Top Ten Best Practices for your CMMS

Top Ten Best Practices for your CMMS
Join MRG's Dennis Belanger, Vice President, in an informative webinar from emaint that will discover the fundamental improvements that you can make to your maintenance and reliability practices.

What: Top 10 Best Maintenance Practices For Your CMMS
Date: November, 16, 2011
Time: 2:00 - 3:00 PM EDT

This month Dennis Belanger, CMRP and Vice President of MRG, a Maintenance and Reliability Consulting and Engineering firm, will be sharing the "Top 10 Best Maintenance Practices for Your CMMS" which are based on MRG's 25 years experience working with clients.

The Top 10 list will outline answers to these questions and touch on the following topics:

Foundational Requirements
Getting the Basics Right
How to Get Everyone On Board
Management Discipline
Sustainable Improvement

Through MRG's history, they have helped clients drive financial and performance improvement to the bottom line. These practices have been battle tested to generate sustainable, valuable results and to provide the core foundation for successful, sustainable use of a CMMS.

Click here to register.

Don't Miss Out on the 2011 Asset Management & Reliability Summit!

Spaces are filling up quick, so register today to reserve your spot with MRG and Flowserve at the 2011 Asset Management & Reliability Summit on November 15th and 16th in The Greater Houston Area.

Registrations are first come, first serve and will close November 7th, 2011.

Seasoned industry professionals will discuss common challenges faced today, relate success stories, and demonstrate solution options that you can apply immediately. Learn how to leverage the expertise of key suppliers in making the road to reliability success shorter and less risky. This open and interactive forum will also provide you with a valuable networking opportunity.

Join us and take your organization to the next level!!

Click here to register!

Join MRG and Flowserve in the Greater Houston Area!

2011 Asset Management and Reliability Summit

Join MRG and Flowserve in the Greater Houston Area for one and a half days of industry insight into reliability and maintenance!

"The EAM Summit educated our company on the high potential to improve our reliability efforts. It pointed out clearly to us where we had the opportunity to improve and the value of that opportunity. The concept of evaluating maintenance cost as a percentage of replacement asset value and correlating that measure to various best practices was especially eye-opening." Steve Rowland, COO - Rain CII Carbon LLC

November 15th-16th 2011
South Shore Harbour Resort
League City, TX 77573
(800) 442-5005

Register Today!

MRG and Flowserve Announce - Asset Management and Reliability Summit November 15-16, 2011

MRG and Flowserve Announce - Asset Management and Reliability Summit November 15-16, 2011

MRG and Flowserve invite you to join a select group of your peers for a complimentary* one and a half day Asset Management and Reliability Summit, November 15th & 16th 2011 in the Greater Houston Area.

DATE:
November 15th and 16th 2011

LOCATION: Greater Houston Area
South Shore Harbour Resort
League City, TX 77573
(800) 442-5005

In this powerful workshop, discover the impact reliability-focused asset management can have on business performance. Best-in-class companies from every industry have successfully introduced a culture of reliability while improving asset performance. See how this improves margins, OSHA compliance and availability, while failures of critical assets decrease.

Seasoned industry professionals will discuss common challenges faced today, relate success stories, and demonstrate solution options that you can apply immediately. Learn how to leverage the expertise of key suppliers in making the road to reliability success shorter and less risky. This open and interactive forum will also provide you with a valuable networking opportunity.

Join us and take your organization to the next level!!

For more information or to register, contact:

MRG - Donna Odegard:
(281) 705-6670 or odegardd@mrgsolutions.com

Flowserve - Angela Ooley
(713) 374-7122 or Aooley@flowserve.com

For the schedule at a glance and the registration form, click here.

Join MRG at the SMRP Conference 2011

Join MRG for a workshop at the SMRP Annual Conference in Greensboro, NC from October 17-20!

We are offering:

The Reliability Game® (Workshop #14)
Thursday, October 20th
8:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Maintenance Management 101/201 (Workshop #9)
Thursday, October 20th
8:00 AM to 5:00 PM!

Register today! http://www.smrp.org/conference/2011/registration.asp

The PM Compliance Trap

The PM Compliance Trap

Metrics drive behavior. Many organizations start with PM compliance in the early stages of their reliability program. This is a good place to start when your organization is 100% reactive and pushes behavior that prioritizes Scheduled preventive maintenance over breakdown maintenance. However, once this metric has been accepted within the organization new behaviors can appear which are as detrimental to the organization as breakdown maintenance. Your organization must start to consider additional metrics in order to prevent these new behaviors from setting in.

PM compliance tracks the completion of PM tasks to their scheduled date, but what about work quality, effective use of resources, and the effectiveness of the PM task itself. To ensure a complete set of measures these other aspects must be taken into account. Multiple metrics must be used to create a balance so that the right behaviors are driven into your organization. For example, the quality of a job plan, how well it is scheduled, and how well the crafts time is used are measures of the quality of your work performance.

The other aspect of this series of metrics is the measurement of the effectiveness of you PM tasks. A craftsman will lose faith in the process and leadership if he performs the same task over and over with no new findings. Craftsman know when a task should be changed or deleted from the system. Using metrics to measure the effectiveness of PM's will give the maintenance organization a way to validate their existing PM's and identify areas of waste. It will also give the crafts an opportunity to provide feedback in their role on the front lines.

A Reliability Tip

A Reliability Tip

An essential component of any Reliability Program is to define your terminology at EVERY step of the journey.

With MEL classes and Function descriptions, ensure that everyone saying or hearing ‘Switch’ have the same understanding of the term. In Maintenance and Work Order Systems, I have seen a ‘Tighten Connection’ task, generated from an Infrared scan, entered as Work Type: PdM, Corrective, Repair, Emergency, PM, Reactive, Routine, Condition Based, and even Optional. Define your terms! The definitions must be understood by Planning, Scheduling, Electrical, Mechanical, Instrumentation and Operations. They must be supplied to or developed with any contract work management teams.

Even ‘common sense’ terms like ‘Done’ and ‘Complete’ MUST be defined for each step of the process. This is especially true when Milestones or KPIs are based on job or task status. Develop a list of the criteria that must be met before the status is changed. Correctly explaining what “Done” means, for every step and phase, can avoid misunderstandings and overrun expenses, as well as providing more efficient tools for analyzing and reporting on performance and progress.

What Information Should I Capture When Completing a Work Order?

What Information Should I Capture When Completing a Work Order?

Determining what information to capture when completing a work order is a question that all maintenance organizations struggle with. This question can be especially daunting to organizations transitioning from a paper based work order management system to a CMMS. In order to effectively answer this question one must start with the end in mind. In other words, what information will be useful to track over time? Below are some key pieces of data that should be captured when completing a work order and the value of tracking that data.

Completion Date & Time: This information allows the user to track when specific work was done. It allows for the development of historical trending which can be used setup preventive or predictive maintenance plans and calculate meantime between repairs or failures. This information should be captured for all resources working on the work order.

Labor Resources: This should include all resources that worked on the work order. This will make it possible to determine the true labor cost of the work order and the impact on resource for future planning.

Completion Comments: Completion comments should state in sufficient detail the work that was performed to complete the work order. Just putting "Complete" should be considered insufficient. The completion comments may capture discrepancies in the work suggested by the work order versus the work actually performed. It may indicate follow up work that needs to be done requiring the creation of additional work orders.

Materials Used: This information determines the true materials cost of the work order. It allows improved materials planning future work. It also provides the ability to trend material usage for specific assets over time.

Special Tools: Special tools such as man lifts, power tools, and specialty tools should be captured when completing the work order. This will allow for improved work scheduling by ensuring that work is scheduled when the necessary tools are available. By assigning cost related to the use of these tools, a better understanding of their impact on the overall work order costs can be determined.

Capturing the information above when completing a work order will allow the maintenance organization to get a better understanding of costs associated with specific work orders and specific assets. It can help an organization determine the appropriate staffing levels and skills needed to maintain the equipment and insight into what predictive and preventive maintenance programs should be put in place to improve equipment reliability. Capturing, trending, and reviewing these data elements will help a maintenance organization move from a reactive culture to a proactive culture.

Promote Proactive Reliability

Promote Proactive Reliability

A Reliability Tip
Detecting Failure Modes Through Instrumentation:

Most physical assets these days contain a large amount of instruments for monitoring and managing the operation of that asset. Maintenance is not often aware of the potential in these configurations to identify failure modes using the assets instruments. One reason is that maintenance often looks for a single point of data to isolate the failure mode, and most times targeting a failure mode in this way would require several instruments. I call this "Triangulation". An example of this I have witnessed recently was in a plate heat exchanger. In this example 2-4 instrument outputs were required to target a specific failure mode.

In the example of the plate heat exchanger, the failure mode they targeted was fouling or loading of the exchanger internally. Temperature and flow instruments they created a thermal efficiency calculation in their DCS which displayed the exchangers performance in real time. When the exchanger loaded up, or otherwise declined in its performance operations requested the exchanger be disassembled inspected and cleaned. This detection method also applies for corrosion which reduces the thermal efficiency of the plates as well. By taking this approach they eliminated a minimum of 30 hours of work and downtime each year for each of their 12 heat exchangers, and made this part of their maintenance program entirely condition based.

MRG is published in Uptime Magazine!

Be sure to check out Management Resources Group, Inc. in the April/May 2011 issue of Uptime Magazine!

Business Case for Data Integrity
Written by Robert DiStefano (Chairman and CEO) and Stephen Thomas

[click here]

MRG, Inc. is published in BIC Magazine!

Be sure to check out Management Resources Group, Inc. in the May 2011 issue of BIC Magazine!

Control New Assets With Maintenance and Reliability Readiness
Written by Michael Desabris (VP)

[click here, Page 134]

Celebrate Little Wins

Celebrate Little Wins

While the ultimate goal of a Maintenance & Reliability is to achieve large changes in asset performance and the organizational culture, this cannot be achieved all at once. This goal can only be achieved step by step over time through consistent and persistent effort. Often an organization will have large durations of time where little or nothing has been said about the organizations progress. This can have the effect of making it look like nobody cares about the M&R effort anymore, "flavor of the month" syndrome. One way to combat this is to identify every small victory which moves the organization toward its ultimate goal. Even the smallest win can build support within the organization and create new stories to tell. These small celebrations will maintain the cultural momentum necessary to achieve the proactive maintenance program your organization has set as it's "Big Win" goal.

Demonstrate PdM Program Value

Demonstrate PdM Program Value

Prior to implementing any new PdM technology, be sure to perform some CMMS data mining activities first. Attempt to capture historical statistics on the types of failures you're trying to prevent with the particular technology you're implementing.

For example, if you're starting a rotating equipment vibration program, review CMMS WO history/failure codes for bearing-related failures and document these (numbers of failures & associated costs) in some form of chart/graph. This historical failure information will serve as your program baseline.

Keep this documentation up to date and, as the PdM program matures, you should see a steady decline in the number of bearing-related failures caused by vibration. Communicate this positive information throughout the entire facility in order to demonstrate the value of your PdM activities.

Take Control of your New Assets with a Maintenance and Reliability Readiness Plan

Have an Advanced Sneak Peek at MRG's May Article in BIC Magazine!

Take Control of your New Assets with a Maintenance and Reliability Readiness Plan

Having spent more than 25 years in the engineering, maintenance and construction industry, I have found that applying well thought out maintenance and reliability plans early in the design and construction phase is "cheap insurance" for quickly attaining availability and throughput targets while lowering the costs of maintenance for the remainder of the asset lifecycle. In fact, investing just 0.1% to 1% of the project costs on maintenance and reliability readiness yields:

• Faster, safer more reliable start ups


• Sustainable availability and throughput targets


• 10-20% reduction in overall maintenance costs


• 20% reduction in the costs of spares


• Engaged workforce

See the full article in the May Issue of BIC Magazine!

Reliability Tip

Reliability Tip

In Conjunction to Your Maintenance Activities, Populate your CMMS with Current and Accurate Foundational Asset Data

All too often, basic asset information such as manufacturer, model, serial number and additional characteristics are not included in a plant's CMMS. In addition, spare parts lists for these assets are typically non-existent or are sparsely populated. Upon completion of maintenance activities, take a few minutes to capture asset nameplate information as well as any spare parts used during the repair and add the information to the hardcopy work order.

Remote Risk?

Remote Risk?

When the impact is large, it only takes one.
Protect yourself with asset reliability solutions.

We take risks in virtually everything that we do - even in everyday events like crossing the street. In business, risks are events that could prevent achievement of an objective. Asset intensive companies take risks that the physical assets they invest in may not provide the returns they planned. In some industries, companies also take the risk that their physical assets may expose them to costs that are far greater than the value of their investment. Generally, markets recognize these risks and demand high returns for risky investments. Nevertheless, the past few years have shown us that companies that do not actively manage their risks imperil themselves, their industries and their communities.

The science of managing risk has advanced considerably in the last decade, driven by the occurrence of events that were thought to be only remotely possible but that had enormous impact. This excerpt from "Enterprise Risk Management - Integrated Framework" (COSO, 2004) provides a description of the role of risk management:

All entities face uncertainty and the challenge for management is to determine how much uncertainty to accept as it strives to grow stakeholder value. Uncertainty presents both risk and opportunity, with the potential to erode or enhance value. Enterprise risk management enables management to effectively deal with uncertainty and associated risk and opportunity, enhancing the capacity to build value.

Operational Risk Management is the subset of Enterprise Risk Management that covers the uncertainty and risk associated with running physical assets.

The COSO framework meshes very well with reliability best practices but starts at a more strategic level, focusing on securing the organization's objectives rather than preserving system function. Applying the framework to an organization progresses through a series of analytical steps that should seem familiar to a reliability centered maintenance (RCM) practitioner:

1) Identify events that could affect an organization's ability to achieve its objectives, either positively or negatively.
2) Characterize the risk associated with these events by evaluating their potential severity of impact and their
likelihood of occurrence.
3) Define how the organization will respond to an occurrence.
4) Specify the controls that will be used to mitigate the impact of an event.
5) Establish how event-related information will be disseminated and how communications will be managed.
6) Monitor changes to the likelihood or potential impact of an event.

Because historical data is scarce on many events, evaluations are generally qualitative, resulting in relative values for severity of impact and likelihood of occurrence. A robust operational risk assessment evaluates the impact of events from the perspective of safety, environment, production, quality and maintenance cost. Once the organization's risk profile is understood, RCM and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis techniques are very effective at identifying needed controls.

Most companies have the system capabilities needed to properly monitor and manage operational risks but do not effectively use these capabilities for this purpose. A number of condition monitoring systems are on the market today and are widely used within asset intensive businesses. Additionally, EAM systems like IBM's Maximo and or SAP's PM module are designed specifically to manage and track the work that is vital to regulatory compliance. Financial benefits may be significant. Companies that actively manage operational risk should enjoy significantly lower cost of capital from increasingly savvy investors.

Maintenance Tip: Tracking the Origin of Corrective Maintenance Work

Maintenance Tip: Tracking the Origin of Corrective Maintenance Work

Track the origin of your corrective maintenance work. Proactive organizations with good control of equipment condition find that the majority of their corrective work - work that is needed to remedy a substandard condition - comes from the results of structured preventive and predictive maintenance activities. These are usually reported by the Maintenance organization. Reactive organizations typically wait until there is a noticeable problem or loss of function until a work order is generated. This work is typically reported by Operations.

The best way to get this information is to create separate work types in your CMMS for corrective work from PM and PdM and classify the work accordingly. A simple query of hours by work type will show the source. If you don't have separate codes for this work, however, you can run a query of corrective work orders by requestor. If the requestors of most of the work are from Operations, you know you have a problem!

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 6

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 6

Recognition can equal rewards and more!

Effort = Recognition

A great deal of time and effort is spent in becoming an expert at thermography. Now take those efforts and make them “visible”, not just with great thermal images. Take the trend data from the inspections and make it available for everyone in the organization to see. Data such as the type seen in the graph below can provide valuable evidence to support the efforts and further illustrate program effectiveness as it is showing positive business results. There are a number of ways to present the value-add benefits which are not limited to this one graph. The power of this graph, is that it shows, not only how many problems were found at each plant, but also how the continued improvement in the thermography program contributed to fewer problems found each subsequent year the thermography program continued.



Working From the TOP, Where You Want to Be

When approaching the corporate decision-makers in the organization, they view what a thermographer does and what is accomplished from a much different view point. Their view of these efforts is rooted from an economic standpoint. Again, not typically what might be expected. As a thermographer, you are accustomed to dealing with the replacement value or economic impact of the problem, but how does that contribute to the corporate “bottom line”? The corporate level is more interested in Return on Asset (ROA), Return on Investment (ROI), maximum equipment availability, regulatory compliance, minimum maintenance spend, reduced maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) inventory, risk mitigation, alignment to corporate goals and objectives and alignment to maintenance objectives with ALL key plant functions. Learning to speak in financial benefits language will help allow corporate leaders to buy into thermography and apply that technology to drive Reliability throughout the organization.

Typically, corporate managers will be interested in the potential ROI of a program. The benchmarking data points below provide some interesting opportunities for analyzing this ROI. For instance, the illustrations below highlight maintenance savings for the paper industry. While the paper industry as a whole, credits thermography with only an 8% credit for ROI, imagine the improved results if management was aware of the entire value of a thermography program throughout the organization. It is the technicians’ job to make them aware and “sell it”. What the CEO and managers are truly interested in,

of course, is what are the potential savings.



Here is one more example to look at from the steel industry. Note the increase in technology credit for thermography.



Top performers maintain asset Reliability based on statistical criticality, usage and network analysis. Benchmarking shows the large difference between top quartile performers and the rest of competitive organizations. For example, top quartile steel manufactures will utilize thermography on approximately 80% of their mechanical equipment and 100% of their electrical equipment; fourth quartile performers utilize thermography on 0% mechanical equipment and 55% (or less) electrical equipment. This is typical across the market vertical. Some quick calculations can easily provide a business case for taking steps to move from one level to another. This benchmarking also proves how important a coordinated approach to improving enterprise asset Reliability is to achieving the results top performers have achieved. Maintaining equilibrium in all asset management practices is critical to success.

The illustration below is presented to show why managers of the organization look at Reliability and PdM programs the way they do, including thermography, from a financial viewpoint. This is an example of how even a small change in the reliable operation of a facility can have a dramatic impact on the overall financial performance of the organization. It is from a financial standpoint that corporate decision-makers review and evaluate every aspect of the thermography and PdM programs.



In conclusion, the visibility of a thermography program effort is paramount to each and every effort in the Reliability initiative. However, it is not just the thermal images from an infrared camera that tell the entire story. It is the visibility of the thermography program throughout the entire process and how it is ultimately sold throughout the organization and presented to the corporate decision-makers that will drive the overall success of Reliability initiatives. As thermographers, it is important not to get caught up in the quality and message of the thermal image because the thermal image is only part of the visibility of the thermography program.

Building standardized foundational data, starting with a master equipment list (MEL) and incorporating this MEL into an enterprise asset management configuration for use within the Planning and Scheduling efforts is the linkage to successful Reliability initiatives. Once these systems and tools are implemented, they bring together all of the thermal images, report data and inspection information to build and create a complete Reliability program. Finally increased awareness, program value, and organizational buy-in is encouraged and achievable by communicating across all levels of the organization. This includes communicating to management and understanding how corporate managers equate efforts in financial language. Thermography can assist in driving successful Reliability programs from the plant floor to the corporate suite when properly leveraged.

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 5

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 5

Planning and Scheduling

Within the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) component of the EAM is where the Planning and Scheduling for the organization begins. Effective Planning and Scheduling is another contributor to the successful thermography program. An organized planning & scheduling process makes a significant difference for organizations looking to improve operating efficiency, thus impacting the bottom line through improved process efficiencies. Planning and Scheduling is one of the foundational bricks that is held in place by the PdM cornerstone and thermography contributes significantly to the program’s success through the interpretation of the temperature related data contained within the thermal image.



Data Is Not Static and Its Integrity Affects Business Performance

Technicians must ensure that all data and reports are in a standardized process function in order to facilitate an EAM focused approach to Reliability vs. a reactive maintenance management approach.

“Many companies simply think business intelligence tools will solve all their problems without thinking about the quality of the data the tools will draw upon.”

The average middle manager spends about 2hrs a day looking for data they need, according to a study by Accenture. “Managers have too much information, do too little sharing,” says Study.

Many corporations will make large initial investments in starting a PdM program, including: Infrared cameras, vibration data collection machines, other PdM technology tools, training, and more. What happens after the jump start of these programs is, unfortunately, significantly less impressive than their initial intent. Without having quality foundational data as the bedrock to grow the program, the initial enthusiasm of any PdM or thermography program will soon falter.

Reliability Programs should be “Owned” by All

It is as important to have a channel of communication within the maintenance and operations groups as it is across all other departments in an organization. Clarity is certainly a component as well as illustrating the benefits of new technologies by applying them to specific tasks. By showing everyone the performance gains and “what’s in it for me” the grumbling of those in doubt of the value demonstrated by new technology will remain at a minimum. Once a technician crosses this bridge, they will find them self in the enviable position of being looked at as a true helping hand. Technical experts need to understand that the new technologies, information and methods have a tendency to intimidate long time employees of an organization. Many plant personnel may consider the newly introduced technology a threat to the work habits that have developed over the years.

The key to this communication is the sharing of as much information with everyone who will be involved with, or affected by, the introduction of the new technology. Take them along on the inspections. Teach them about the technology. Let them have a view through the infrared camera so it is not a mystery. Make sure to follow-up on the information that is provided. Even if the reports created don’t directly involve them, include all departments that may benefit from the implementation of the new technology, i.e. Planning and Scheduling. Follow-up with them and ensure that the reports are physically available in the field for the repair. Often, it is assumed that the reports are being viewed by the end user, the skilled repair craft, only to find out too late, they didn’t even see what it was they were trying to repair. Remember, visibility is the ultimate bonus in everything a thermographer produces. Almost every other PdM technology involves numbers, graphs or data in some form other than a picture. As a thermographer, the thermal image tells the story. It is significantly easier for a craft person to “see” where the problem is with a thermal image. Make certain they are, in fact, seeing those thermal images.

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 4

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 4



Above is a graphical depiction of a MEL. Note, data starts with the Class and Subclass of every asset in a facility. Following the blue highlighted area, this listing will start with class=bearing, then subclass=ball, then attribute=type and then value=precision ground. The minimum would be four levels within the MEL. There are many variations that would make up the MEL, the graphic is only a single example of one such asset. Also this MEL is made up of all of the individual components of an asset and will serve as the base for the Bill of Materials.



Once an accurate MEL is built, the remainder of the technicians data work is in building the route list. Above is an example of a tree leading to the route based location of individual components on an inspection route. Note: Bldg 1, lower level, MCC and the equipment name is similar in nature to the MEL described above. This tree can and should be linked to the MEL which will then feed directly into the EAM/CMMS and therefore, feed directly into the Planning and Scheduling areas of a facility. Below is another example of how this tree list might appear in a graphic user interface (GUI) on a route based data collection device.



Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)

Definition: The whole life optimal management of the physical assets of an organization to maximize value. It covers such things as the design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and decommissioning/replacement of plant, equipment and facilities. "Enterprise" refers to the management of the assets across departments, locations, facilities and, in some cases, business units. By managing assets across facilities, organizations can improve their utilization and performance, reduce capital costs, reduce asset-related operating costs, extend asset life and they may subsequently improve ROA (return on assets).

Asset intensive industries face the harsh realities of operating in highly competitive markets and deal with high value facilities and equipment where each failure is disruptive and costly. At the same time, they must also adhere to stringent occupational safety, health and environmental regulations. Maintaining optimal availability, Reliability and operational safety of plant, equipment, and other assets, is therefore, essential for an organization's competitiveness.

The functions of asset management are taking a fundamental turn where organizations are moving from historical reactive (run-to-failure) models and beginning to embrace whole life planning, life cycle costing, planned and proactive maintenance and other industry best practices. However, some companies still consider physical asset management as another term referring to maintenance management. Once these organizations realize the enterprise-wide impact and interdependencies with operations, design, asset performance, personnel productivity and lifecycle costs, will this shift in focus progression from maintenance management to Enterprise Asset Management.

EAM/CMMS, forms the enterprise system and corporate philosophical base by which maintenance Planning and Scheduling, parts order and replacement etc… may be managed and optimized, it is the life and blood of a proactive maintenance driven organization. It also provides a centralized source for standardized information.

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 3

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 3

Turning Data into “Reliability Information”

Thermographers spend countless hours capturing thermal images, analyzing thermal images, creating and producing reports, tracing results of work completed and communicating. Translating the benefits of thermography across all areas of the organization will instill “buy-in” across functional departments. The explanation of program effectiveness and how it contributes to improved business performance and bottom line results will become the “Wow” factor.

Defining the Master Equipment List

An accurate Master Equipment List (MEL), describing all physical equipment and their functions, will become the cornerstone for developing a sound Reliability program and streamlining daily maintenance processes.
The completed MEL will:

• Aid in critical decisions and strategies, facilitate correct cost roll-ups in the EAM/CMMS or ERP software, and improve the usefulness of historical maintenance data.


• Introduce efficiencies into the daily planning activities and speed the maintenance strategy and Bill of Material (BOM) development effort by making it easy to locate equipment and to identify duplicate or similar equipment.


• Provide the ability to easily identify all of the in-service equipment a spare part can be used on when couple with BOMs. This crucial information will allow for informed decisions when establishing spare part stocking levels or removing unnecessary parts from inventory.


• Assist the maintenance department planners and technicians in establishing standardized procedures to be used in maintaining equipment. Because duplicate and similar equipment can be identified, procedures can be copied to all applicable equipment. The copied procedures are then useable with only minor changes needed to meet specific equipment requirements.

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 2

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level: Part 2

Including Thermography within a Reliability Program

We should appreciate that Reliability may be defined in several ways:

Reliability is the idea that something, an asset, a process or a component, is fit to perform its function at a given time; that is, it will remain in operation without a functional failure for the duration of a specified period in which it is required to perform said function.

Reliability may be the capacity of a device or system to perform as designed; therefore, if a given pump is designed to pump 100 GPM, it continues to do so at that design capacity within the specified period.

Reliability is the resistance to failure of a device or system; therefore, the described asset, process or component has a quantified resistive failure factor. This could include aspects of the physical strength of the component, horse power, insulation factor for a motor, or size and wall thickness for pipes.

Reliability is the ability of a device or system to perform a required function, under stated conditions, for a specified period of time and the probability that a functional unit will perform its required function for a specified interval under stated conditions.
Reliability engineers rely heavily on statistics, probability theory, and Reliability theory. Many engineering techniques are used in Reliability engineering, such as Reliability prediction, Weibull analysis, thermal management, Reliability testing and accelerated life testing. Because of the large number of Reliability techniques, their relative expense, and the varying degrees of Reliability required for different situations, most projects develop a specific Reliability program to be performed on an intended system.
The function of reliability engineering is to develop the reliability requirements for the equipment, output, or system. A Reliability Engineer establishes adequate reliability programs, by performing appropriate analyses and tasks to ensure the equipment, output or system will meet its requirements. Reliability engineering is closely associated with maintainability engineering and logistics engineering. As you can see by this description of Reliability engineering, the thermography component of your PdM program aligns with a number of areas within the overall Reliability objectives of your organization.

The thermogram, Example A, below provides a technician with a significant amount of information. The second set of standard photographs, Examples B and C, gives the operations department of a facility even more information. However, this thermal image and the photographs alone do not tell the whole story. How and where this information fits into your Reliability program should be considered in order to align this information with all other thermographic and PdM data that will be reviewed and analyzed as part of your overall Reliability program. Once the data and information is integrated, translated, analyzed and the results applied will it become meaningful and valuable to, not only the Reliability initiative(s), but across the entire organization.

Example A: Thermal image of a hot spot located on the back wall of a power generation boiler.



Example B: Standard photo matching above thermal image after burn through of hot spot



Example C: Close up standard photo showing actual burn through area seen in thermal image

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level

Introduction

Thermography is one of, if not THE, most visible technology within your predictive maintenance program (PdM).

Reliability initiatives and successful Reliability implementations are of great interest to all industries and therefore seek to capitalize on the benefits of the Predictive Maintenance and Reliability programs within these industries. Whether you are involved in the actual data acquisition or in managing the Reliability initiative or PdM program, the intent of this presentation is to give you some ideas and methods by which you may be able to capitalize on the visible benefits of the thermography component, within your PdM program. Thermography may act as, or become a change agent within your organization. Capitalizing on the WOW factor and presenting the business benefits and maintenance values to the corporate decision-makers is where “buy in” to thermography programs begin and from where the entire organization will “buy into” a truly reliable operation of your facility driven from the top down.

We are all aware that thermographic inspections can find all variants of anomalies, anything from the visibly obvious to the very subtle issues - i.e., how a problem on a PCB may trip a 200 Megawatt Generation system. Yet more often than not, the information that a Thermographer produces travels, at most, no further than the Planning and Scheduling department followed by the crafts people who are tasked with the repair. Many times, maintenance personnel are not only pleased, but surprised, when they actually receive an infrared image attached to the work order. Why the pleasure…or surprise? It’s simply because an infrared image is one of the best ways to “see” a temperature related problem that has been located. It is the ONLY PdM technology that provides pictures along with other key data. Pictures, as we know, are worth a thousand words and help illustrate the importance of thermography and its applicable methods to ensure successful and scalable Reliability initiatives throughout your organization.

In order to fully understand the integration of thermography into a Reliability program, we must first become familiar with the other components involved in a Reliability program. Although the actual thermal image is the most critical aspect of the thermography portion of the program, this thermal image is integrated with data. Data forms the foundation for all Reliability components and how they are managed; the Enterprise Asset Management Systems and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (EAM/CMMS), and the Master Equipment List (MEL), to name but a few, all feed into the Planning and Scheduling efforts.