Cylinder - Air; Pump - Diaphragm; Motor DC; Valve; Clutch Centrifugal; Expansion Joint; Coupling - Fluid; Cylinder Hydraulic; Bearing - Oil Cooled;Hydraulic Motors; Pump - Multistage; Governor; Pneumatic Filter; Piping and Pipe Hangers; Steam Turbine [Small].
AMMJ Maintenance Books - ORDER FORMPrices are valid until 30th Jan 2007. All prices are AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS. Prices for Australia Include Postage and GST.Prices for the rest of the World add the following shipping charges: One book add Aus$40; Each additional book add Aus$20Engineering Information Transfer P/L, 7 Drake Street, Mornington, Vic 3931 Australia Ph: 03 5975 0083 Fax: 03 5975 5735Email: [email protected] Web: www.maintenancejournal.com Please indicate quantity required.
Item Title QTY Aus$
1. MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENTAUDITING - In Search Of Maintenance Management Excellence $120
2. TOTAL PRODUCTIVE MAINTENANCE - Reduce or Eliminate Costly Downtime $210
3. PRODUCTION SPARE PARTS - Optimizing the MRO Inventory Assets $110
4. IMPROVING EQUIPMENT PERFORMANCE - Reliability and Maintainability of Tooling & Equipment $110
5. MANAGING FACTORY MAINTENANCE 2nd Ed $110
6. THE MAINTENANCE SCORECARD - Creating Strategic Advantage $110
7. RELIABILITY CENTRED MAINTENANCE - Implementation Made Simple $175
8. IMPROVING MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY THROUGH CULTURAL CHANGE $115
9. PRACTICAL MACHINERY VIBRATION ANALYSIS & PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE $135
10. LEAN MAINTENANCE - Reduce Costs, Improve Quality, & Increase Market Share $125
11. MANAGING MAINTENANCE SHUTDOWNS & OUTAGES $110
12. EFFECTIVE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT - Risk and Reliability Strategies $110
13. MACHINERY COMPONENT MAINTENANCE & REPAIR 3rd Ed $250
14. LEAN TPM - A blueprint For Change $170
15. DEVELOPING PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR MANAGING MAINTENANCE 2nd Ed $110
16. RELIABILITY DATA HANDBOOK $275
17. ENGINEERING DISASTERS - Lessons To Be Learned $255
18. HANDBOOK OF MECHANICAL IN-SERVICE INSPECTIONS - Mechanical Plant $430
19. COMPUTERIZED WORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR UTILITY & PLANT OPERATIONS $180
20. BENCHMARK BEST PRACTICES IN MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT $110
21. RCM - GATEWAY TO WORLD CLASS MAINTENANCE $125
22. INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY REPAIR - Best Maintenance Practices Pocket Guide $100
23. MAINTAINABILITY, AVAILABILITY & OPERATIONAL READINESS ENGINEERING HANDBOOK $230
24. AN INTRODUCTION TO PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE 2nd Ed $190
25. MAINTENANCE PLANNING, SCHEDULING & COORDINATION $130
26. COMPUTER-MANAGED MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS 2nd Ed $150
27. RELIABILITY, MAINTAINABILITY AND RISK 7th Ed $145
28. ASSET MANAGEMENTAND MAINTENANCE - THE CD $190
29. ENGINEERING MAINTAINABILITY - How To Design For Reliability & Easy Maintenance $215
30. TUBULAR HEAT EXCHANGER INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR $195
31. TURNAROUND MANAGEMENT $180
32. MAINTENANCE PLANNING & SCHEDULING MANUAL $210
33. HANDBOOK OF MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT $180
34. RELIABILITY CENTRED MAINTENANCE 2nd Ed $165
35. CONDITION MONITORING STANDARDS VOLUME 1 $330
36. CONDITION MONITORING STANDARDS VOLUME II $330
37. CONDITION MONITORING STANDARDS VOLUME III $330
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