Planning and Scheduling

In 2003, when I was just getting started in the Asset Management world, my boss handed me a book on Planning and Scheduling which changed my whole perspective on the key to successfully managing maintenance.  The book, Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook 3/E by Richard (Doc) Palmer, outlined the mechanics of doing effective planning and scheduling.  In 2012, one of my colleagues from work contracted with Doc Palmer for consulting support and began the process of following Doc's guidelines in the daily work planning and scheduling.  The results have been impressive and in 2014 a video demonstrating the objectives, the process in the CMMS, and a discussion with Doc Palmer was recorded.   You can find the video here: https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1035424

Electric Motor Lube Program

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.

Demo of OWAM CMMS on Mobile Phone

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.

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

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

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

OWAM Users Group Conf. 2010

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

Ultrasonic Listening as a Go No-Go Vibration Sweep Tool

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.

Best MS Excel Webinar I have attended

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!

Paper published by Reliabilityweb.com

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/

Key Performance Indicators

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.

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

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

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

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 - Selecting a Hierarchy Strategy

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

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

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).

Water CUPSS from the EPA - Free

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

CMMS Survey from Uptime Magazine

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/

Ultimate Interface: a Demo with ESRI

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?

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

What is this Blog All About?

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.