Life Cycle Asset Management

The true cost of maintenance to a company includes the lost production time, cost of utilities not used, overhead costs, handover costs and more.

A 6-step procedure that guides you and your organization, department, and team to analyze your business and operational risks, and develop an enterprise asset management system that is purpose-built to deliver your organization world class reliability.

A Systems Reliability Model 

 Nuclear power stations, nuclear warships and air traffic control centers are renowned amongst industry world-wide for their high-reliability performance. Here is a reliability-based model of how they do it. Your organisation can too.

Keywords: control of human error, failure prevention, defect elimination, accuracy-controlled enterprise, error-proofing 

My brother-in-law, who worked for Japan Airlines (JAL) at the time, tells a story of watching Japanese aircraft maintenance technicians overhaul a JAL airplane jet engine. He tells this story because it is so unusual. During his visit to the maintenance hanger he was enthralled by the extraordinary maintenance procedure that the JAL technicians followed.

Guest post by David Mosaddar

 Data Mining Techniques to Increase Productivity in Maintenance Management Systems 

Let a Plant Wellness Way EAM System-of-Reliability End Your Business Risks Forever 

Today, the use of a Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and user-friendly software packages have made the job of the maintenance crew relatively easier. The entire maintenance system seems to be at your fingertips, with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in flashy dashboards on a computer screen. But is that the absolute best use of your maintenance information? 

Developing Maintenance KPIs, Reliability KPIs, And Enterprise Asset Management KPIs Of Value For Good Decision Making

When developing maintenance KPIs, or any performance measure, you will have no real ‘grass-roots’ support, nor lasting success, until people are involved in setting their own measures and key performance indicators.

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I’ve been tasked with developing maintenance KPIs and equipment reliability KPIs.

I would be thankful if you guide me to a proven list of maintenance and reliability KPI’s. We would like to measure performance on individual plant and corporate levels.

We have 120 plants for various products: metals, chemicals, petrochemicals, fertilizers.

We are not currently using unified measures, i.e. every plant is going in its own direction, and we now are looking to unify maintenance and reliability across the corporation by introducing a reliability solution to create a scientific maintenance strategy. Part of our strategy is to introduce specific KPIs which have to be achieved by all plants.

Accuracy Controlled Standard Operating Procedures Use The 3T’s – Target, Tolerance, Test – For Work Quality Assurance

Assure production and maintenance work quality with accuracy controlled standard operating procedures containing 3t precision work instructions where work is done right-first-time, every time

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An Accuracy Controlled Enterprise (ACE) is focused on getting things ‘right first time’. The quality focus in an ACE is about doing a job, every job, masterly, whether done on the shop floor or in the boardroom. That is achieved with accuracy controlled standard operating procedures in which every task is proven to be completed accurately before continuing to the next task. It is about being a master of what you do so you deliver world-class results in your work. You can read about being an ACE in the white paper The Accuracy Controlled Enterprise.

 The article was written to cause people to question traditional approaches to FRACAS. In time senior managers in companies will come to realise that FRACAS has little chance of successfully improving their company. They then can instead look for what does work to move their operations to world class production performance.

That drive a reliability growth and improvement.

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.

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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.

Hello Friend,

Industries using machines require them to run reliably (no failures or unplanned stoppages) with high availability (ready for immediate use) and high utilization (continuously in use) all their working life.

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.