50 Failure Modes of Electric Motors

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

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.

Dirty Jobs - Sewer Worker

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

The World is Flat and other Good Stuff

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

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.

Change Pump Speed to Reduce Energy

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

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

Improving on a Fishbone for Cause-Effect

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

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

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

Condition Based Oil Change Webinar - FREE

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

Inspect What You Expect

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

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

Relative Criticality Presentation 2007

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:

Root-Cause Analysis - Beginner Intro and More

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.

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.

Reliability Centered Maintenance and a Motor System

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.

PM Does Not Work

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.

Training Link - Asset Management Culture with Barry Buchanan

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.

Finding a Pathway for Sustainable Water and Wastewater Service

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: