Mike Sondalini — Thought Leader

A RELIABILITY IMPROVEMENT POLICY IS A DOCUMENT CONTAINING A SET OF PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE DECISION MAKING AND ACTIONS. IT TELLS HOW RELIABILITY WILL BE ACHIEVED IN AN OPERATION. IT COVERS THE WHOLE ASSET LIFE CYCLE AND SAYS WHAT WILL BE DONE AT EACH PHASE TO DELIVER RELIABILITY.

Unfortunately, we have been operating in a crisis manner without a reliability improvement policy. Have you samples of a Reliability Improvement Policy that I can use as a basis of crafting one for my organization — do you have anything to share?

As I have stated in the past, the materials you post have been a big blessing to my work. You have definitely empowered me with great information that I see changing the way people work.

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 Improved reliability has a cause. Just like a failure has a cause, so too is there a cause for improved reliability. You can wait for a failure to happen and then learn from the experience and change your processes to prevent it. That is root cause failure analysis. But it is not proactive behaviour. Such an approach quickly buries you in firefighting. It helps you fix a few terrible failures, but not the tens of thousands of defects that are waiting to create the next lot of disasters. Permanent reliability growth requires proactive methodologies that identify all potential problems and stops them from starting. This is what is done in high reliability operations – they never allow defects to begin. 

The process maps of your business processes, the workflow diagrams of your operating procedures and the bills of materials for your equipment are the foundation documents for improving equipment reliability. They are used respectively to control the business processes, to control human error and to address limitations in materials of construction and parts’ health practices.

The Accuracy Controlled Enterprise: Using Accuracy-Controlled 3T SOPs for Production and Maintenance Quality Assurance

 Reliable equipment is necessary to reduce production costs and maximise production throughput. High reliability from operating equipment requires high quality reassembly, coupled with the correct operating practices. You can guarantee correct maintenance and proper plant operation by specifying a target and tolerance in maintenance and operating procedures. 

Having a target and tolerance sets the recognised acceptance criterion. A simple proof-test will confirm if it has been met. Specifying a mark and tolerance range changes the focus from one of simply doing the job; to now doing the job accurately. This results in high quality trades’ workmanship and sound equipment operator practices that deliver reliable equipment performance. Those organisations that use ‘target, tolerance, proof-test’ methodology in their procedural tasks move from being a quality-conscious operation to being an Accuracy-Controlled Enterprise (ACE). 

Plant Wellness Way Enterprise Asset Management is used by companies to successfully get world-class engineering asset management, maintenance, and reliability.

Welcome to the start of the training users get on how to build a Plant Wellness Way enterprise asset life cycle management system-of-reliability once their company begins using the PWWEAM methodology.

Throughout the course we interchange the name of the methodology commonly called ‘Enterprise Asset Management’ with engineering asset management, physical asset management, and asset life-cycle management. All these names mean the same thing. We also will switch between referring to Plant Wellness Way Enterprise Asset Management methodology to shorter versions, such as PWW EAM or PWW.

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THE Plant Wellness Way EAM SYSTEM-OF-RELIABILITY METHODOLOGY ENSURES YOU ALWAYS HAVE LOW MAINTENANCE COSTS AS PART OF THE WORLD CLASS MAINTENANCE, RELIABILITY AND LIFE CYCLE ASSET MANAGEMENT SUCCESS YOU GET

BELOW ARE 14 STRATEGIES A PLANT WELLNESS WAY EAM SYSTEM-OF-RELIABILITY BRINGS YOU THAT ENSURE THE LEAST MAINTENANCE COSTS FOREVERMORE.

I read your article that compares maintenance costs to RAV and am inquiring to see what is your definition of ‘maintenance cost’ when measuring replacement asset value? Are you strictly referring to labor costs, or is this the cost of labor, services and capital equipment purchases to repair, replace or upgrade an existing machine?

Dear Tom,

In the example, ‘maintenance costs’ meant the direct and overhead maintenance costs – labor, parts, subcontract services and allocated overheads (i.e. supervision, management, associated infrastructure, etc. proportioned to direct labor hours) – incurred during the ‘normal’ operation of the car (i.e. the car is driven by a well-trained, responsible driver at the wheel). If you have a store/warehouse for maintenance parts then you add the proportionate cost of keeping and running the store to support the maintenance effort as part of the total cost of maintenance.

Plant and Equipment Wellness (PEW) is a Physics of Failure based methodology for equipment failure prevention and defect elimination that results in the fewest activities, least resources and lowest expenditure to produce outstanding operational equipment reliability. PEW identifies the necessary business-wide processes and departmental actions an organisation needs to apply to get high plant and equipment availability. With high uptime comes more productivity, higher operating profits, and less capital expenditure. 

As much as possible PEW uses simple techniques that can be done by shopfloor people. Most companies do not have large staffs of university trained maintenance and reliability professionals. They have knowledgeable and experienced maintenance practitioners that know their plant and equipment. PEW does not require specialist RAMS software that none but mathematicians can understand, that very few companies can afford to buy or contract, and requires assumptions about the future that are hopeful at best. 

Any standard EAM system can be adapted to achieve Operational Excellence with the PWW EAM methodology.

Rather than going from policy to practice, Plant Wellness Way starts with how to create a healthy environment for parts microstructure when equipment is in-service. By focusing on creating healthy operating environments for components, machines, equipment, and plants, your operation will perform at world-class levels of reliability.

The standard range of Enterprise Asset Management models available will typically use an EAM Policy to decree the purposes of the EAM system. From this statement processes and practices necessary to achieve the EAM Policy aims are chosen. People will then aim to meet the policy requirements for their team or department without taking the flow on consequences into account. As a result, businesses will unintentionally create an EAM system that instils randomness and variability into the company. In this situation is it nearly impossible to create a system that achieves operational excellence success.