The Physical Asset Management Scrapbook

50 Failure Modes of Electric Motors

2012-01-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

An associate of mine just forwarded a link to a great video on the 50 Failure Modes of electric motors. This is a great tutorial on the ways that motor's can fail and which of those failure modes can be controlled by our maintenance planning and how motor rebuilds are specified.

You can find the video here: http://www.uesystems.com/vids4htmls/fifty-failure-modes-of-electric-motors.aspx

Co-Gen Uptime Write Up for Gresham OR

2012-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

There is a nice write-up in Triple Pundit about the success that Gresham Oregon is having with their Co-Generation operation, which provides 55-60% of their operating energy requirements.

While it isn't mentioned in the article, the Co-Gen system was the focus of the first Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) study that Veolia Water conducted. Using the maintenance approach's developed, Veolia Water has maintained uptimes that exceeded expectations and has helped to achieve the power output that has them on their way to a sustainable wastewater treatment plant.

Congratulations to the Veolia Water Gresham Team and the City of Gresham!

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/12/oregon-model-sustainable-cities-aint-portland/

Risk & Criticality in Uptime

2011-10-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

Terry Nelson has an article, just published in Uptime Magazine, that does a great job of explaining the difference between Risk, Criticality, and a management strategy.

You can find the article here: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/reliabilityweb/uptime_20111011/#/58

The Effects of Water on Lubrication

2011-09-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

I just read a great article on the failure modes of bearings due to water in the lube. This would be a great resource for those doing an RCM analysis or a Root-Cause review to have on hand as a reference.

The main take away that I got is the importance of being very proactive in keeping water out of your lubrication system. Check it out here: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/1367/water-bearing-failure

Electric Motor Lube Program

2010-12-13T13:57:00.000-08:00

I have reviewed motor bearing failures from my corporate CMMS (14 large wastewater plants) and found that motor bearings very rarely meet the engineers design life expectations, L10 (I am a mechanical engineer by training, so I was curious about whether what they taught us in design was paying off in the field). I know that the operating environment is probably a contributing factor, however, I believe that the lubrication program might the leading contributor to the shortened bearing life for motors.

As it turns out, many of the bearing failures for motors result from over lubrication and/or lubrication with contamination in it. These are the two areas to study in your program to extend the bearing life in plant motors.

I came across a great article last week that lays out some very specific steps to take to improve the overall motor bearing life: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/749/electric-motor-regreasing.

Take a look and see if there are suggestions that can help your motor preventive maintenance program.

Prioritizing Work & Gas Line Explosion in San Bruno

2010-09-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

NPR did an interesting story below:

Interestingly the story notes that PG&E, the gas line operator, identified the pipeline as critical and in need of repair and even got a rate increase approved for the work. However, they never completed the repairs because of "re-prioritizing" the work. As the neighbors interviewed mention, the public doesn't know what is buried near them, however, it makes us, the utility operators look very bad when we prioritize work and then don't complete the work.

I like to use a risk matrix to look at any backlog of work and always focus on doing the work that is most critical first, whether that is daily PM/CM work or capital investments.

Re-Design Lube Disposal/Fill Systems

2010-08-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Bearing's in an industrial environment, rarely last as long as the original equipment designer/engineers expected. There are a variety of reasons surrounding contamination with water or other materials. Essentially it comes down to bad practice in managing lubrication levels and replacements. In addition, oil spills to the environment and resulting cleanup are also large concerns.

I just came across an article in a lube magazine, where the author does a great job of describing re-design work that he and his team of put in place to better manage lubrication in their gearboxes. Please take a look at the article here:http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/905/accessorizing-gearboxes I think the ideas are well worth your time.

Criticality and Deep Water Oil Drilling

2010-07-29T11:13:00.001-07:00

I just watched a video presentation of by Shell Oil executives discussing deep water oil well design, failure modes, and criticality of the components of the design. Very interesting for an engineering presentation and, while it doesn't really apply to our industry, it is very instructive on how the Oil and Gas are handling criticality issues in their design and operations.

Demo of OWAM CMMS on Mobile Phone

2010-05-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

At the recent OWAM FullCircle2010 Asset Management Conference on of the users was demonstrating accessing the full Oracle Work and Asset Management (OWAM) interface on a mobile phone. It was so cool, that I video taped it and posted it on youtube.com to share.

This demonstration is using Citrix connection that his company uses for remote access. There is an App for Droid that is a Citrix "viewer" if I understand it correctly. This users goal is to make the workflow mobile for his staff.

Dirty Jobs - Sewer Worker

2010-03-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a show dedicated to those of use who work in the Wastewater Plants of the world. Check it out and see if it is accurate:
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-sewage-treatment-plant-worker.html

Are You Using Your CMMS for Anything More Then a File Cabinet?

2010-02-18T15:03:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting article on CMMS usage. The point is excellent because the author asks if your CMMS is being used for anything more the a record file or, what I call, a PM puker. Correctly configuring your CMMS and estabilishing your Asset Management framework can make it a much more powerful tool.

Follow-up, performance matrix frequently absent from CMMS process flow

CMMS Data Quality is the Key to Success

2010-01-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

I just read an interesting article on ReliabilityWeb.com's newsletter on steps to getting quality data in a CMMS or EAM. There are some great suggestions that I completely agree with:

1.) You need a plan for how to manage your data, including codes for failures, asset types, etc...

2.) Develop a accurate list of Assets that staff can easily find from multiple search strategies. Make sure the spellings are correct etc...

3.) Develop a data Q/A plan and reports to track and trend on cleanup processes as needed.

Read the article here: http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/waiting_for_cmms_success/

If you are interested in other CMMS/EAM related articles I have referenced on this blog, click here for those: http://ydesign72705.blogspot.com/search/label/CMMS

The World is Flat and other Good Stuff

2010-01-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

I read Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat a couple of years ago and I just came across a video of Tom discussing his book at MIT which is really worth watching:

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266/

What does this have to do with maintenance? Not much on first glance, but it is a great introduction to why and how things are changing rapidly in the ways that we might think about how to manage maintenance.

I have also been reading Lean Six Sigma for Service Industries. Also an awesome book that has a lot of thoughts on ways that our maintenance processes might be improved. I highly recommend it.

I always like to look at wider trends and see how they might effect what they might offer in changes. Please feel free to share what is on your reading list.

Expand Root-Cause to Find Solutions

2009-12-01T11:08:00.000-08:00

In several other posts, I have recommended thinkreliability.com materials and video's. Here is another recommendation to explore their video and webinar library.

This is a short video reviewing the Hubble Telescope problems and solutions. As you may recall, the Hubble Telescope is a space based telescope launched in the early 1990's at a cost of $1.5 Billion, however, it had a flaw in the mirror which made all of the images blurry.

Thinkreliability.com explores the root-cause review and demonstrates how the solution didn't have anything to do with the mirror which was the actual cause of the problem: http://www.thinkreliability.com/Video/Hubble/Hubble7min.html

As you do RCFA, don't let the search for the cause limit your options for the solutions.

PNCWA Newsletter Article - June 2009

2009-11-17T17:03:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following article which was published in the Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association Newsletter during the Second Quarter 2009 and is posted here because it has some good links to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho SRF information. If you are not from this region but looking for this kind of information, please start with your regional EPA website.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, the $787 billion stimulus bill congress passed in February 2009, has been a bit slow in taking effect according to some commentators, however the reality is that the law itself has some difficult requirements.

The first difficulty is the requirement that the funded projects must be “under construction” no later then February 16, 2010 (Some sources indicate February 17, 2010). The funding for all water related projects, both clean and drinking, is being dispersed through the State Revolving Fund (SRF) program, which typically has a list of projects from the previous application period that are “shovel ready”. Depending on the state, this list may already fully account for the funds allocated. To see the specific ARRA funding additions to the SRF for your state please refer to the website for EPA Region 10: http://www.epa.gov/region10/eparecovery/cleanwater.htm

The second difficulty is the requirement that the qualifying projects meet the “Buy America” clauses in the law. The “Buy America” requirements add an additional level of documentation to prove the material sourcing for any project meet some stringent requirements. There are steps that can be taken to apply for a waiver to these rules, but the review process makes the process difficult and generally ads to the difficulty of the SRF process.

A third area of difficulty is the requirement that “20 percent of the funds shall support projects providing green infrastructure, water efficiency or energy efficiency improvements, or other environmentally innovative activities” (EPA Region 10: http://www.epa.gov/region10/eparecovery/cleanwater.htm). While this seems to be fairly loosely defined, it does set aside funds specifically to focus on improvements in this efficiency improvement area, which might open up opportunities for projects that normally wouldn’t apply for funds through the SRF process.

So can the ARRA help your community make improvements in your infrastructure and/or capital investments at your plant? Since the funding has a time limit and must be spent expeditiously, it may be difficult to take advantage of the opportunity, but here are a couple of suggestions:
1.) If you already are on the SRF project list and your project is “shovel ready”, consider reviewing the project in detail to look for elements that will qualify for the “Buy America” requirements and green infrastructure investments. If you can identify ways to revise your project, you will find there is less competition for these special funds and even if your project was not scheduled to be funded beyond 2010, it might move up if it meets these requirements.
2.) Review your capital investment plan (CIP) for projects that might qualify for a “green infrastructure” project. These projects might include replacement of existing motors with premium efficiency motors that would produce an energy savings and also update some aging equipment. With this CIP list in hand, contact your SRF representative to see if these projects can get on his list this late in the SRF cycle.

Because the dispersement of the ARRA funds has political pressure to respond to the current economic situation, it seems that the policies are in a state of transition. Please contact your state SRF representative for more detailed information on the current status of the program if you would like to participate.

To find out more information on ARRA, please refer to the following websites, which are listed in order of priority:

EPA Region 10: http://www.epa.gov/region10/eparecovery/cleanwater.htm

EPA Recovery Act (ARRA) FAQ: http://www.epa.gov/water/eparecovery/faq.html

For motor information checkout information at: http://ydesign72705.blogspot.com/2009/01/motor-repair-or-replacement-decisions.html

Full document on ARRA: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-9073.pdf

OWAM Users Group Conf. 2010

2009-11-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

I am working with several other OWAM users to plan a small Oracle Work and Asset Management (OWAM) user's conference for May of 2010 in Vancouver Washington. The format will focus on sharing between users how they are using OWAM to solve their problems on a variety of tracks. Each track will include at least one case-study and discussion period for questions and examples.

The goal is to help the OWAM user community to share and make connections that will help extend the use of the application.

If you would be interested in participating you can let me know and/or participate in a survey here: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/201242/may-2010-owam-user-s-group-meeting-vancouver-wa

Other resources for reference:

1.) Venue information on Vancouver Water Resources Education Center: http://www.cityofvancouver.us/upload/images/WaterCenter/CommunityRoomPolicy_092009.pdf

2.) Room Layout: http://www.cityofvancouver.us/upload/images/WaterCenter/CommunityRoomLayout.pdf

3.) Photo's of Venue: http://www.cityofvancouver.us/watercenter.asp?waterID=25023&waterSubID=27428

Benchmark Modeling from EPA Portfolio Manager

2009-10-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

EPA has an energy management benchmarking model called Portfolio Manager. This tool needs the following information to build an energy density number to benchmark your plant against:

Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant
A wastewater treatment plant is a facility that is designed to treat municipal wastewater. The level of treatment at a plant will vary based on the BOD limits and the specific processes involved. This space type in Portfolio Manager is appropriate for primary, secondary, and advanced treatment facilities with or without nutrient removal. Treatment processes may include biological, chemical, and physical treatment. This space type is best applied to wastewater treatment facilities of 150 MGD or smaller. This space type does not apply to water treatment and distribution facilities.

The following information is required for wastewater treatment facilities:

Zip code
Average influent flow
Average influent biological oxygen demand (BOD5)
Average effluent biological oxygen demand (BOD5)
Plant design flow rate
Presence of fixed film trickle filtration process
Presence of nutrient removal process

You can find a Introductory/Training Video on Portfolio Manager here:http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/benchmarking_training/benchmarking.html

Benchmarking starter kit here: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=evaluate_performance.bus_portfoliomanager_benchmarking

Portfolio Manager Log-In here: https://www.energystar.gov/istar/pmpam/index.cfm?fuseaction=login.login

Change Pump Speed to Reduce Energy

2009-10-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

The pump Affinity Laws are alive and well. If you don't recall those laws or how your pumping systems might be trying to break them, don't dig out your old engineering text to refresh your memory.

The basics are that pump flow, horsepower, and pressure are all related to the rotational speed of the pump. One of the best hands on explanations of how it all works was provided by the Hydraulic Institute in a Free Webinar which was recorded for viewing here: https://pumpsevents.webex.com/pumpsevents/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=1658517&rKey=599e4b559dcbc186

While this video doesn't give you all the answers on how to make design selections, it does demonstrate the principals that are at work in efficient pumping. Armed with this knowledge, you can contact your local pump representative to collect specific information and guidance on whether a variable speed pump option will save your process money.

If energy savings can be demonstrated, consider applying for ARRA funding or local energy funding to help make a capital investment that will truly pay back in a very short time.

Root-Cause Analysis and FMEA Similarities

2009-10-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

It sometimes seems that there are competing "tools" used to improve reliability of equipment. Pickup any of the industry magazines the there is always a presentation of one "new" technique or another: Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Root-Cause Analysis (RCA), and others. I have seen similarities between many of these tools, but a recent free webinar put on by Think Reliability did an excellent job of showing how RCA and FMEA are very closely related and support each other.

You can find the video here: http://www.thinkreliability.com/video/2009-10-13-RCA-FMEA/2009-10-13-RCA-FMEA.html

Energy Block Grants Webinar - Free!

2009-10-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

This presentation is aimed at Counties specifically.

Link to the presentation here: http://mfile.akamai.com/23543/wmv/citrixvar.download.akamai.com/23543/www/077/463/1908591367624077463/2-1908591367624077463-12435ff13fc.asx

Hydraulic Institute Free Webinar Summary

2009-10-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

I attended an energy overview free Webinar today, put on by Hydraulic Institute pump webinar today. You can view a recording of this presentation here: https://pumpsevents.webex.com/ec0605l/eventcenter/recording/recordAction.do?theAction=poprecord&actname=%2Feventcenter%2Fframe%2Fg.do&apiname=lsr.php&renewticket=0&renewticket=0&actappname=ec0605l&entappname=url0107l&needFilter=false&&isurlact=true&entactname=%2FnbrRecordingURL.do&rID=1626667&rKey=789aae98882a8c77&recordID=1626667&rnd=5876091668&siteurl=pumpsevents&SP=EC&AT=pb&format=short

This presentation discusses the new ISO 50001 standard for energy evaluations, along with other standards that are supported by the DOE. The DOE is targeting industries to gain energy savings through process improvements, specifically processes requiring pumping.

During the presentation, it was mentioned that the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) has an initiative to provide benchmarking of Energy Efficiency of Water and Wastewater Plants. You can find more at: http://www.cee1.org/ind/mot-sys/ww/ww.php3

Other good reading: http://www.cee1.org/files/WEFTEC2008Session981130Manuscript.pdf

Free Testing of Prospective Employees

2009-09-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

I attended a great class on employee selection, mentoring, and certification at the PNCWA annual conference earlier in September. The water/wastewater industry is facing a crisis in recruiting new employees since it is estimated that 50% of current employees will want to retire in the next 10 years. In addition, each employee hired can be a $1 Million decision if they stay for 10 years. It is important then to make good decisions when selecting a prospective employee.

If you wanted to screen your employees using a set of tests, there are a few free ones that might be a good starting point. While it would be great if we all could afford a top-notch HR department to help make these selections, many of us are hiring with only our own "gut check" and limited funds. A friend recently pointed out that there are a few free online tests that might be a good starting point.

Here is a free mechanical test: http://www.psychometric-success.com/faq/faq-free-mechanical-aptitude-test.htm

and here is a selection of reading, math, and writing tests to supplement the mechanical testing: http://www.psychometric-success.com/downloads/download-practice-tests.htm

Improving on a Fishbone for Cause-Effect

2009-09-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

I attended another FREE Friday morning Webinar put on by thinkreliability.com that discussed how the Ishikawa Fishbone diagram can be improved upon for doing a cause and effect analysis.

A summary video of the webinar has been posted here: http://www.thinkreliability.com/video/FishboneLastEdited/FishboneLastEdited.html

Like thinkreliability.com's other video's and materials I have reviewed here, the focus is on making the analysis as graphical and detailed as possible. The goal is to make it as user friendly as possible, helping to facilitate discussion and to document the process and ideas. Discussing and documenting are the very foundation to achieving any problem solution.

Physically Locating Underground Assets for GIS

2009-09-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a Webinar presenting methods of physically gathering location data on underground pipe assets and a new product that merges all kinds of GIS and inspection data into one mapping tool. This is a great way to build an inventory of underground assets and or above ground assets for your physical asset management program.

The Webinar was recorded and is available free here:

https://benjaminmedia.webex.com/benjaminmedia/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=1526912&rKey=61a4edad04c536f6

One unique feature of these tools is that the GPS locator tool can go through or around pipe elbows with a 2D radius relationship (i.e. radius is twice the diamter, example 6" pipe has a 12" radius elbow). The significance of this feature is that now plant yard piping which has elbows can also be located using this tool.

Work Process Improvement and Root-Cause

2009-08-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a webinar put on by Think Reliability that focused on how work processes need to be more carefully evaluated and documented to eliminate actual failure points in the work process rather then just leaving a root-cause analysis at "Procedure Not Followed". Think Reliability has published a summary of this 45 minute webinar as a sixteen minute summary which is definitely worth watching.

Previously on this blog, I have written about change management for organizations. While the focus of Think Reliability's presentation was on using root-cause analysis approaches to resolve work process problems, the discussion is also key to helping an organization to become a "Learning Organization". I especially liked the following graphic:

Notice how it is important to transition from the "eye lash" approach to each employee learning from zero to the "learning organization" approach where the work processes are understood, best practice's are identified, and training is provided to each new employee to improve the process.

You can find the summary video from the Webinar here: http://www.thinkreliability.com/video/Proced-Not-Followed/Proced-Not-Followed-Part1-Aug-09.html

See other blog posts on Work Flow:
http://www.napam.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=46#Sect_2

http://ydesign72705.blogspot.com/2008/12/coding-and-organization-for-cmms.html

Maintaining Your Physical Asset Management Initiative During a Recession

2009-08-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

Cost cutting during a recession will likely come to your department and either prevent your program from moving ahead or move it backwards. However, a recession is a time when you need to refine your objectives and to focus on the elements of the program that yield the biggest payoff:

1.) Understanding what is important to maintaining the demanded Level of Service? Relative Criticality.

2.) Maximizing life-cycle of existing equipment. Learn new tricks to make equipment run as efficient and long as possible.

3.) Insure that your redundant equipment is in the best possible shape. Consider changing to a Lead/Lag operation as apposed to balanced run time. And maintain the off line unit with special care (motor heaters, oil inspections for water, etc...) to have a good standby.

4.) Inspect, protect, and repair your spare parts inventory. With a recession and businesses closing, you never know when the equipment manufacture might drop your machine from his "supported" list and your access to new parts will evaporate.

A few thoughts on recession proofing your program. Look for more to come on this topic.

When does Asset Management Payoff?

2009-08-19T15:02:00.001-07:00

There is no doubt that Asset Management is a discipline that takes more work then "doing nothing". Many have asked "Why bother with Asset Management" and often we believers have to sing the virtues of better care for the equipment, savings in longer life, and other nebulous answers.

One committed Asset Management user, The City of Saco, Maine, has obtained a direct financial benefit. During their recent municipal bond rating evaluation, they received a AAA rating (Congrats to the Saco Team!) and have estimated the interest savings to be $1 million.

You can read more about their case study here: http://www.sacomaine.org/archives/am_casestudy.pdf

I am going to attempt to follow up on this story to get more details, since I heard about this on a conference call, and don't have the full story. The details of how they arrived at the savings, which doesn't seem to be included in the case study above, will be helpful to those of us looking to demonstrate savings from our Asset Management Program.

Look for more to follow!

Are Your Bearings Reaching Their L10 Life?

2009-08-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

Why is "Are Your Bearings Reaching Their L10 Life?" an important question? Well it is an indicator of something that isn't necessarily discussed, lube failure. If the lubrication fails early, the bearings that are lubed will have a shortened life.

Read the following article: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=967

Consider tracking your L10 Life as a Key Performance Indicator of your lube program.

iPhone Might be a Good Field Condition Assessment Tool

2009-08-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

I just read an interesting article in Wired Magazine about all kinds of new iPhone applications (Google phone too) that tie photo's to GPS locations and other things. Some are kind of scary from a privacy perspective, but for a Physical Asset Management tool, the iPhone or a Powershot with Eye-Fi Wi-Fi, might really be a great tool.

Consider fire hydrants and tracking condition and backing up with a photo that has a GPS coordinate as part of it's Meta Data file. While building and updating that kind of a condition assessment file used to be a lot of work, now with these GPS enabled tools, it could be an easy task.

The following article discusses one person's experience with these new GPS enabled applications. Give it a read and let me know if you get any ideas on how these could be used in Physical Asset Management: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-02/lp_guineapig

Condition Based Oil Change Webinar - FREE

2009-08-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a free webninar that discusses in detail the consideration and advantages that a condition based oil change program may offer. One company experienced a 70% reduction in oil consumption and over $150,000 in savings, so it can be significant.

http://www.rcm-1.com/tutorials/101_condition_based_oil_change_2009_07_08/101_condition_based_oil_change_2009_07_08.html

Pump System Energy Savings Webinar - FREE

2009-08-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

I attended a FREE webinar today on the energy that pumping systems (pumps, pipes, valves, etc...) are using across industry, which accounts for 25% of all industrial energy used. Most of this is because of the tendency for design engineers to over specify the pump requirements resulting in inefficient energy use.

You can attend the next one of these Webinar's on October 2, 2009. to register please go here: http://www.pumpsystemsmatter.org/content_detail.aspx?id=3916

Ultrasonic Listening as a Go No-Go Vibration Sweep Tool

2009-07-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Vibration analysis is a very detailed data tool with lots of capability. It also requires a very trained and experienced technician to provide a beneficial analysis of the results of all that detailed data. However, many mechanics have used their "listening" sense to quickly determine if there is a problem or not. With new ultrasonic devices that ability to listen can be refined to the point of making ultrasonics a great tool for a sweep go no-go analysis, to quickly identify the problem equipment.

Here is a link to a short video that provide an example of how an ultrasonic might be used to pre-check a gear box reducer: http://www.rcm-1.com/tutorials/102_usound_accel_path/102_usound_accel_path.html

If you maintain a lot of rotating equipment, consider using an ultrasonic with specific location indications and training to reduce the skill level required to monitor your equipment. Then use your vibration tech (or hire a analyst) to do the detailed analysis when a problem is identified.

Inspect What You Expect

2009-07-24T14:09:00.000-07:00

This is a great short video interview tip on managing a maintenance team. The discussion point is that as managers, we need to define expectation and then follow through with inspections to confirm that our expectations are being met. You can find the video here:

http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/video_tip_inspect_what_you_expect/

Laser Alignment - Calculating ROI

2009-07-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

I just came across a video on how to calculate the ROI on a laser aligment system. I knew that misalignment can have a major cost in energy, but the calculations presented in this video demonstrate just how important it can be to get alignment:

http://www.rcm-1.com//tutorials/66_alignment_roi_2009_04_14/66_alignment_roi_2009_04_14.html

If you would like to read a white paper covering the information presented in the video you can find the paper at www.aligmentsupplies.com or download it here: http://alignmentsupplies.com/usr/white_papers/asi_-_laser_alignment_roi.pdf

Google Sketchup Water/Wastewater Dwgs

2009-07-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

I was just learning about Google Sketchup and was looking through some of their examples and found a set of water and wastewater related plant drawings that have been posted as examples. While this doesn't have much to do with Asset Management it is a very handy tool for those of us who might want to tackle a capital project that needs a complex drawing to go with it.

Check out the set of drawings here: http://picasaweb.google.com/gallery.sketchup/Engineering#slideshow/5345371836779580626

Oh, also the basic version of Sketchup is free and you can place models on Google Earth? Check it out: http://sketchup.google.com/index.html

Leading and Lagging KPI's: Worry or Celebrate?

2009-07-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

We all seem to know that we need to use and monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPI)'s, however, it isn't always clear which ones are best and what we are supposed to learn from them. Reliabilityweb.com just recently published an article from Cargill that discusses the importance of understanding what you should measure and why, http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/measuring_plant_performance_-_the_need_for_metrics_standardization/.

I particularly found the discussion on leading and lagging KPI's important. Identifying leading indicators and monitoring them will guide your organization to successfully achieve the results you hope to achieve when benchmarking the lagging indicators. The goal is to worry about the leading KPI's and celebrate the lagging KPI's.

If you are interested in finding more articles and information on KPI's click here.

Sustainability in Gresham OR includes Asset Management

2009-07-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

In the March/April 2009 issue of UIM, James Rush wrote a nice article on the Gresham and Veolia Water Public Private partnership and how it has been a key component of the City's move toward sustainability.

The article nicely highlights the significance of the criticality review as the a central element of the asset management program. You can read the whole article here: http://www.uimonline.com/index/webapp-stories-action?id=251&archive=yes&Issue=2009-04-01

Best MS Excel Webinar I have attended

2009-06-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I attended a webinar put on by thinkreliability.com that was one of the best 45 minutes I have spent on training recently. It really was focused on how to use Microsoft Excel 2003 for cause and effect diagramming, but I think you could use the technics shown for much more including:

1.) Workflow diagramming (look for more discussion on this later)

2.) Process Flow diagramming

3.) Hierarchy relationship diagrams

and much more......

About three minutes of the presentation is available for a sample here: http://thinkreliability.com/video/Excel03-tips-1min42/Excel03-tips-1min42.html

You can also download their MS Excel Template for doing cause and effect diagramming at their website http://www.thinkreliability.com and signup for their next webinar training session.

Definitely worth it in my opinion!

Article Idea - Supply Chain impacts on Reliability

2009-04-29T10:09:00.001-07:00

This article started me thinking about how much the supply chain (materials, equipment, subcontract labor) can impact plant reliability. While I have discussed this in different articles, I have not addressed the impact in a specific article addressing. The following article provides some ideas: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=2016

Non-Invasive: Inspect an Oil Sump

2009-04-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

Also found on this lube website is a great idea on how to inspect a sump in a non-invasive way. Checkout this tip here: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=1832

Motor Lubrication Ideas

2009-04-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

Just found this set of suggestions around lubricating electric motors. Interesting fact from this article is that 50% to 65% of motor failures are due to bearing lubrication failures. With this kind of failure rate, paying careful attention to the lubrication of motors can make a significant difference in improving your plant reliability.

Read the article here: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=1125

Measuring Change

2009-04-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

When I attended the EAM2009 conference in Daytona Beach FL, which was put on by reliabilityweb.com, I had the opportunity to attend a presentation on methods of measuring change, in particular organizational change. Since much of the potential success of Asset Management or any other new initiative depends on organizational change, it is important to be able to track and measure the change as it occurs to identify if the Asset Management objectives are taking root and growing.

The article and presentation are great. However, I particularly like the summary graphic from the presentation:

http://reliabilityweb.com/ee-assets/my-uploads/art09/rcm09/army01.jpg. This graphic demonstrates how incorporating a behavior based measurement along with traditional Key Performance Indicators (KPI) will reveal how the organization is moving to truly adopt the required organizational change.

You can find the article here: http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/measuring_sustainable_change/

Paper published by Reliabilityweb.com

2009-04-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

In March, I attended the EAM2009 conference put on by Reliabilityweb.com and had the opportunity to present a paper on using Asset Management principals as a framework for implementing a CMMS/EAM. This was based on experiences gained in my day job with Veolia Water North America and was co-authored and presented with Terry Nelson with Inspiraworks and John Clow with Oracle Work and Asset Management, Veolia's primary EAM.

Here is a link to the article: http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/creating_an_asset_management_framework_for_successful_eam_configuration/

GASB34 and Bill 175: How USA and Canada are moving to Sustainable Below Ground Assets

2009-04-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting article in Public Works Magazine about the underground asset management program in Hamilton Ontario. The article covers both the USA GASB34 and Canadian Bill 175 which both promote fiscal planning for sustainable management of services which rely on underground assets.

Read the article here: http://www.pwmag.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=760&articleID=268091

Asset Management and Rate Setting

2009-03-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

Interesting article on Rate Setting: http://www.uimonline.com/index/webapp-stories-action?id=226&archive=yes&Issue=2009-02-01

It would have been good if the author expanded on the role that Asset Management principals, and particularly criticality and condition assessment could play in supporting your rate structure and the need for sustainability for the system. Understanding the general condition of assets and the trend of that condition in relationship to a criticality analysis based on Level of Service requirements could very clearly support the funding needs.

PPP at Gresham Oregon

2009-03-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting article on the City of Gresham and Veolia Water North America Public Private Partnership (PPP). There is a good discussion of the asset management program at Greshem.

http://www.uimonline.com/index/webapp-stories-action?id=251

Stimulus Effect of Water $$

2009-03-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

There is a report that was recently published by the Clean Water Council (CWC) which highlights the value of spending on water projects to immediate and future investment. Read the summary below:

Titled Sudden Impact: Assessment of Short-Term Economic Impacts of Water and Wastewater Projects in the United States, the report shows that a $1 billion investment in water and wastewater infrastructure results in total national output (i.e., demand for products and services in all industries) of between $2.87 and $3.46 billion, creates up to 26,669 new jobs (with average annual earnings for the construction portion of the jobs at an impressive $50,396) and generates personal (household) income of between $1.01 and $1.06 billion. In addition, each $1 billion invested generates approximately $82.4 million in state and local tax revenue.

According to this information, the congress should have invested the entire $787B in Water and Wastewater investments. This could have gone a long way toward making the improvements and repairs necessary to insure water for everyone for the next 100 years, plus stimulated the economic growth.

EPA 2-Day Asset Management Training and Resources

2009-02-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

The EPA has several of their 2-day training seminars planned for 2009. These are very good introductions to Asset Management concepts. In addition the website has links to the training materials they use in the training.

Especially valueable for a very basic asset management based capital planning tool is the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that they discuss throughout the 2-day seminar. You can find this spreadsheet here: http://epa.gov/owm/assetmanage/pdfs/epa_smsm.xls

Relative Criticality Presentation 2007

2009-02-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

In the fall of 2007, I presented a paper at the Annual Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association (PNCWA) annual conference. The presentation was recorded and it has been posted to YouTube.com in 4 parts, listed below.

This presentation includes introductory concepts for Asset Management, functional hierarchy strategies, as well as, discussion of the approach and case study of Relative Criticality approach. Hope this is helpful.

If you want a short overview of this four (4) part series start here: http://www.waterandwastewater.com/videos/view_video.php?viewkey=538c593fbdabb0c5ef2c

See all four segments below:

Stimulus Bill and Water Infrastructure Spending

2009-02-19T11:38:00.000-08:00

The $787 billion stimulus bill congress prepared and passed for President Obama’s signature in February allocates between $90 and $120 billion dollars to infrastructure spending, including monies for highways, trains and expanding broadband Internet access. (New York Times). $18 billion for clean water, flood control and environmental restoration. (Detroit Free Press). However, only $6.4 billion for clean and drinking water projects (AP). While the debate about value of the stimulus bill to turn the economy around continues, it is clear that the investment the Stimulus Bill allocated toward water related project falls far short of the estimates of $500-800 billion dollar requirement over the next 20 years. (Steve Allbee, EPA Gap Study, http://ydesign72705.blogspot.com/2008/12/finding-pathway-for-sustainable-water.html )

Since President Obama left the details of this bill to House Democrats to pull together, it is clear that the priorities of the Water and Wastewater industry did not get much consideration among the many competing priorities. While some see that $500-800 billion dollar investment in water as one of the most significant crisis facing the United States today, the House Democrat Representatives only allocate less then 1% of the total Stimulus investment in water. The failure of Congress to see investment in water infrastructure as simulative and crucial to local economies, underscores the point that our industry does not have ear of the public and, therefore, does not have the ear of politicians.

To educate our public and eventually our politicians on the investments needed to maintain their critical water infrastructure, I am recommending the following steps:

1.) Develop a specific outreach plan for your plant for 2009. Consider the methods and opportunities you have to reach your customers and to educate them on their assets and how those assets support their ability to turn on a water faucet in their home and/or flush their toilets.
2.) Develop at least a “back of the envelope” estimate of your asset inventory, when the asset was installed, and when it will die. Start at a high level (i.e. plant phases, collections system “subdivisions”, etc…) and don’t be afraid to make some educated guesses to quickly project your replacement expectations over the next 100 years. Graph this information to share through your public communications.
3.) Plan a workshop for key stakeholders (City counsel, local community organizations, teachers, etc…) at your facility to discuss their assets. Consider purchasing a copy of Liquid Assets $24.95 http://liquid.assets.media.psu.edu/moreInfo_8015DVD.html and using the accompanying community event materials as an outline for your workshop. See more at: http://www.waterspheres.com/profiles/blogs/please-organize-a-community
4.) As federal and state spending programs are under consideration, don’t hesitate to ask your newly informed customers to speak to their elected representatives to request help in maintaining their infrastructure.

If you would like more information on asset management in general and ways reach out to your local customers with their specific asset future outlook, please feel free to subscribe to the PNCWA Asset Management Newsletter by sending an email to: marc@wllcamg.com Subject:SUBSCRIBE. You are also welcome to send your questions and comments to marc@wllcamg.com.

Additional Resources:

http://www.nuca.com/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=2048 Has the latest news on stimuls amounts.

http://www.bcwaternews.com/InfrastructureFunding/blog.html Brown and Caldwell reference page

http://www.wef.org/GovernmentAffairs/StimulusFunding/index.htm WEF Stimulus Page

How to "Rebuild" a Pump Impellor

2009-01-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

This past month I received a great question from the PNCWA Asset Management newsletter reader, which I am again going to post here.

Question: I have an old pump that has a very worn impellor including both holes through the blades and worn wear ring interfaces. The pump is scheduled for replacement on next year's Capital Plan, is there anything that can be done to "fix" the impellor for the short term? A new impellor would cost nearly as much as a replacement pump.

ANSWER: There is a way to temporarily or permanently fix both a casing and impellor of a pump. This is a great idea, and I have to give credit for this solution to Terry Nelson of inspiraworks.com. Two years ago Terry gave an entire presentation which he called Making Things Better. He presented a whole list of improvements that he has used over the years to repair and/or improve centrifugal pumps, including this tip.

Remove the impellor from the housing to gain full access to the surfaces. Using Chesterton ARC 858 epoxy putty smoothly coat and fill in all of the gaps and build up the edges as necessary. See product below:

http://www.chesterton.com/products/arc/product/?product=858

WARNING: make sure that you get the 858 shaped properly when it is wet. This product, while it appears to be a Bondo product gets extremely hard. During Terry's first experiment with the product, he wasn't too careful to smooth it when it was wet. He then spent two days and several grinder disks to get it shaped up.

Consider using this strategy even for a permanent repair to an old pump that an impellor would be difficult or impossible to purchase. It not only saves on the purchase of the pump itself, but all of the related construction/remodel work which might be necessary to replace an old pump with a newer design.

As an additional protection against wear, consider using the Chesterton 855 "paint" product (http://www.chesterton.com/products/arc/product/default.asp/product/855) as a surface coating, particularly for high abrasive applications. The "paint" comes in grey and black and if you applied two coats of one color over the other, you could easily remove an inspection port and observe with a flashlight how the impellor or casing is wearing.

Correctly applied, i.e. smooth, surfacing should increase the efficiency of your pump too, so you might even get a bit of a payback on your energy.

Let me know if you are interested in hearing about other ways to Make Things Better and I will see if I can get Terry to make the entire presentation available.

Root-Cause Analysis - Beginner Intro and More

2009-01-01T15:47:00.000-08:00

Root-Cause analysis should play an important part in a good asset manage program. Asset management program is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA) concepts that grew from Deming's work in the 50's - 80's in manufacturing, so a key feedback part of the program must include questioning why the results observed don't align with the results anticipated. Root-cause analysis is an excellent tool for structuring the review of why a failure occurred, and should be a tool in the asset management toolbox.

There are many approaches to Root-Cause Analysis or Root-Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA), including the 5 Why's, Ishikawa diagram or fishbone diagrams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishbone_diagram), Cause-Mapping, and others. Earlier in August 2008, I wrote a short note to my scrapbook blog on a free root-cause tool that you could use as a guideline for doing your root-cause analysis: http://ydesign72705.blogspot.com/2008/08/root-cause-using-cause-mapping.html

Recently, I got another email from the thinkreliability.com, who is the provider of this free root-cause tool, announcing a link to a new short video that provides some definitions to the word "cause" and also a "root-cause".

You can find the video here: http://www.thinkreliability.com/video/RCCF-Gv6/RCCF-Gv6.html .

Identification of a root-cause is a difficult task and it requires some careful thinking about terminology and a real effort to not "leap" to a solution. I don't completely agree with the thinkreliability.com and my guess is because they are intending this as an introduction to the topic they didn't get into the more detailed points. For the purpose of introduction, it is certainly worth watching and giving it some thought. Pay special attention to the analysis about the root-cause of a fire. Do you agree? Leave comments below.

Condition Based-Monitoring and Assessment

2009-01-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

Understanding the condition of an asset is important for three key reasons. First, from a reliability perspective, predicting an imminent failure allows you time to plan to make repairs, which is the most common reason given for implementing a condition based-monitoring or predictive maintenance (PDM) program. A second reason, is to maximize the time between repair actions so that instead of make a repair at some regular interval to prevent failures, the repairs are made On-Condition detection, i.e. a lubrication is only replaced when a failure condition is detected rather then on OEM prescribed frequency. The third reason is to understand expected life of your equipment, which means you need to have a good understanding of the current condition to project the life you expect. Since municipal water and wastewater assets tend to have a lot of built in redundancy, a PDM program that is intended to predict failures becomes much less valuable, however, the ability to extend repair frequency and to identify wear related components that you can track and trend to project expected life can both have a significant impact on reducing the life-cycle cost of an asset and aid in planning capital investment.

So, if improving reliability, extending preventive replacement frequencies, and understanding the condition of your assets is valuable, then where would be the best place to start a program? I recently came across a ReliabilityWeb.com recorded training webinar on Condition Based Monitoring and how it should be used to achieve the desired reliability results. You can find the training here:

http://www.rcm-1.com/forms/intro_cbm_reg.htm

This training is provided free with a sign-up for email list and it is a full 2 hours, best for engineers, maintenance supervisors, and decision makers.

There were several important points made in the presentation, including a great review of a condition based-monitoring workflow that really explains how the program can work with your current preventive maintenance program your OEM's have suggested. However, what really caught my attention was the following graphic, which I snatched from the presentation, that was used to demonstrate which condition monitoring technologies should be applied and to what level of asset coverage will yield valuable results.

This diagram shows that to achieve value, your condition based-monitoring or PDM program should apply a full range of PdM technologies to 25% of your most critical assets. From an asset organizational perspective, this means that you need to know two things, what type of assets you have so you can apply the appropriate technologies(Please see this article on code sets include equipment categories or asset types for CMMS: http://www.plantengineering.com/article/CA442871.html), and which assets are most critical (Here is short introduction to criticality Here is short introduction to criticality). These steps should be taken before you begin your condition based-monitoring program. With proper application of PDM technologies, a program designed to provide PM frequency analysis and life-cycle projection, and applying to the most critical assets a condition based-monitoring program great deal of value can be gained from a PdM program.

If you would be interested in signing up for live training on condition-based monitoring you could check out http://www.petroskills.com/courseDetails.aspx?courseID=799.

Key Performance Indicators

2009-01-01T15:29:00.000-08:00

I received a great question from a PNCWA Asset Management newsletter reader, which I think the answer is worth repeating here.

Question: How do you select a good key performance indicator (KPI) and what is a good strategy for implementing it?

Answer: Wow, this is a great topic and I am glad to have an opportunity to provide a few thoughts on developing KPI's. First, I know in the literature there is a group of KPI's, including Preventive to Corrective maintenance ratios, PM backlog, etc...., that many people implement and I recommend for benchmarking purposes. However, when you are attempting to manage or improve on a certain element of your program I recommend taking a bit of a different perspective.

I like to design working level key performance indicators to communicate and bring focus to a particular objective. I would like to demonstrate this with the following graphic that I have used at one of my projects:

http://www.wllcamg.com/downloads/unit_process_risk_matrix.jpg

This graphic shows a table that distributes the existing backlog of work orders by count (132 lower right) across the unit processes (along the left column) and includes a distribution of the work orders within the critical systems (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X85d9ZVjOwQ&feature=related) in each unit process. There are totals for each unit process on the right column and each criticality ranking (5,3,2,1) across the bottom row, with the total in the lower right. I created this table using Microsoft Excel using the Pivot Table function from an export of raw Work Order data taken from the CMMS. (Note: The CMMS includes a complete unit process/functional system hierarchy, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEGE69ie5QE, and Relative Criticality ranking of the systems in User Defined Fields (UDF)).

The objective of the Unit Process Risk Matrix is to weekly present to the maintenance manager a more informative presentation of his backlog of work orders so that he can prioritize the work to reduce risk. Reducing operating risk and focusing resources on a week to week basis is a more effective way to achieve the overall objective of keeping the facility operating at the expected Level of Service, then simply focusing on what the backlog is, or even how the back log is changing from week to week as is typically tracked in the backlog benchmark KPI.

For me the key to KPI's is figuring out a way to present information that presents "actionable" information because data presentation is often an overlooked part of asset management where inspiring action in our audiences is key to our success. In the example above the maintenance manager can quickly see how many "red" work orders he has and in which Unit Process they are in. Another excellent example of a quickly understood presentation of data is this map (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard) which plots Napoleon's route to Moscow in 1812. The line width that plots the route represents the total army census at any point along the route and the impact of what happened to Napoleon's army on that fateful trip leaps out.

Hans Rosling is another expert at presenting complex data to make an "actionable" impact on his audience. Check out the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwS1uAdUcI . It is about twenty (20) minutes long, but you only really need to watch the first five minutes to get the picture of what he is doing with world population data.

If you would like to play with Hans Rosling's graphing tool you are in luck. Google purchased his software and now makes it available for free online with their spreadsheet tool. Check out an example here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pCQbetd-CptE1ZQeQk8LoNw (Please allow time to download graph action)

Please share with us any valuable KPI's that you develop or have developed because we all could benefit from new ways to present our asset management information.

Reliability Centered Maintenance and a Motor System

2009-01-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

If you are ready to jump into some real "meat and potatoes" on motor systems and Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), I found a great video that combines them both. The presenter has written on motors and their maintenance extensively. In this short presentation, he focuses on how a motor is part of a system, demonstrates how to calculate the reliability of the system, and then looks at strategies to improve reliability using RCM.

http://www.motordoc.com/Presentations/TTFE/TTFE.html (Please allow a few minutes for download)

This video is heavy on content, but I would recommend watching for the higher level principals and consider how these might fit into or improve your program. Pay particular attention to the reliability calculations of redundant assets, which is a real eye-opener.

Motor Repair or Replacement Decisions

2009-01-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

If you have filled you car up with gasoline (or diesel) lately, you know that energy is getting expensive. As equipment operators we want to make sure that we maintain the efficiency of the equipment that we maintain and operate to get the most out of the energy we purchase. The decision to repair or replace a motor with a higher efficiency one has always been a key consideration. A friend recently referred me to an article (http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2008/069.html) that challenges some of the old considerations about the repair or replace decision. The author advocates considering a high quality repair or rebuild as an alternative to replacement because the technology and methodology has greatly reduced the loss of efficiency during a rebuild. While the author makes an excellent point regarding the need to consider a rebuilt motor, I would recommend that you maintain a database of all of your motors using MotorMaster (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/industry/bestpractices/software.html#mm) and have a pre-planned approach to how you operate your motors and which ones to repair or replace to optimize your plant efficiency.

Once the determination has been made on a motor rebuild vs. replacement, please consider your selection of a motor rebuild shop very carefully. I recommend a written contract and specification of the exact standards that the rebuild should conform to. Here is a link to an industry specification for motor rebuilds: http://www.easa.com/indus/AR100_0406.pdf. Also consider a personal tour of the motor shop to observe their work in progress and, most importantly, don't select a service provider on price alone. A loss in efficiency will cost you everyday you run the motor.

Other excellent information on motor ownership and maintenance can be found here: http://www.easa.com/indus/index.html

PM Does Not Work

2009-01-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

You may or may not have noticed that when you take a piece of equipment off line to do some form of Preventive Maintenance (PM) that when you put it back online something else usually happens that requires an emergency or unplanned repair. Typically this results from an intrusive PM or sometimes it is a result of just the stress of shutting a machine or process down and starting it back up. Either way, there are often other options that would either eliminate OEM PM's, substitute with some Predictive Maintenance technology, or modify in some way to reduce the negative impacts yielding greater reliability.

There is an excellent article that I came across that discusses the details of the results of a PM optimization process. The article points out that typically OEM PM's, on average:
o 30% don't add value and should be eliminated
o 30% should be replaced with Predictive Maintenance (PdM) tasks
o 30% could add value if re-engineered

So for a typical plant, 90% of all PM activities should be evaluated:

http://www.reliabilityweb.com/art08/pm_does_not_work.htm

If you are considering a strategy to do PM optimization, one of the best ways is to do a Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) evaluation. This is a rigorous approach and can be very time consuming, which often scares off would be users. However, judicious application of RCM by using a criticality ranking approach (see http://www.waterandwastewater.com/videos/view_video.php?viewkey=538c593fbdabb0c5ef2c) to filter your systems and only analyze the most critical will provide an optimum use of the technique. On the rest of your systems, simply apply a best practice approach to doing your PM work. Checkout this excellent resource handbook for best practice for PM and condition based monitoring here: http://www.idcon.com/preventive-maintenance-book.htm.

Sewer Cataloging, Retrieval, and Prioritization System (SCRAPS) from WERF

2009-01-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

For a municipality that maintains underground assets (who doesn't?), up to 70% of your total value is buried and can't be seen. This fact makes it difficult to decide where to start when trying to hit the first of the Seven Asset Management Questions, What do we have? In the March 2008 WE&T Magazine, there was a notice from WERF regarding a new software tool that will help with prioritizing your assessment program. The tool is called SCRAPS and, as with other WERF tools, available to WERF Members. If you are a small or medium sized municipality trying to determine where to start with your underground sewer asset program, you might consider SCRAPS as a way to get started. Please read the article in the March WE&T issue here: http://www.wef.org/ScienceTechnologyResources/Publications/WET/08/08Mar/08MarchResearch.htm

Two Asset Management Case Studies

2009-01-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

Over the past three years I have run across two municipalities which I think have some unique examples of how they are integrating the Asset Management principals into their organizations.

The first is Hamilton Ontario Canada, which was presented at an Asset Management Conference in San Francisco in March of 2006. Hamilton has taken a very strategic approach to their Asset Management program by recognizing that they need to be sustainable from a funding perspective. This means that they can sustain the services the community requires with the revenues they receive from their assets. The focus is a very Life-Cycle based approach and they provide a State of the Infrastructure (SOTI) Report, which rates the status of the community's assets, including everything from the streets, water, wastewater, storm water, to the trees. While the SOTI is a high-level, or strategic, look it very quickly, and for a relatively low cost, identifies the hot spots that the community will need to review in more detail. Please consider reviewing the Hamilton 2006 SOTI as an option on how you might provide a similar report to your community on your assets. Find a copy of the report here (skip to page 16 of the report to see the report card): http://www.myhamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/9513BF04-C983-4F5F-AE33-221B38534FEE/0/SOTI_REPORT_II.pdf

The second example was the basis for many examples during the EPA 2-Day Asset Management Presentation (Tom's Bad Day). Orange County Sanitary District (OCSD) did a detailed analysis of all of their assets to determine their rate requirements to sustain their services. This approach is more detailed then Hamilton's, but for planning specific capital improvement projects, it provides the specific supporting information to help gain the support of the commissioners and ultimately the community. You can review a copy of the 2006 OCSD Asset Management Plan here (skip to page 13 of the report to see the sustainability graph, very interesting!): http://www.ocsd.com/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=5818 (this may take a while)

Introduction to Asset Management from Underground Infrastructure Management Magazine

2009-01-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

The Underground Infrastructure Management (UIM) Magazine for January/February 2008 wrote a feature article to promote "Guide to Water & Wastewater Asset Management", a new book that is a compilation of articles which have been published in UIM over the past several years. The article is a great summary of a bit of the history of Asset Management, legal and regulatory issues, and Best Practices. Read the article here: http://www.uimonline.com/index/webapp-stories-action?id=93&archive=yes&Issue=2008-01-01

From my perspective there were two key comments in the article that were of particular interest. The first centers on the fact that Asset Management in the US has "....focused on familiar activities and measures that fall into the tactical and operational planning levels. A comprehensive and ultimately successful long-term asset management program must also include the strategic planning needed to tie the various tactical and operational parts together into a coherent and workable whole. A thorough review of the utility's culture, and the need for changes in that culture, are critical components of the strategic planning process. "

From my experience, the article has hit on a very important point. While my personal focus is very much in the operational realm, having a strategic plan which incorporates the long term objectives for a sustainable program means that the culture of your organization must change drastically. This is more then just renaming what we have always done (operations and maintenance) and calling it Asset Management. We must understand our community's needed services from their infrastructure and then commit to optimizing the way the service is provided. (From previous newsletter, you can hear Barry Buchanan discussing his experiences and how Asset Management requires culture change here.

When considering a strategic plan and what questions you will answer you will want to also review the opening of the article:

The Seven Questions of AM (Examples of Typical Responses)

1. WHAT do we have? (Data collection, GIS, field verification)

2. WHAT is it worth? (Asset valuations, depreciation)

3. WHAT is its condition? (CCTV, SSES, I/I, hydraulic modeling)

4. WHAT do we need to do to it? (Rehab, replacement, CIP, benchmarking)

5. WHEN do we need to do it? (Prioritization, CIP, Master Plans)

6. HOW MUCH will it cost? (Construction cost estimates, O&M studies)

7. HOW will we finance it? (Rate studies, bond issues, grants and loans)

Carefully consider these questions from a strategic or high-level perspective. Part of your plan should be how to quickly arrive at a rule of thumb method of answering these seven questions and how you will open the discussion of the details of the results of these seven questions with the community and staff of your municipality. Please see the next article down for some case studies of how other municipalities are approaching the problem.

I have not had a chance to review the book this article is promoting. However, the articles in UIM that I have read have been informative and the book, which is a compilation of articles, may be a good reference document for your library. The cost is $80 and you can purchase the book here: http://www.benjaminmedia.com/book-store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=23

Fix It or Replace It? A Risk-Based Approach, Pervaiz Anwar and Pam Koester

2008-12-28T18:36:00.000-08:00

As many of us have discovered, asset management of a typical wastewater plant with hundreds, if not thousands, of assets on your asset inventory can very quickly become overwhelming. We have limited staff and budgets and so there is always a prioritization of where to spend your limited resources. Where do you send your staff? Regarding capital investment, where should you invest next to make sure your plant is reliable and meets your capacity demands? These are the key questions facing managers across the spectrum of public works.

What we need is a methodology to rank and prioritize. A couple of years ago, I came across an article that explores one organizations approach to prioritizing where to do a detailed condition assessment. The authors introduced the need for some kind of "filtering" with the following quote:

"To save time and money, the project team began by evaluating
various modes and consequences of equipment failures
and ranking how critical each asset is (to avoid making detailed
assessments of noncritical equipment). The team's results
showed that this risk-based approach could substantially reduce
asset life-cycle costs."

Please read the entire article here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=we%26t%20pervaiz%20anwar&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wef.org%2FWorkArea%2Flinkit.aspx%3FLinkIdentifier%3Did%26ItemID%3D5351&ei=T4rCTrm1HeOIiALHgqnTCw&usg=AFQjCNEBbvGa7W2uPl_LYq4dBKkwT6g8nA&cad=rja

In my experience, working through a formalized criticality process is so key to your entire asset management program that I recommend working through the process as you prepare your data to go into your CMMS. With a criticality ranking in your CMMS, your daily planning becomes so much easier to prioritize. You can now prioritize to keep your most critical and high risk systems up and running. If you have taken your criticality process through a thorough documentation approach and have obtained agreement on the priorities, there is little doubt on where the focus of the maintenance team should be.

When the time comes for prioritizing your capital plan, the criticality ranking will again focus limited dollars where the customers will see the most benefit.

Training Link - Asset Management Culture with Barry Buchanan

2008-12-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

In February 2008, I got a chance to have an interview with Barry Buchanan, of the Pacific Northwest AMUG, to get his perspective on Culture Change and Asset Management. Barry first encountered the principals of Asset Management in 1989 while working with Thames Water (http://www.thameswater.co.uk/) in the UK. Under Margret Thatcher, the water and wastewater utilities across the UK were privatized with specific contractual requirements that drove Asset Management principals for the entire industry. Barry had the opportunity to participate in this dramatic shift, which for Thames, included the integration of 26 regional water companies into a single entity in just 4 years. The organizational cultural change required by this shift in paradigm was significant and Barry had the opportunity to learn from some of the best consultants in the industry. Join me in listening to a few of the lessons he has learned over the years.

"CMMS ..... is a tool to facilitate performance measurement", Barry Buchanan, February 2008.

The Learning Organization - Peter Senge

2008-12-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

In 1990, I first read "The Fifth Discipline, the Art and Practice of the Learning Organziation" Peter Senge. At the time the book made a significant impact on me as I struggled to implement principals of Total Quality Management in my little corner of the U.S. Navy. Now as I wade into the process of mapping out a process of an organizational culture change in my little corner of the Water and Wastewater industry, I am re-reading the book with new enthusiasm. As the title says, the focus is on identifying the characteristics of a learning organization. I would like to summarize the five key disciplines and encourage you to get the book (latest edition is best) and read up as you plan your Asset Management program.

1.) Systems Thinking --- I could not agree more with Dr. Senge. In fact recognizing that assets are not individual components, but nodes in a network of interrelated systems is so foundational to asset management, that I would recommend "Do not pass Go" until you have an understanding of what Systems Thinking really means and you encourage your organization and associates to implement the practise of looking at everything in a system context.

2.) Personal Mastery --- Dr. Senge refers to people within the organizations committing themselves to learning throughout their life as a master artist or craftsman does. To quote, "Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively."

3.) Mental Models --- A learning organization practices the discipline of mental modeling, which is the ability rigorously examine our internal pictures of the world. This requires people to be open minded and always willing to question assumptions to make major break throughs in understanding.

4.) Building Shared Vision --- This is the "Reason Why" we go to work everyday. Everyone in the organization needs to know what the goals and objectives are. "The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared "pictures of the future" that foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance." Deming made reference to this concept in "Out of the Crisis" in one of my favorite quotes ""One requirement for innovation is faith that there will be a future" Deming 1982, which demonstrates the importance of faith in that shared "picture of the future".

5.) Team Learning --- Just as a football team must practice working together to achieve that "groove" that takes them to the play off, so an organziation must continually practice the discipline of learing as a team. Dr. Senge refers the team IQ and how the process of dialoging between members, is critical to increasing the team IQ beyond the sum of the member IQ's.

As you review this list of disciplines, think about how your organization might rank in each of these catagories. Prior to even considering Asset Management, you might want to begin to develop in parallel these five disciplines to aid in achieving a change in your culture which will aid the tools of Asset Management.

Listen to Peter Senge discuss Organizational and Cultural change in a short 5 minute talk here: http://www.solonline.org/repository/file?item_id=9002733 .

Finding a Pathway for Sustainable Water and Wastewater Service

2008-12-28T16:58:00.000-08:00

The EPA Wastewater Department, lead by Steve Allbee, has done a great job of promoting Asset Management and the benefits across the country. In November of 2006 I had the opportunity to help sponsor on of their 2-day Training Event, called Tom's Bad Day. If you missed that opportunity, please check the EPA Training Schedule to see if or when a class will be offered in your area.

Steve is also the author of the 2002 EPA "Gap Analysis" and continues to give lectures on Asset Management topics at conferences around the country. You can find one of his presentations here: http://www.box.net/shared/p29hkdnt11

There is an excellent article written by Steve Allbee and published in Underground Infrustructure Management magazine (great resource, I highly recommend it). The following quote by Steve is a great summary of his theme in this article:

"....the most significant upcoming challenge is to efficiently and effectively manage an aging system. The vision, strategy, programs and partnerships that led to past achievements will fail to yield a reliable future. The absence of a strategic shift in the service paradigm jeopardizes the financial solvency of many systems and leaves the environment, public health and financial stability at risk...". Read the article....

Steve Allbee is also featured in this short video discussing in further detail his thoughts on the effect failing infrastructure may have on utility rates:

Training Link - Selecting a Hierarchy Strategy

2008-12-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

This training link is a video interview with Terry Nelson, of inspiraworks.com. During the EPA 2-Day seminar (Tom's Bad Day) there is a recommendation to organize assets into some kind of hierarchy and they give examples of hierarchy by location or equipment type or accounting group. As early as 1992, Terry developed a hierarchy based on function or systems and in this video he discusses some of the details and the benefits of this approach.

My favorite quote from this discussion is:

Asset management, oddly and perhaps ironically, is actually system and function management, Terry Nelson February 2008.

Model Asset Management RFQ

2008-12-28T16:37:00.000-08:00

If you plan to implement or update your CMMS this year using a subcontractor, I would like to recommend a model RFQ for obtaining proposals. I recently became aware of this RFQ which contains the elements of the project that I think are critical. I am providing this as a "go-by" for constructing your own RFQ, or if you are a consultant you might recommend this to your client.

What are the important parts of this RFQ. Well here are my top 5 (yep I like that count down concept):

1.) In Section 3.B.1.d, the RFQ requires the first step is to create a plan with the client. I can't stress enough how important having a plan is to a successful implementation.

2.) Section 3.B.1.b requires establishing a bench mark comparison between where you are in your maintenance program and where the Best Practice's are. Find your target, excellent.

3.) Cultural change is woven throughout Sections 3.B which is key because it recognizes that winning over Staff and management with the Plan and Targets is critical to long term success.

4.) In Section 3.B.2.c, establish an equipment criticality ranking. This is so important to the entire program from prioritizing daily work to planning where to apply cutting edge maintenance management with maximum benefit.

5.) In Section 3.B.2.d, evaluate and/or establish workflows for the principal actions of the system and determine how the CMMS fits into those activities.

Well those are my top 5 elements of this RFQ. I do have a couple of points I would add. First, I would require that the hierarchy be constructed around a Function/System approach. Second, I would also recommend 100% coverage of hierarchy and assets listed. To test 100% coverage, visualize any Corrective Maintenance Task and make sure there is an asset or group asset to assign costs to. If you are interested in further discussion of 100% coverage the following video may be helpful.

Coding and Organization for CMMS

2008-12-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

Developing a standard coding set for tracking event types within your CMMS is, next to developing an accurate implementation plan, the most important step of implementing your project. There is so much work in developing a flexible yet functional code set that this one element becomes a closely guarded part of a company's intellectual property. Ideally, some organization like WEF (or maybe PNCWA AM Committee ????) would take on developing an open source standard for the wastewater industry, but to date I am not aware of one.

The next best option is to adopt a code set from a similar industry and apply it where possible to water and wastewater. Fortunately, there is an ISO standard used in the Oil and Gas industry that certainly comes close to having similar equipment, ISO 14224. ISO is very proud of their work, and they should be. However, the approximately $230 required to purchase their standard is a bit steep for most of us.

So, I would like to recommend an excellent article from Plant Engineering, August 2004 by Ken Latino, titled "Understanding event data collection: Part 2" . In this article, Mr. Latino does an excellent job of walking through the Work Order (WO) workflow which I would recommend you consider adopting for your process.

He carefully documents what data should be recorded at each step of the workflow. Please pay special attention to Step 3, where he recommends a list of information that should be recorded when a WO is closed (Location ID, Equipment ID, Malfunction start date, Failure finding codes, Event type, Malfunction end date, Maintainable item, Damage codes, Primary cause, and Primary activity). The final portion of the article is a description of the main ISO 14224 codes and some description of where they might be used. Read the entire article here

To implement the code set in your CMMS, you will need to designate several User Defined Fields (UDF)s to hold the codes you plan to use. Since the UDF's are configurable, you will want to designate what field will be used for in your data field map definition and then pre-populate where appropriate, for example the equipment types (you might catch me referring to them as Asset Type Codes in future emails).

Obama to Revitalize the Clean Water Act of 1972

2008-12-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

A friend just forwarded a link to an article outlining how academics and environmentalists are petitioning the Obama administration to revisit the Clean Water Act and to make reinvesting in the infrastructure a key part of the economic program.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/12/01/obama-likely-to-boost-water-quality-rules-after-years-of-lax-regulation.html

This is certainly good news for our industry and answers the need which many Asset Management gap analysis have been presenting during recent years, in particular by Steve Albee with the EPA.

Bearing Analysis Webinar

2008-11-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

I have not had an opportunity to check this out yet, but Uptime Magazine is going to present the 4th in a series of videos on bearing analysis. I have attended and recommended several of these webinar's before and I am sure this series is worth investigating. You can find the first three here: http://www.rcm-1.com/.

If you sign-up for their newsletter, you will probably get an invite right away to the next in the series which will be:

Title: Bearing Analysis Web Workshop #4: Spectrum and Time Waveform Analysis, and Stage Three and Four Bearing Wear

Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008

Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM EST

Asset Management and the Financial Melt Down, Similarities???

2008-11-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

Consider the following:

In the Financial World: Senior Investment Banking management, without an in-depth understanding of their mortgage underwriting vulnerabilities, were totally oblivious to the real risks involved.

In the Reliability World: Senior Plant and Facilities management, without an in-depth understanding of their real plant vulnerabilities, are also oblivious to the real risks they are taking.

"Plant reliability and safety is directly related to the existing vulnerabilities that have NOT yet been identified because the failure consequences surrounding those vulnerabilities have not yet occurred. Shortcuts in the RCM process will most likely result in those plant vulnerabilities remaining unidentified until an unwanted event does occur. Real-world RCM is all about finding those vulnerabilities before they can occur and result in an unwanted consequence of failure."

There is no substitute for diligent and astute pursuit of RCM and/or Asset Management, just as there is no substitute for good banking risk management principals. Read the following article for the full details:

http://articles.uptimemagazine.com/uptime/2008/11/rcm-the-sub-prime-mortgage-meltdown.html

Personal Water Foot Print Calculator

2008-11-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

In a recent Wired Magazine, there was an article about Peak Water, similar to the Peak Oil topic that is often discussed. As we near or pass Peak Water, are we personally doing our best to save water? Check out your Water Foot Print here:

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=cal/waterfootprintcalculator_indv_ext

This is the detailed estimate, if you want the simple version check here:

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=cal/waterfootprintcalculator_indv

Asset Management Principal Article

2008-11-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

I co-authored an article on the Principals of Asset Management which was published in the latest issue of Underground Infrastructure Management (UIM).

http://www.uimonline.com/index/webapp-stories-action?id=185&archive=yes&Issue=2008-10-01

I would also like to recommend subscribing to UIM, which always has insightful articles on Asset Management and particularly underground related issues.

Green Motor Rebuilders in Oregon and Washington

2008-10-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

In the last PNCWA Newsletter, I referred to an article about decisions to rebuild or purchase new motor's. Traditionally, the decision has been to rebuild, but there has been a significant loss of efficiency due to the rebuild practices. Read the article here.

I also outline in the article specifications you can use as part of your RFQ's for a motor rebuild. To day, I was forwarded a list of "certified" rebuilder's in Oregon and Washington. I still would recommend that you include or reference the specification in your RFQ, but selecting someone from this list increases your chance of having a shop who understands your rebuild objectives. Check out the list here: http://www.wllcamg.com/Relative_Criticality/green_motor_or_wa.html

Water CUPSS from the EPA - Free

2008-10-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

Check Up Program for Small Systems (CUPSS) is provided free from the EPA and it is designed to be a tool to help manage small community water systems. This is an interesting product, because is combines a simple condition assessment along with a CMMS and other tools to create a capital planning/projection model for your assets.

There is an interesting write-up on CUPSS available here: http://www.watertrust.org/feature_article.asp?nID=108

You can also find out more at the EPA's website for CUPSS here: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/cupss/basicinformation.html

The World Water Crisis and Solutions that Work

2008-10-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

The following article correctly identifies a key problem of solving the world's water needs. Toward the end of the article, the author notes that the developed world has made many efforts to build water treatment equipment around the world, but many times these systems are not properly operated or maintained and soon fail to provide the communities the much needed water they were designed to provide.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/23/what.matters.thirst/index.html?iref=mpstoryview#cnnSTCText

For those of us working in the industry, there is a need to consider how we can develop "appropriate" water treatment technology that will work for the people most effected in these areas without water. These need to be simple and easy to operate and maintainable by the people who are the ultimate end users.

There is a slideshow that accompanies this article here

Perfect Storm for Cities and Municipalities with Falling Tax Revnues and Aging Assets

2008-10-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

The League of Cities recently had an article in Public Works Magazine about the impact of the subprime mortgage and how it will effect them. There will be compounded negative effects with the economy slowing and cutting into sales and income tax revenue at the same time that property values are declining due to the rising home foreclosures. Find the article here:

http://pwmag.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=0&articleID=792896

With all of this bad news, finding a way to prioritize maintenance and capital repairs is more important then ever. This is a key ingredient of any good Asset Management program, which should identify and recognize risk and the probability and consequences of failures. The following video provides details of how a relative criticality might be completed:

If you are trying to identify where to spend your limited revenue consider how you can use a risk based filtering system to make sure you are spending on the right projects.

Example Asset Management Plan (AMP) for a Power Provider

2008-10-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

I just came across a very nicely laid out Asset Management Plan from a Power Utility in New Zealand. The plan has some great components and appears to follow the International Infrastructure Management Manual (IIMM) at first look. If you are interested in seeing an example check it out here:

http://northpower.com/about/disclosures/asset_management_plan/

Pump Capacity Testing for Maintenance Planning

2008-10-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

If you have a concern about the efficiency of a pump system, there is a set of several steps that you can quickly use to evaluate the condition of the pumps. I learned about these several years ago from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, yep a government agency.

I thought these steps recommended for testing a pump station could be a good way to run tests on both plant pumping system (Centrifugal Pumps ONLY - Not Positive Displacement Pumps) and collection system pumping stations.

You can read the how-to guide here: http://www.deq.state.or.us/WQ/rules/div052/guidelines/omgauges.pdf

You can expand on the techniques outlined by setting up a procedure for the operations staff to do spot checks. Mark right on the pump gages (inlet and discharge) where the pumping system ran at commissioning or when it was in known good condition. In the future, the testing described can be run by the operations staff and all they have to do is know when the readings on the gages fall outside of a reasonable operating band and then trigger a pump inspection. This is ON CONDITION maintenance and is the most efficient (lowest life-cycle cost) approach to maintenance actions.

Financial Melt Down and Asset Management Goals

2008-10-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

I am guessing that like most around the world I have been keenly interested in watching the goings on in the banking industry. While reading through various articles, I came across one which seems to have some real merit and potential benefit for the Water and Wastewater infrastructure industry.

The article points out a fact, that during the Great Depression, the US Postal Service provided savings accounts, which allowed everyone to save a "small amount" of money with the US Government at a fixed savings rate. Japan used a similar model, which the Japanese government used to fund infrastructure projects until the system was privatized recently.

Check out the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06lind.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

CMMS Survey from Uptime Magazine

2008-09-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Uptime published a CMMS survey in their August/September magazine that has some interesting results and is worth a look. Here is a quote from the article that I certainly agree with and gives you an idea of the observations made:

Check out the full article on page 22 of the electronic magazine found here: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/realityweb/uptime_20080809/

Pump Management Website

2008-09-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

A friend just emailed me about a new website that has all kinds of pump related support links including motor and vfd's. Check it out at:

http://www.pumped101.com/

Robust Design for Systems or Processes

2008-08-31T14:39:00.000-07:00

A key to recent success in the manufacturing industry has been the application of Robust Design or Taguchi Method. While the details of the process get deeply into statistical mathmatics, the concepts are quit simple.

This diagram demonstrates the key relationships between any process or system and its environment. The "signal factors" are the inputs into the system, this may include a product at a certain stage in a process and then there is the "response" which is the condition of the product after it has been through the process or system. For this "black box" there are also system inputs which includes "noise", things that can't be controlled, and "control Factors" things which can be controlled.

As system operators, we operate many systems where we attempt to control the process or system with our control factors. The lesson that we learn from Robust Design process is that these control factors often have a complex and difficult relationships. Many times we attempt to control a process or system response by varying certain control factors and ignoring others, without any understanding of how these processes relate to each other. Robust Design when applied allow you to determine the "Control Factors" which have the most leverage in the control relationship.

Incidentally, these "Control Factors" would make great Key Performance Indicators (KPI)'s for controlling your process or system.

Robust Design is not often discussed in the context of Asset Management, however, using the statistical strategies to evaluate failure data could be very beneficial in determining techniques that will allow significant extension of life.

Defining Cause for a Root-Cause Analysis: The Video

2008-08-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

Earlier in August 2008, I referred you a free root-cause tool that you could use as a guideline for doing your root-cause analysis: http://ydesign72705.blogspot.com/2008/08/root-cause-using-cause-mapping.html

Today, I got an email from the provider, thinkreliability.com, of this free root-cause tool that included a link to a new short video that provides some definitions to the word "cause" and also a "root-cause".

You can find the video here: http://www.thinkreliability.com/video/RCCF-Gv6/RCCF-Gv6.html .

Motor Lube Resources

2008-08-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

I came across a website that has some motor lube tips. They have a video that is a sample of a training video series that they sell. Check it out here:

This video is include in an article on motor lubing practices, which can be found here: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=339

The website also has another detailed article on how to design a motor lubrication program which can be found here: http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=749

Condition Based Monitoring Webinar Training

2008-08-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I listened and the Condition Based Webinar is some really great stuff. The basics of why we do PdM and how it fits into a Condition Based Maintenance program. One of the best slides in the program, I am "stealing" to share with you here.

To really start a program, you need to apply a range of PdM technologies to your 25% most critical assets. This means that you need to know which Asset Types will benefit by which technologies, classify your asset list by asset type, and understand and classify your assets by criticality, before you can apply PdM to your program. This is an excellent recommendation and one I completely support.

Without being to much of a spoiler, let me tell you that the presentation includes a great workflow discussion on the way to really realize the step change in your maintenance program. Definitely check this one out!

UPDATE: I am listening to the post today while I do other work and here is a link if you would be interested in seeing the course outline and sign up for live training http://www.petroskills.com/courseDetails.aspx?courseID=799

Reliability web has a recorded training webinar on Condition Based Monitoring and how it should be used to achieve the desired reliability results. I have not taken the time to review the material, but plan to soon. Other training webinar's provided by Reliability Web have been very worthwhile. You can find the training here:

http://www.rcm-1.com/forms/intro_cbm_reg.htm

This training is provided free with a sign-up for Reliability Web email list.

Ultimate Interface: a Demo with ESRI

2008-08-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this demo from ESRI at a conference in 2005, you should check it out. While it is several years old, it gives some ideas about how interfaces with our computers and networks will be changing soon. Think about how some of the ideas presented could be used to help you with your asset management or CMMS problems in the future.

System Level MTBF's Expected vs. Actual: Are you achieving your RCM ROI?

2008-08-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

Today I came across an interesting article on calculating MTBF's for a primary function of a system. The article provides details about how to calculate an MTBF, however, the most interesting point was that you can use MTBF's to evaluate your RCM based expected MTBF vs. the actual MTBF you are experiencing from your CMMS data.

The author doesn't mention this point, but I believe that every time there is a Corrective Maintenance activity, particularly if it is unplanned and stops the Primary Function of a system, then the failure should trigger an investigation loop into:

1. ) Did the failure meet the desired MTBF
2.) If not, what was the root-cause of the failure and does the RCM assessment or the PM activites need to be modified to achieve the desired MTBF.

The mathematical tools provided in this short article, will help anyone who has a system hierarchy with primary functions (see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEGE69ie5QE) to evaluate and set-up their desired vs. actual evaluations. Check out the article at: http://physical-assets.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-article-is-adapted-from-my-new.html

Root-Cause using Cause Mapping

2008-08-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

Think Reliability is offering a free, with a sign-up for their newsletter, a Microsoft Excel template for doing root-cause analysis using the Cause Mapping approach. I downloaded a copy and will play with it a bit. If it looks good, I will likely mention this in the PNCWA Newsletter's and recommend it to others.

For those of you who are adventures, jump over and download it and please let me know what you think of the Cause Mapping process. Notice on the website that Think Reliability is also offering a training session (one in Seattle next week) around the country over the next couple of months. You might want to join them if it looks like it would benefit your organization.

Building a Zero Based Budget Using RCM Strategies

2008-08-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

This morning I received and email with a link to a white-paper on building a budget using RCM strategies. I am familiar with the company. ARMS Reliability Engineers, LLC and have seen a demonstration of their software.

While I found their software to be extremely detailed (in a good way), the detail doesn't seem to offer much benefit for our industry because the water/wastewater industry has so much redundancy.

However, the outline laid out in the paper
is an excellent summary of the approach I would take to doing an RCM based budget:

1.) Develop a system/function based hierarchy
2.) Review/update the Asset Register
2.) Rank criticality (not clearly identified in the paper, but part of RCM)
3.) Do the RCM/FMEA
4.) Identify the tasks to do PM.
5.) Run a simulation on the reliability impact of those tasks (monte carlo)
6.) Select the lowest life-cycle cost approach
7.) Budget for maintenance (parts and labor), repair/replacement(RR), and capital.

The ARMS software makes step 5 easy once you can select the expected failure frequency for an asset, but without the sophisticated Monte Carlo analysis, you can pretty simply look at the cost and frequency of doing your maintenance actions and compare them with the change in expected life and RR costs to develop a more direct assessment of the value of doing certain actions. The RCM II book by John Moubray outlines several ways of evaluating the required frequencies for PM actions.

If you are considering changing your PM strategy to improve reliability, this paper provides a good strategy outline. You can find it at: http://www.reliability.com.au/dynamicdata/data/docs/zero%20based%20approach.pdf

Living the Advanced Asset Management Life

2008-07-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

This morning I received an email from Reliability Web which I have subscribed to. There was an announcement of a posted recording with the 2008 Uptime Magazine PdM Awards winner. The winner, Allison Transmission, was selected for motor PdM program excellence and since I was collecting information on motor management for my PNCWA Newsletter #6, I decide to listen to see if I could pickup any tips on motor management at:

http://maintenanceconference.com/pdm/awards/allison_interview.htm

There were motor PdM points discussed, but the really surprising lesson was the discussion on what was required with the Allison Transmission management to accomplish their objectives. The interview really gets into the steps of Cultural Change that Allison went through to becoming the standard bearer for General Motors on Predictive Maintenance.

Have a listen and let me know what you think.

What is this Blog All About?

2008-07-18T20:47:00.000-07:00

Over the last day or so I have been puzzling over what I want to use this blog for and I think I have a plan. I believe I am going to use this blog as a note book or scrap book of Asset Management references and ideas that I have.

Usually, the topics discussed here will lead to a topic on the PNCWA Asset Management Newsletters. However, there will be other ideas or articles that will not make it to the Newsletter but will be noted here for my personal use or for the readers who want to join me in exploring a whole range of Asset Management topics.

If you have been a reader or want to continue to be a reader of this blog, please feel welcome and poke around to see if any of my Asset Management pondering is of value to you.

Blog Topics and Physical Asset Management

2008-07-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

Greetings! It has been a long time since I made a post to this blog. Orginally, I thought I would use it to communicate on my topics of interest in Asset Management, but then I got busy doing Asset Management and sort of forgot about my blog.

Since September 2007, I have agreed to be the Asset Management Committee Chairperson for the Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association (PNCWA) and I began to write a newsletter, sort of monthly, on Asset Management topics. An archive of these newsletters can be found at www.inspiraworks.com under the PAM (Physical Asset Management) Professioinals tab or link directly to the latest newsletter (#5) using the following: http://www.inspiraworks.com/index.php?newurl=index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26amp%3Btask%3Dview%26amp%3Bid%3D104%26amp%3BItemid%3D116

If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter you can directly join by sending me an email at marc@wllcamg.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. You can also sign up by going to the following link: http://s-9j9tm-37347.sgizmo.com

Follow the directions below if you would like to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog and look for further developments on where this blog may go.

Categories: overview

More cool stuff you can do

2005-11-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I have done several steps to improve my blog. I found that blogger.com or blogspot does not offer the option to set up a feed, but www.feedburner.com does. I have set up a feed burn there so that now, if you are so inclined, you can subscribe to this blog using your news tool. I use myYahoo and it works great. I now can drill directly to this blog from my yahoo home page. If you would like to subscribe, click the chicklet (sp?) below.

Marc W
http://www.redrival.com/ydesign/

Test and Bike Blogs

2005-11-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

This is a test of my new blog site. Want to see if it is working before I add a bunch of fun and interesting stuff.

Since I am messing about, here is a cool bike video you might enjoy:

It's Your Ride from Cinecycle on Vimeo.

This is also a cool video reminds me of my Milwaukee days spring of 2008. Street riding in Milwaukee is like off-road in Oregon. Check this out:

Here is a good bicycle culture from around the world. Winner of Bike Film Festival:

Return of the Scorcher

Cool Fixie build:

My website is http://www.redrival.com/ydesign for more information.

Later

Marc W