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.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
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]
Business Case for Data Integrity
Written by Robert DiStefano (Chairman and CEO) and Stephen Thomas
[click here]
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
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]
Control New Assets With Maintenance and Reliability Readiness
Written by Michael Desabris (VP)
[click here, Page 134]
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
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.
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.
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