Uptime

Control Your CMMS to Cut Costs

Optimizing Planning and Scheduling
by Dave Koelzer

For asset-intensive operations, maximizing the use of maintenance dollars is critical.  Put simply, planned and scheduled maintenance costs less than unscheduled and reactive maintenance.  How much does it cost your organization for unplanned, reactive work?  How much for emergency work?   We’ll explore how a small reduction in unplanned and emergency work can lead to significant cost reductions and improvement in real-world resource availability and productivity. 

A common challenge experienced throughout asset-intensive industries is figuring out how to drive efficient work execution management practices in order to push valuable data back across the enterprise so that more informed decisions can be made at the executive level.
 
A reduction of reactive maintenance is achieved through the implementation of a single point of entry for the Scheduler/Supervisor, which gives control of the work execution back to the Supervisor.  A reduction in the time that the Supervisor takes to manage the work execution results in better maintenance and production planning.  When an organization can get to a single version of the truth, the information becomes a business driver and a leading indicator of the overall health of the enterprise.  So, the ideal scenario is to get to a single process.  Gray areas lead to poor data, and poor data leads to uninformed or under-informed management decisions.
 
Increasing spares utilization reduces the demand purchasing and allows the configured EAM/ERP system to utilize the data provided, delivering that data up the chain to executive decision makers. The utilization of standard purchasing processes and inventory can reduce the operating expense, not only in regard to the reduction in inventory valuation, but there can also be considerable savings realized by reducing the amount of materials and repair parts that have to be expedited.
 
On the shop floor, when the process is streamlined, there is less time and energy wasted looking for the right part the first time, and thus there is less confusion around who is doing what and when.  Imagine the crew productivity that is possible if your technicians could go straight to the job and straight to work, rather than spend the first hour or two searching for a plan of action. 

For the maintenance and operations professional, the issue isn’t what they want to do.  They know that the work ahead of them comes in many different forms—RCM, PDM, PM, Corrective, operator requests— the list goes on and on.  Today’s managers and supervisors need help with the amount of data that they have to sift through.  From the maintenance manager to the technician, they need to be able to acquire skills through easy to use tools and easy to navigate processes.  The process improvement initiative has to attainable.  We see over and over that there is a desire to improve... but these people are being left hanging, trying to implement. 
 
Today’s Managers are cut from one of several cloths — odds are that they are one of the following:

1.   An engineer — in which case management assumes that since they have an engineering
      background, that they must be qualified to manage a department.

2.  They may have an operations background — and since they know what  is required to run
      the plant or the operation they’re assumed be able to manage a maintenance department.

3.   They’re the guy who’s moved up from the hourly workforce to a supervisory role —
      because in management’s view, they’re technically very competent so they must be
      qualified to manage a maintenance department.

Many surveys exist that indicate a surprisingly low number of managers using any type of advanced planning, scheduling, and project management software.  There is also a very low percentage of managers and front line supervisors that are using even basic desktop software on a regular, repeatable basis.  When they do use their desktop software, it is usually reserved for the ‘big job’ and it’s not integrated with their backend EAM/ERP.  There are significant numbers of the same groups that are using a simple spreadsheet into which they have to manually load the work orders to manipulate the work and somehow get a "schedule” of the day’s events. Following these outdated practices usually means that the ability to measure resource productivity and effectiveness goes out the window.  If they are manipulating any of the data in the spreadsheet, it almost never gets back to the EAM/ERP.

So, right away we have gray areas and the ‘one version of truth’ is out the window, along with the crew productivity.  If you’re not getting all of your work order data back into your EAM/ERP, the data quality is diminished and suspect as being flawed to the point that you can’t use it to make management decisions.  In other words, you can’t use your own data to make your day-to-day decisions.

Due to the ‘fire fighting’ nature of the business, there are cultural paradigms that need to be overcome in most maintenance organizations.  When a Technician moves up through the ranks into the role of Supervisor or Foreman, then on to some other role on the management team, that person usually brings with them the desire to be the Hero and put out the fire of the day.  Many organizations struggle with changing the culture from being reactive (the ‘hero culture’ – saving something everyday) to having a standard, repeatable process for planning, scheduling and execution that embodies foresight.  To this end, the organization has to not only want to move forward with their process and continuous improvement initiatives, but they also have to provide a framework (aided by technology) to institutionalize the desired improvement initiative.  The people on the plant floor need some support, and, ultimately, more than a recommendation that they ‘do more with what they have’ and/or a directive to change their work habits.  

Five Steps to Adding Value
 
Take back your process.  Don’t let the ERP/EAM/CMMS consultants tell you how to run your business.  Drive more value out of your existing EAM/ERP/CMMS systems by concentrating on the following five objectives. 

1.  Improving Planning Performance 

Most EAM/ERP systems provide comprehensive planning and scheduling capabilities.  It is generally accepted that proactive (i.e. planned), maintenance costs roughly 50% of reactive maintenance.  Our experience is that companies tend to overestimate the level of planned maintenance they actually perform.  These organizations are also generally not able to accurately report some of the key performance indicators that measure maintenance planning.  Given that maintenance can comprise 30% to 50% of the total expenses in an asset intensive industry, improving the amount of planned maintenance can quickly result in significant ROI. 

2.  Reducing Training Time

Many companies do annual refresher training to try to improve the data quality and user abilities within the EAM systems that they utilize.  By reducing the amount of time an MMP (Maintenance Performing Persons), Planner, Supervisor, or Technician spends in training, you can improve your labor efficiency and increase ROI. 

3.  Reducing Computer Screen Time for Maintenance Personnel

Time wasted navigating through multiple screens and multitudes of fields can lead to hours of inefficient time sitting in front of a computer.  Look at how to calculate what it really costs you to get the information that you need into your systems, and the value of reducing that infamous screen-time. 

4.  Optimizing (Reducing) the Time to Return Assets to Production

There is a widely held consensus that the primary goal of every maintenance department is to keep its assets running at optimum capacity, and when they’re down, returning them to the operation or production groups as soon as possible.  While the value of the collective assets varies, there is a value for each individual asset, and as such, the value of returning that asset to service can be calculated.  That number can provide helpful insight to your operation. 
 
5.  Optimizing Return of Assets to Support the Mission of Your Organization

Is the lack of reliability or predictability in your planning and scheduling systems / processes affecting your ability to accomplish your mission?  It may not be possible to put a dollar figure on improved reliability or improved performance within your Planning and Scheduling departments, but you can calculate how returning assets to service faster can affect your mission.  By increasing the utilization of your existing workforce and systems you’ll maximize resources, increase uptime, and support your mission through better reliability and availability.

As President of Dimension Technology Solutions (DTS), Dave Koelzer is responsible for day to day operations, new product development and customer and partner services and engagements.  Prior to joining DTS, Dave held a wide variety positions in gold, copper, and coal mining as well as the transportation industries. He started his career as a maintenance apprentice in the gold fields of Nevada for Newmont Gold (formerly Carlin Gold) where he was promoted from Mechanic-Welder to Maintenance Supervisor, Maintenance Planner, Maintenance Manager and finally as IT Project Manager. He also held a position as the GEM Coordinator-Manager in a process reengineering initiative to redesign all maintenance and operations process and technologies for the mineral and coal divisions. Koelzer held the position of Maintenance/Operations General Coordinator-Manager at the Belle Ayr Mine, and finally corporate IT Manager for the entire company with responsibilities for all corporate applications and networks.

Koelzer has designed, implemented, and managed a wide spectrum of IT applications including eMESA™ , MIMS/Ellipse, Lawson, Cybershift, SAP, Coal and Mineral Production Systems as well managing numerous IT initiatives for both surface and underground mining in the Financial, Sales-Transportation, Materials, Operations-Production, and Maintenance areas.

Control Your CMMS To Cut Costs.pdf

Maintenance and Steven Covey

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Maintenance Organizations
by Paul Swatkowski

Through his books and audio programs, Steven Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and other works, has been a great influence on me and many of my colleagues.  Over the years I’ve noticed a direct correlation of the practices of successful maintenance organizations and Dr. Covey’s seven habits.  This article is based directly on Dr. Covey’s seven habits.  It is drawn habit-by-habit from his book but with the examples modified to fit the maintenance world.

Covey first published his book in 1990.  More than 14 million copies have since been sold and it’s been translated into over a dozen languages.  In his book, Dr. Steven Covey breaks success in life down to the everyday practice of these seven habits:

      Habit 1 – Be Proactive
      Habit 2 – Begin with the end in mind
      Habit 3 – Put first things first
      Habit 4 – Seek Win/Win
      Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood
      Habit 6 – Synergize
      Habit 7 – Sharpen the Saw

These Habits not only apply to personal productivity, but to organizational productivity as well.

Each of these—and how they relate to maintenance organizations—are covered in detail in this article.  Here is the “Seven Habits” story and how it can be applied to any Maintenance Organization:

In his teachings, Dr. Covey  strongly encourages his students to go out and teach what they’ve learned as soon as possible after learning his material.  There are three reasons for this.  One, it reinforces the concepts for the person putting the teaching together.  Next, it spreads these concepts to others who might not be familiar with them, and third, it’s likely that many people hearing these ideas will be interested enough in what’s taught to pursue their education in these matters more fully.

The above scenario is what Covey refers to as a “win/win,” which is Habit 4.  The idea is you don’t stop here.  Reading or listening to these concepts once is great, but for them to really become “Habits” one must revisit the material over and over again—i.e. buy the book.  As more people in your maintenance department, and throughout your organization, adopt these habits, the culture will transform from the inside out.  Reliability based maintenance, and all the benefits that come with it, can become a way of life.

Habit 1 – Be Proactive

Being proactive is the ability to control one’s own environment, rather than have it control you.  It’s self determination.  It’s  choice.  It’s the power to decide your response to stimulus, conditions, and circumstances.

The title of the first habit, and our frequent use of the same term in the maintenance and reliability field, is what originally drew my attention to the correlation between Dr. Covey’s 7 Habits and successful maintenance organizations.  Reactive maintenance organizations have a tendency to jump or react when a piece of equipment fails. Proactive organizations respond based on a predetermined strategy.

Embracing Habit 1 means you are in the driver’s seat, and you can decide which  actions to take.

Take Charge: In a ranked list of companies in any industry, there is one at the top and one at the bottom.  Your organization is likely somewhere in-between.  Companies move up that list when they realize that doing things the way they have always been done continually yields the same results.  Organizations have the power to make the necessary changes to move up the ranks by choosing to take initiative, and embrace proactive change.

Realize That We Are Responsible: Being responsible is often viewed as being the person who should accept the blame when something goes wrong.  Accepting that, we can then identify all the necessary things that should be done to ensure that things don’t go wrong.  In other words, create the steps for success.

Step Down the Path of the Effective Organization: The organizations at the top of that list we mentioned have come to these realizations.  They’ve decided what works in their organization, and they have learned and reinforced the habits of doing it effectively.

Rule Your Equipment: When you are proactive you rule your equipment, it doesn’t rule you.  Successful organizations have found that the best way to do this is by moving up the F/PF (Failure/Potential Failure) Curve.  That move is accomplished primarily through the use of predictive methodologies (PdM) and quantifiable PMs integrated with good Planning and Scheduling.

Decide to Make a Plan: Then, do it.  Successful organizations design and build highly effective maintenance departments.  You have the power!  Deciding to make a plan segues us to Habit 2…

Habit 2 – Begin with the End in Mind

This is the habit of leadership—both personal and organizational—and leading yourself and the organization toward your goals.  Dr. Covey professes that everything is created twice—once in the mental realm and then a second time in the physical realm.  By first developing a clear mental vision of our desired results, we will be able to create the necessary steps to achieve that vision.  Habit two is all about creating that vision.

Effective maintenance organizations have taken the time to create strategy plans for various aspects of their organizations.  They make sure to include a good cross representation of the stakeholders in the formation of these plans.  The output is always a document that can then be referred to and adhered to.  Here are some  areas in which strategy plans should be created and questions that should be asked:

Maintenance Strategy:  Does a run-to-failure or a reactive strategy make sense to your organization?  Do you want your jobs planned and scheduled in advance?  Who in your organization should  decide which equipment gets repaired first?  What should the decision be based on—criticality of the equipment and job priority, or the squeaky wheel supervisor?

Reliability Strategy:  Are you going to use predictive methodologies on all of your equipment to which it applies?  Or, are you going to apply it only to certain systems?  Will you use on-line monitoring, or route-based monitoring?  Are quantitative PMs being utilized now, and if not, do you plan to apply the resources to scrub your PMs and make them better?  Do you use/will you use reliability engineers?

Material Strategy:  Will you have a lean storeroom, or a storeroom that never suffers stock outs?  What will you base that decision on?  Will you enter bill-of-material (BOM) data into your computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) ahead of time, or as you make entries for  equipment as it’s repaired?  Who’ll enter that data? What about kitting, or vendor managed inventories (VMI)? 

Employee Strategy: Have you identified the skills your employees need to perform their jobs well?  Do you know which employees have those skills and which don’t? Are you going to hire for new skills, use contractors, or train your existing employees in the new skills they need?  It’s obvious that having the answers to these questions in advance, can head off major  issues in the future.

In the graph shown in Figure 2, the top line is representative of companies that don’t have an end in mind.  They adopt reliability tools and strategies on an ad-hoc basis without ever reaping the synergistic benefits of a good reliability program.  Without a plan, you’re planning to fail.  When you begin with the end in mind—an end that entails an efficient and effective maintenance organization, that utilizes its CMMS to the fullest, that plans and schedules jobs in advance, and engineers the root cause of failures out of their equipment—you will see the earliest rewards for your efforts and investments.  Keep in mind, those rewards are not only financial as shown by the green line in the graph, but are also quality-of-life issues,  i.e., no more calls in the middle of the night on a weekend.  A well run Maintenance department should be boring. 

Habit 3 – Put First Things First

This is the habit of personal management.  But, it applies to organizations as well.  It’s about organizing and implementing activities in line with the aims established in Habit 2.  If Habit 2 is the first, or mental creation of a vision, then Habit 3 is the second, or physical creation of that vision via the creation of, and adherence to, an organized implementation plan. 

Having a documented plan allows important activities (urgent or not) to never be at the mercy of the unimportant activities (urgent or not).

The steps of a successful  organization’s implementation plan are  determined through the assessment of their maintenance and reliability practices.  This is usually best accomplished when done by an outside, or objective, set of eyes.  The improvement steps resulting from these assessments include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

Business Processes:
   - Instituting a cultural change management program
   - Developing key performance indicators (KPIs)
   - Developing workflows for all key processes

Foundational Elements:
   -  Verifying/scrubbing of the Master Equipment List (MEL)
   -  Criticality ranking of equipment

 Inventory Strategy:
   -  Standardization of inventory content/taxonomy
   -  BOM development
   -  Storeroom design & kitting integration
   -  Stock optimization

Reliability:
   -  Determination of PdM baseline
   -  Performance of RCM and FMEA on applicable systems and equipment
   -  Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCMA)
   -  Application of appropriate PdM
   -  PM development and/or optimization

Training:
   -  Skills needs analysis
   -  Skills assessments
   -  Training Plan & Schedule

Steps should be included to ensure the plans are tracked, measured, adjusted if necessary, and adhered to.

Focus Efforts Where They Count:  In Dr. Covey’s words, “Is your ladder against the right wall?”  I’ve often asked maintenance organizations,  “If two pieces of equipment go down at the same time, and you only have one crew to repair them, which one do you send the crew to first?  Some of the answers are amazing.  There should be no hesitation.  Crews should be assigned according to equipment criticality and job priority.   Following the seven habits  eliminates this dilemma because during Habit 2, such rules were constructed with input from the appropriate parties.  Everyone is aware of the strategy,  and is on the same page.

Using Dr. Covey’s time management matrix, reproduced in Figure 3, allows us to identify where our time is being spent.

Quadrant I is where reactive organizations spend most of their time.  Emergency breakdowns and fire fighting take place in Quadrant I.  These are things that are usually both  important and urgent.

Quadrant II  is where activities that are important, but not urgent, take place.  It’s activities in this quadrant  that keep us out of Quadrant I.   Reactive organizations have not yet made this realization.

In our personal life, these are activities such as exercising, eating right, and going for medical and dental checkups.  Maintenance-related Quadrant II activities include:  equipment inspections, quantitative PMs, implementing and using predictive methodologies, creation of workflows, training to workflows, and entering foundational data into the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).  By living in Quadrant II, we proactively head off the causes that have us work in Quadrant I.  Remember, Quadrant I activities are more expensive because they are unplanned, and unplanned activities are always more expensive than planned activities.

Habit 4 – Think Win-Win

Dr. Covey calls this the habit of interpersonal leadership, necessary because achievements are largely dependent on cooperative efforts with others.  He says that win-win is based on the assumption that there is plenty for everyone, and that success follows a cooperative approach more naturally than the confrontation of win/lose situations.

When a successful organization finds a solution to a situation they always ask, “How is this going to affect the processes before and after this one?”  If it’s going to help one area but hurt another, then in the long run it’s not going to work.  All solutions have to help all the parties concerned.  Some groups to consider:  finance, purchasing, operations, marketing,  human resources, employees, stockholders, the neighboring community,  even the local business owner down the street.  We’re all on the same team.

An example of a win/win can be found in organizations that practice full integration between maintenance and operations.  Communicating with operations to schedule planned maintenance activities within a reasonable timeframe allows both parties to better utilize their resources and adhere to their schedules.

Habit 5 – Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

One of the great maxims of the modern age, this is Covey’s habit of communication, and it’s extremely powerful.  Covey helps to explain this in his simple analogy “diagnose before you prescribe”, which is simple,  effective, and essential for developing and maintaining positive relationships in all aspects.  Habit 5 is about communication and listening to the customer—in this case operations, employees, and management.

What do they mean when they say no?  In presentations, I’ve often used the story of a production supervisor who refused to let a maintenance department have a piece of equipment for as long as they said they needed it.

What did the supervisor really mean when he said they couldn’t have the equipment for eight hours?   Did he mean that if maintenance had the equipment for eight hours he wouldn’t make his production for the month?  Did he mean he believed the equipment may be down longer?   Maybe he felt that if it was down eight hours he’d have to go over his overtime targets for the month.  Did he mean he’d rather have the job done partially or incorrectly?  It’s possible that any or all of the first three may be true, but it’s highly unlikely that he’d want the job done partially or incorrectly only to have it fail again later, especially if that meant he wouldn’t make his targets under any possible recovery plan.  Until we know what exactly his concerns are, how do we know how to find the win-win in that situation?

In dealing with any party, a highly effective maintenance organization should seek to find out what the concerns of the party are before formulating a response.

“If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me, you first need to
understand me” – Steven Covey

Habit 6 – Synergy

Covey says this is the habit of creative cooperation.  The principle is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which implicitly lays down the challenge to see the benefits and potential in another person’s contribution.

In our example earlier, operations didn’t want to have the machine down at all, and maintenance felt they needed it for a full eight hours to repair the equipment properly.  What if they compromised and agreed to repairing the equipment in four hours?  In that case, neither party would get what they wanted.  In reality, that’s a lose-lose situation, the worst of the four possible outcomes in Habit 4.

Compromise should be a red flag that things aren’t right.  Instead, to find the win-win, one must proactively seek first to understand what it is that operations really needs.  It might turn out that it’s just not a good time for the equipment to be down.   It’s possible that it wasn’t a good time for maintenance either.  Maybe maintenance needed eight hours  because the welder was out, or a necessary part wasn’t in-house, so a part would have to be fabricated.  During the conversation, it may be discovered that a combination of a temporary repair and a reduced load would allow operations to get their production out and allow maintenance to order the part and align all the necessary resources to fix the job right.

Now, instead of a lose-lose, there is a win-win.  Seeking to understand the other group’s needs is key in establishing trust between departments.  Some common activities during which synergy takes place in highly successful organizations are: Reliability Centered Maintenance Analysis (RCMA) sessions, Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA), Criticality  Ranking sessions, and through Planner’s reviews of feedback forms completed by craftsmen at the close of Planned Maintenance activities.

Habit 7 – Sharpen the Saw

Habit 7 is the law of continuous improvement.  It’s about personal development and the development of personnel.  We read articles like this one and attend seminars and conferences because we want to develop our skills, and that’s very admirable.  Part of our employee strategy mentioned in Habit 2 may revolve around training or Sharpening the Saw.  Effective organizations recognize that employees can’t be held responsible to do something in a certain way, if they haven’t been properly trained.  They commonly use workflows as the preferred method of mapping out organizational activities that can then be easily followed and adhered to.  They also recognize that precision maintenance skills and predictive maintenance skills are not always skills craftspeople bring to the company with them. 

When companies proactively train personnel, they must first establish the end goal.  For example, an end goal might be for employees to perform the tasks as outlined in the job plans.  Some necessary first steps would be to find out what skills are needed to accomplish that and what skills they already possess.  Doing so allows for targeted training, which is less expensive than blanket training and is also more palatable to the student—another win/win.  Learning additional skills often leads to job enhancement, which usually leads to job enrichment for the employee.

Conclusion

This is an extremely high overview of the 7 Habits and how they apply to successful maintenance organizations.  Dr. Covey is listed as one of Time Magazine’s 25 Most Influential People for good reason.  Practicing the 7 Habits has increased the productivity and quality of life of countless people.  Read and re-read these 7 Habits looking for more ways in which they can apply in your life and in your organization.   Research the topic more by  reading or listening to the original works by Dr. Steven Covey or by contacting the author of this article.

Paul Swatkowski, CMRP, is a management/training consultant with 29 years of manufacturing, processing, and consulting experience.  Paul has a background as a Trainer at United Technologies’ Corporate University, and worked as a Quality Manager and Quality Engineer in the Aviation Industry.  He has extensive experience which includes world-wide delivery of; Corporate Gap Analysis Assessments, Total Productive Manufacturing, One Piece Flow, Kanban, 5S-Space consolidation, Value Stream Mapping, Root Cause Analysis, Mistake Proofing, Lean Manufacturing, Inventory Reduction, Reliability Centered Maintenance Analysis, Failure Modes & Effects Analysis, Workflow Development, and Maintenance Planning and Scheduling.  A proven problem solver, Paul is highly effective at conveying the necessary information to foster change.  He defines, develops, and delivers world-class training in maintenance and reliability best-practices to external MRG customers as well as internal employees.  Paul has direct hands-on experience with instructional design methods  and has led delivery of over 100 formal customer training courses in both on-site and public venues internationally.  He can be reached at SwatkowskiP@MRGinc.net

Maintenance and Steven Covey.pdf

Tap Into Infrared

Successful Programs Can Be Outsourced or Run In-House
by Jeffrey L. Gadd

Infrared thermography is emphatically embraced by those who have realized the benefits.  Equally, infrared is dismissed by those who aren’t quite sure what it is or whether it has value.  “I’ve been here twenty years and we never needed infrared” are words on the lips of more than one old salt.  Well, things change, and this is an exciting time for those of us who are involved in the IR technology.  When evaluating this technology for your operation there are two methods to consider, specifically; should you develop an in-house program or outsource the work? Training and experience of the thermographer and the quality of the infrared (IR) camera used on the job are both a critical part of the equation. Figuring out which camera is the best value can be tricky, so proper research on the subject and some due-diligence are required for you to be able to “tap into infrared”.

In-House vs. Outsourced

This is simple: unplanned downtime = lost money.  For companies with critical operations, 24/7 manufacturing and a proactive mindset, an in-house program makes good business sense.  Many companies have successfully implemented in-house programs; for example, 2006 Uptime PdM Program of the Year Infrared winners Johns Manville in Kansas, and 2007 Infrared winners Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) at Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee, to name a couple.  These are examples of world class in-house P/PM programs.  Many companies must outsource this type of work as it is not economically feasible to have an in-house program.  The biggest benefit to outsourcing is that there is no long term commitment and the costs are generally lower –but so are the returns on investment.  Not having an on-site IR camera system makes troubleshooting using IR impossible.

Training and Education (In-House)

Training is a critical step if you have an in-house program or are planning to start one. In the case of electrical infrared inspections, a person with an electrical background is the ideal person to train on infrared if they have the right personality.  Someone that is timid is not a good candidate.  While performing electrical inspections, there are a lot of considerations.  Safety is the first, but you also need a person who understands the equipment, i.e., switchgear, buss ducts, fuse clips, control transformers, etc., so that they can identify what they are looking at.

Next, never make the thermographer responsible for the repairs when he or she finds problems, even if they are capable of accomplishing, them because it is not efficient.  Infrared thermography has not quite progressed into a science, so it is still somewhat of an art form. This leads to wild variances in the number of reportable findings.  Training and mentoring by an experienced thermographer is key.  There are other personality factors to consider.  Some people will over-report even if this creates more work for them.  Others will not report all the problems because they don’t want to repair them, or they think maybe it will be OK until the next scan or the classic “I’m quitting soon, so I don’t really care” attitude.

Training and Experience (Outsourced)

Training and experience of the thermographer are the two factors that should drive the purchase of any service.  A technician from a professional infrared service company has most likely [but not certainly] had some sort of formal training and on the job training.   However, the more important component is to find someone with a considerable amount of experience.  No one wants an untrained thermographer with a low-resolution IR camera learning how to do electrical infrared surveys at their facility.  You must qualify the contractor by inquiring as to what type of training they have had, what references they have and what experience they have accumulated.

Many companies that we have dealt with in the past (even ones that have eventually hired us), at first, judge the company solely by the cost of my service –which is not the right way to buy any service, and certainly not infrared services.  Recently a company brought me in for what seemed to be an “interview” and plant tour.  Both the maintenance manager and plant manager had prepared questions to find out what we could and could not do.  It was refreshing to see people take a genuine interest in evaluating my skills, my company’s capabilities and the cost of the services.  This is one of few companies in recent years that have taken the time to find out what they are really paying for.

Evaluating samples of past IR projects by the thermographer is important and effective.  When someone prepares a sample project, they will naturally use some of their more impressive imagery.  If the thermographer shows you images that look like the ones on the left in either Figure 1 or Figure 2, it should let you know that you definitely do not want to hire them since you are probably looking at their “best” work.

Infrared Cameras (In-House and Outsourced)

To effectively contract IR services, one needs to evaluate not only the thermographer’s capabilities, but also the equipment specified.  The specification should be based on performance and not brand-specific.  In other words, the specification should not read: “the IR camera used shall be a Brand-X, Model-Y”.  Instead the spec should be about the technical characteristics of the camera, such as the minimum spatial resolution and the minimum thermal sensitivity.

Other considerations when specifying IR cameras are:

  •  Proprietary infrared software compatibility and usability 
  •  Lens options (telephoto, wide-angle)
  •  Built-in visual camera
  •  Built-in voice recording & data-logging
  •  Built-in laser pointer
  •  Extra (and standard!) batteries
  •  Adaptability to infrared windows (to increase safety and lower PPE requirements)

Once you have narrowed down your selection of cameras to a couple, ask for demonstrations of the units and the software for each.  Bear in mind that the newest trend on the lower end cameras is for the manufacturers to sell through distributors instead of reps.  Distributors don’t have the margins to sell by demonstration, so they will resist.  Now, if you want a demo of a $35K camera, I promise a representative will make time for you.

Conclusions

When evaluating what infrared technology can do for your operation, there are many considerations.  In-house programs can be very successful, but are highly prone to failure if you select the wrong personnel and if the program is not given full support by management.  If you outsource your infrared services, set up an “interview” with the contractors and have lots of questions ready.  At the end of the interview, you should know if this contractor will not meet, meet or probably exceed your expectations.  When specifying an IR camera purchase, consider hiring a thermographer who knows the IR market to be your consultant.  Many cameras have features that are not necessary and overpriced.  Do your homework each step of the way and you will see positive results and a positive impact to your company’s bottom line.

Jeffrey L. Gadd is the owner of Vision Infrared Services (www.visioninfrared.com) in Cleveland, OH. He is a Level II Infrared Thermographer and has an AAS in Industrial Electricity along with 12 years experience as a electrician and maintenance technician. You can contact Jeff with questions at 440-554-3620 or e-mail to: jeff@visioninfrared.com

Tap Into Infrared.pdf

Reduce the Red by Going Green

Increase Pump Uptime, Decrease Costs With Water Management System For Mechanical Seals
by Chris Rehmann

Rising cost and shrinking availability of clean water for operating industrial pumps are of concern to many plant managers, as is as the high cost of treating this water for disposal.  For over a half-century, the accepted method of providing cooling and flush water for mechanical seals and packing has been to pipe plant water through the seal or packing, and then to drain.  Under this scenario, the normal consumption of water is 1.7 million gallons of water per pump, per year. 

A water management system that cools and re-circulates the water can reduce this water consumption to just a few gallons per year.  This water management system also increases the pump reliability and mean time between failures (MTBF) significantly, with a return on investment (ROI) that is usually around 6-12 months.  Additionally, significant energy savings is documented through the use of this system, by greatly reducing or eliminating the amount of energy needed to heat the flush water up to process temperatures, and then to boil/evaporate this water from the product.  

Water, Water Everywhere…

“Almost 3 billion people will face severe shortages of water by 2025 if the world keeps consuming water at current rates…”  United Nations Report

“Even where supplies are sufficient or plentiful, they are increasingly at risk from pollution and rising demand.  Fierce national competition over water resources has prompted fears that water issues contain the seeds of violent conflict…”  Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General

“The simple fact is that there is a limited amount of water on the planet, and we cannot afford to be negligent in its use.  We cannot keep treating it as if it will never run out…”  Mohammed El Baradei, Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency

Of all the world’s water, 97.4% is salt water, 2% is frozen in glaciers and ice caps, and only 0.6% is available for human consumption and industrial use.  As the above quotes illustrate, our water supplies are finite; the sources of supply are becoming increasingly polluted, and are asked to supply ever-larger volumes.  The United States is struggling with long-term water shortages in California and the Southeast, shortages which will not be overcome by one or two good years of rainfall.  We have also heard about the serious drop in the water level of the Ogallala Aquifer which underlies 8 central states, from North Dakota to Texas, due to over-pumping of this water resource for crop irrigation. 

Clean, fresh water is a limited resource which is under increasing pressure on our planet.  There are compelling reasons to actively pursue water conservation measures that are both proven and economically justified.

The Impact of Industry

The 2nd most common machine in industry (after the electric motor) is the pump (Figure 1).  It is estimated that there are about 600 million industrial pumps in the world (not counting about one billion pumps in domestic use, such as dishwashers, clothes washers, automobile water pumps, etc).  These industrial pumps rely on a mechanical seal (Figure 2) or packing to seal the rotating shaft and contain the pressurized liquid within.  Mechanical seals and packing require clean fluid, usually water, and lots of it, for cooling and lubrication.  As our world has become more industrialized, the population of pumps has grown accordingly,  and so has our demand for clean water to service these pumps.

However, the rising cost of water, along with increasing awareness of the long-term consequences of unrestricted water use, has caused many forward-thinking companies to reconsider their traditional, wasteful water use practices.  Moderate investments in proven new water-conserving technology can achieve financial payback within the first year, while also having beneficial effects on our global water supply that will last for decades.

The Importance of a Fluid Film

Process pumps usually use a mechanical seal to contain the pressurized fluid by creating a sliding seal between the rotating shaft and the pump housing.  This mechanical seal is engineered to operate with a thin fluid film separating the highly-polished rotating and stationary seal faces (Figure 3). The face materials and seal design are selected specifically for the particular pump application parameters and fluid properties (pressure, temperature, viscosity, etc.).  The fluid film may consist of either the pumped process fluid, or a special fluid such as clean water may be introduced under pressure if the process fluid is not suitable (e.g., if it is too hot, too high solids content, tends to crystallize, etc.)
 
If this fluid film is not stable or not present, the two faces will contact, overheat, and damage each other and  the mechanical seal will fail, causing the pump to fail (see Figure 4).  When the seal fails, the entire pump unit is removed and repaired, at an average cost of $2,500 per repair.  This is the maintenance cost (parts and labor) only and does not include the value of lost production, which can be thousands of dollars per hour.

The fluid film can be adversely affected by process upsets that lead to dry-running of the seal, which can include:

  •  Process changes upstre am that lead to no liquid product at the pump.

  •  Operator error (opening or closing a valve which stops product flow to the pump, etc.)

  •  Cavitation, where there is inadequate net-positive suction head to the pump and the liquid
     product changes into a vapor state at the impeller.

Mechanical seal faces can also be damaged by product crystallization due to temperature and pressure changes across the face.  Suspended solids in the pumped liquid are another major cause of seal damage, and these solids must be kept away from the faces with a supply of cle an water to form the fluid film or the seal will fail prematurely.

Old “Water-to-Drain” Plan

Many industrial plants supply their double mechanical seals with a fresh supply of barrier water using the “water-to-drain” method, or API Plan 54 (shown in Figure 5). 

In the water-to-drain plan, plant water is supplied to all of th e double mechanical seals in parallel from a water header main.  This plan can work satisfactorily if all conditions start out perfectly and stay perfect, but as we know, this level of perfection is rarely found or maintained in a real, operating, industrial plant.  The water-to-drain plan is prone to process upsets that cause seals and pumps to fail, for example:

1. Water will take the path of least resistance.  If the pressure and flow rates of each branch of
    the piping are not set exactly right at startup, most of the water will selectively flow through
    the pipe with the least resistance, leaving the other seals to starve for water and seal
    failures can result.

2. If one mechanical s eal fails and allows process fluid to enter the water supply line. All of
    the seals can be cross-contaminated and thus lead to multiple seal failures.

3. If an alternative flow path is created, for example by an operator turning on a large water
    line for wash-down, the pressure and flow of water to the seals will drop and this could
    lead to seal failures.

4. If the quality of the water being supplied by this system is poor, it will lead to solids being
    delivered to, and collecting on, the seal faces; this will lead to premature seal failure.

In addition to these failure modes, water-to-drain has the following cost cons iderations:

  •  If the supply water is being purchased from a municipal supply, the cost of the water can
     be very high, as can be the cost of treatment and disposal of the waste water.

  •  The typical water flow rate on a water-to-drain plan runs an average of 3.2 gallons per
     minute to drain.  Running 24/7, this amounts to a staggering 1.7 million gallons of water
     per year, per pump, running to the drain.

New Water Saving Solution

The solution to the shortcomings of the water-to-drain plan is to install a water management system tank above each pump (shown in Figure 6).  Recall that the sliding faces of the mechanical seal (at lower left in Figure 6) create frictional heat in the seal.  Heat is also added to the seal by the hot pumpage.  Hot barrier water from the double seal rises up to the tank via the upper tube, where the heat is radiated to the atmosphere; the cooled barrier water is then returned to the seal through the lower tube.  Circulation of the barrier water from the seal to the t ank, and back to the seal, is maintained by the thermo-syphon effect (basically, hot water rises and cool water falls), with no moving parts.  In cases where more flow of the barrier fluid is required, pumping assistance can be obtained from an optional bi-directional pumping ring in the seal itself. 

The tank is connected to the plant water main and automatically tops up with water to replace the very small amount (about 30 gallons per year) of barrier water that is lost at the seal faces during normal operation.  The tank is maintained at a pre-set pressure that is one bar (15 psi) above the pump’s  stuffing-box pressure, to maintain a positive pressure differential across the seal faces that ensures clean barrier water is forming the fluid film (as opposed to process liquid).  Additional cooling can be accomplished, where necessary, by adding fins to the tubing, adding a cooling coil to the tank, and/or using a larger tank. 
 
A diagram of a typical multi-pump layout is shown in Figure 7.  Each tank system serves just one seal/pump set, and is isolated from all other tanks.  (Note that only 3 tanks/pumps are shown in the figure, but many hundreds of tanks/pumps are often connected in practice.) 

The advantages of this system include:

•  The waste water-to-drain is completely eliminated, with huge savings in water resources,
   the cost of water, and the cost of treating waste water.  A single tank/seal combination
   typically uses only about 30 gallons of water per year, thus typically saving 1.7 million
   gallons per pump per year.
 
•  Water from the plant main line passes through a check valve which prevents contamination
   caused by a seal failure from passing back into the main, so each pump and seal is isolated;
   one seal failure does not adversely affect other pumps. 

•  A pressure regulator on the water feed line into each tank sets the tank pressure at the
   correct pressure for that pump, so each pump can operate at a different pressure and
   have a fluid film that is maintained at 1 bar (15 psi) over its stuffing box pressure.  Note
   that the maximum pressure possible in each tank is equal to the plant’s main water line
   pressure.

•  Each tank/seal/pump is a stand-alone system; change s in the operating conditions of one
   pump or the water flow to one seal do not affect the water flow to the seals of any other
   pump.

•  Changes in the main line pressure, such as turning on a wash-down hose, do not affect the
   operation or the pressure in the tank systems, as each tank is isolated by its own check
   valve.

•  The water quality is greatly improved by installing a filter on the incoming line to each tank. 
   Since only about 30 gallons of water are used per tank per year, the filter will last a long
   time before plugging.  Cleaner water leads to longer seal life.

 

Additional Savings

In addition to eliminating water-to-drain and the pump seal life extension, there is one more way that water management systems save plants large sums of money, in those instances where the plant is using single  mechanical seals.  Figure 8 shows an API Plan 32 on a single mechanical seal, where clean water is used to flush and cool the seal faces.  Cold water passes from the incoming line at upper left in the figure, into the stuffing box, and directly into the hot product.  As much as 3 million gallons of water per year can be injected into the process liquid by a single pump using API Plan 32.  In many processes this water must be heated up to the process temperature and ultimately evaporated out of the product, using large amounts of additional energy.

On a typical pulp and paper mill sealing application, with the incoming flush water at 60° F, and mixing with process fluid at 140° F, the cost of energy for heating the flush water to process temperature costs $4,000 per year.  The energy to evaporate this water at the end of the process costs an additional $9,000 per year.  Ironically, this API Plan 32 water addition is not easily visible and so this huge water usage, and resulting waste of energy, is often not even recognized as such by the plant operator. 

A water management tank system used with a double mechanical seal to replace the single mechanical seal in Figure 8, eliminates both the wasted water and energy by re-circulating and cooling the barrier water to the seal faces.

CASE HISTORY #1:  Tanks, Double Seal and Flow Fuse on Agitator

Guinness/Diageo, a major beer brewery in Dublin, Ireland, was experiencing failures of the single mechanical seals on their hot wort agitators about every 6 months.  The vessels on which the agitators are mounted contain about 25,000 gallons each and must be drained completely for an overhaul, leading to a great deal of down time and lost production.  When the seals failed, the wort leaked straight onto the floor, causing a loss of valuable product, as well as a safety hazard.  Any proposed remedy had to also prevent the addition of water into the vessel, since dilution of the product was not allowed at this point in the process.

The proposed solution was a double mechanical seal with a water management system.  Because the hot wort could not withstand dilution, the system includes the Flow Fuse automatic valve shown in Figures 9 and 10 below, which detects an abnormally high water flow rate and shuts off the plant water main supply to the tank system.  This action protects the hot wort product by preventing water entry into the agitator in the event of an inboard mechanical seal failure.

    

The water management system package has been in place for 2 years with no seal failures (recall that the previous MTBF was six months).  The payback period based only on the cost of repairs (not including lost production) was only 180 days.

CASE HISTORY #2:  Tanks & Double Seals Replace API Plan 32 Single Seals

A pulp & paper mill in the USA uses API Plan 32 (Figure 8) to flush their single seals, with considerable energy required to (a) heat this flush water up to process temperatures, and (b) evaporate this excess water off at the end of the process.  Five bleach filter pumps were fitted with water management tank systems and double seals in October 2008, and monitored over the following 9 months.  First year savings (from energy, water, wastewater, and reliability) were calculated at $41,800, with an ROI payback on the investment cost (parts and labor) of the new tanks and seals of 1.2 years.

Spurred on by these excellent results, the paper mill has now completed a comprehensive mill survey to look for additional savings opportunities.  A total of 604 pumps/seals were surveyed, and 144 pumps (24% of total) were deemed to be “highly energy inefficient”.  A capital project is being considered to convert these 144 pumps to double seals and tanks.  Annual savings are conservatively estimated to be $473,000 per year, with water savings of 174 million gallons per year.

CASE HISTORY #3 :  Tanks Replace API Plan 54 Water-to-Drain

At a food processing operation with a total of 6,300 pumps, water management tank systems have been installed on 1,310 (20% of total) of the most arduous “bad actor” pumps over a six year period. Of the 1,310 upgrades, 750 (57%) are running with no failures since the upgrades began in 2001.  Prior to the upgrades the seal life for the population of 1,310 pumps was 2.58 years.  After the water management systems were installed, the seal life improved to 3.42 years. 

The upgraded population of pumps had 2,127 failures prior to the upgrade, and only 1,059 failures after the upgrade (during the six year period). Using an average cost of a pump repair of $2,500, we find the following savings in avoided repair costs:

Cost of repairs prior to Upgrade: 2,127 failures X $2,500/repair =     $5,317,500

Cost of repairs after Upgrade:     1,059 failures X $2,500/repair =     $2,647,500

Repair Costs Avoided:                                                                        $2,670,000

Total cost of the 1,310 water management systems:                         $1,345,000

The savings to the equipment owner, based on equipment life alone, resulting from the upgrade to water management systems is thus $2,670,000 - $1,345,000 = $1,325,000.  Additional savings have been realized from the 1,310 pumps X 1.7 million gallons per pump per year = 2.2 Billion gallons of water saved per year.

Summary

Water management tank systems, used in conjunction with double mechanical seals on pumps, agitators, and mixers, will generate significant cost savings due to:

  •  Virtually no water usage and no associated costs for either buying city water or treatment
     of pond water.  Savings of 1.7 million gallons of water per pump, per year have been
     frequently documented when used on API Plan 54.

  •  No waste water treatment and disposal; again, as much as 1.7 million gallons per pump
     per year on API Plan 54.

  •  No energy needed to heat the flush water introduced into the process up to process
     temperatures using an API Plan 32.

  •  No energy needed to boil/evaporate added flush water from the product (Plan 32).

  •  Increased pump lifetime and reduced pump overhaul costs.

  •  Less downtime and associated lost production.

These tank systems are pressurized by the plant water main to 1 bar (15 psi) above the pump stuffing box pressure.  The tanks use no moving parts, simply relying on the “thermo-syphon” process to circulate hot water away from the mechanical seal, release the heat to atmosphere, and return cool water to the mechanical seal.  This clean, re-circulated water extends the life of the mechanical seal and the uptime of the pump by flushing solids away from the seal faces, as well as cooling the seal faces.  The systems are maintenance-friendly, requiring no external compressed air for pressurization, and do not require any manual intervention for refilling.

The standard flow indicator gives a quick visual indication of an inboard seal failure, which is difficult and costly to identify otherwise.  An optional Flow Fuse will shut off the plant water supply when it detects an abnormally high flow of water, such as that caused by an inboard seal failure.

ROI payback periods for water management tank systems with double mechanical seals are typically 6 to 12 months, after which the tank systems continue to generate large savings for the remainder of their 10 to 20 year lifetimes.

Chris Rehmann is Marketing Manager for AESSEAL, Inc., (www.aesseal.com), who design and manufacture mechanical seals, seal support systems, and bearing protection, and sell these products from offices in 32 countries.  Chris earned a BSEE from the University of Notre Dame, and held various international management positions with an oilfield engineering firm for 15 years before joining AESSEAL’s North American headquarters in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2002.  He can be reached at chris.rehmann@aesseal.com. 

All illustrations courtesy of AESSEAL, Inc., Rockford, TN, USA.  Special thanks go to Cargill and Tim Goshert for their valuable contributions to this article, to Guinness/Diageo brewery for providing information and approval to use Case History #1, and to Terence McCarthy and Jonathan Broderick of AESSEAL, Ireland.

Reduce The Red By Going Green.pdf

Looking Up

What To Do After an Economic Crisis
by Ricky Smith, CMRP

Most companies have reduced costs during these tough economic times in order to survive – shutting down equipment, laying off or furloughing staff, extending time between rebuilds and preventive maintenance – without thinking about the preparation they should be taking in order to take advantage of the economic turnaround.  There will be winners and losers once the world economy turns around.  Companies that are prepared will win by shutting down their competition and demonstrating even higher profits than before the economic downturn.  This can be accomplished by focusing on “optimizing asset integrity at optimal cost”. 

Do You Want to be a Leader or a Laggard When the Economy
Turns Around?

Many industries have advanced maintenance and reliability in their operation and have taken great strides toward managing asset integrity.  By applying known maintenance and reliability best practices, they have been able to optimize asset integrity, reduce total cost and, at the same time, reducing overall risk.  But, most organizations are still trapped in the old way of thinking, and do not follow the true definition of asset integrity.  One good way to know where your organization stands is to answer these questions:

1.  Have your assets been ranked based on criticality?

The definition of critical equipment may vary from organization to organization. In fact, if it is not formalized, there may be several interpretations of equipment criticality within a single organization. The assumptions used to assess what equipment is critical are not technically based. As a result, when different individuals are asked to identify their critical equipment, they will likely select different pieces of equipment. Often we are told, “all of our equipment is critical!” Selections are based on individual opinions, lacking consensus or even basis in functional relevance to achieving business goals. The potential for equipment failure having significant safety, environmental or economic consequences may be overlooked.

A consistent definition for equipment criticality needs to be adopted. The definition used in the context of this article is:  Critical equipment is that equipment whose failure has the highest potential impact on the business goals of the company.

Each asset is ranked based on environmental impact, customer impact, cost, and more.  Remember 20% of your assets utilize 80% of your resources.  Criticality ranking is influenced by all key function leaders in an organization and their decision impacts which equipment to focus on with a strong maintenance strategy, equipment replacement strategy, PM/PdM compliance and planned and scheduled maintenance work.

 2.  Can you measure Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of your critical assets? 

This is a simple metric of measuring emergency or urgent work orders divided into time.  If your maintenance department cannot provide this information in a matter of minutes for the total operation or a critical asset then there are two problems:

A)   The maintenance software is not being used to its fullest potential, even though you
       may have spent millions to install and maintain it
B)   The maintenance department has not been educated in basic maintenance
       management principles

3.  Do you have 100% PM compliance and continue to have equipment breakdown?

It’s not too hard to figure this one out.  Take a sample of your current PM inspection sheets and if they do not prevent a failure mode, detect the presence of a failure mode or aren’t regulatory in nature then you have a problem.

4.  Are your total maintenance costs going down or are they flat?

If your maintenance costs continue to go up and you are adding staff or contractors, you are in what’s known as reactive maintenance mode.  Education of and implementation of best practices is the solution.  Having knowledge of common best practices will likely increase the frequency your maintenance staff and senior leadership chooses to apply in a given scenario.  The maintenance process is like a puzzle; if you want to see the whole picture, then all elements must be in place and applied at the right time.

In this article, we will discuss what are known as best practices in Asset Integrity and how they are applied to prepare an organization for the economic turn around.

Let’s look at Shell’s Asset Integrity and Risk Management Statement:

Asset Integrity and Process Safety Standards
We are committed to preventing incidents that put our people, neighbors, the environment and our facilities at risk.  Asset integrity and process safety means making sure our facilities are well designed, safely operated and properly maintained.

Webster’s Dictionary contains the following definitions:  Asset: anything of value that a corporation owns; and Integrity: firm adherence to a code.  So, it follows that the definition of Asset Integrity is:  anything of value that a corporation owns that is held in firm adherence to a code.

The Codes can be defined as ISO, ASQ, etc.  The question is to what level of adherence is your company meeting these codes?  Of course, you can say we satisfy environmental or safety codes by meeting PM compliance every month.  However, is this the intent of a true PM Program?  A preventive maintenance program is to prevent or predict a specific failure mode. All PM compliance tells us is that the PM is completed within some schedule, but it does not tell us if the PM is effective or not.  If something is of value then a corporation should want to ensure it is well protected from failure, especially if the failure results in unacceptable costs.

Let’s look at how this entire Asset Integrity process works.  Asset Integrity impacts safety, cost, and service to the customer.  It also impacts your competition.  If we look at the Market Survivor Model in Figure 1, it tells us a lot.

Any company will own a certain portion of market share.  The market price drives profits and your future.  With company “A” their market share is high, costs are low, and Asset Integrity is high, thus, they are prepared for economic turn around.  Company “B” has a large part of market share, however, their cost is higher than Company “A” and this puts them at some risk.  Their Asset Integrity is not optimized and thus their cost, along with risk, is higher.  Company “C” has the smallest market share and the largest cost.  A good example of a Company “C” would be Alcatel Telecommunications in 1999. The fiber optic cable business was growing at a rapid rate.  By assessing the current level of their Asset Integrity program, we found key areas of improvement and closed the gap quickly.  They went from being a “C” Company to an “A” Company within 6 months with a Return on Investment (ROI) of 8:1.  This involved the application of known best practices in maintenance and reliability.  Best practices are measurable and do impact the customer’s need in quality, delivery and price as seen in Figure 2.

Some of the Known Best Practices are:

Using the right metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to manage asset health effectively and efficiently –  such as:

1.  Mean Time Between Failures: Most companies don’t measure Mean Time Between
     Failures (MTBF), even though it’s the most basic measurement that quantifies reliability.
     MTBF is the average time an asset functions before it fails. MTBF should be used for:

       •  Overall Operation
       •  Area
       •  Asset Type

So, why don’t they measure MTBF?  We will discuss those reasons a little later.

2.  Percentage of Assets with No Identifiable Defects – This means you can Identify a
     component defect early enough in the failure cycle where work can be planned and
     scheduled effectively and without interrupting operations or customers

In this case everyone must understand the P-F Curve and how it impacts asset reliability (Figure 3).

“P” on the P-F Curve is the point at which failure begins on a specific component which will lead to catastrophic failure of an asset.  Once a failure begins, we call this a defect and the severity of the defect and criticality of the asset determines how quickly we respond to the problem.  If the defect severity is low and asset criticality is low, then there is no panic.

Tracking the percent of assets with “NO Identifiable Defect” is key to knowing the current health of your assets.  When the percentage of Assets with No Identifiable Defect is over 80%, there is no longer a need to track Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) because we are now in a proactive, not reactive mode.

An asset that has an identifiable defect is said to be in a condition RED.  An asset that does not have an identifiable defect is said to be in condition GREEN.  That is it.  It is that simple! There are no other “but’s”, “what if’s” or “if then’s”.   Yellow is an unknown and must be determined to be either Green or Red within 72 hours.  Figure 4 is an example of this metric.

Applying the right maintenance strategy at the right time – When an organization is focused on preventing and predicting failure modes, they can “Optimize Asset Integrity at an Optimal Cost” along with managing associated risks.  My question to you is…

“Do you know the failure modes of your critical assets, and if so, are you applying the right maintenance strategy at the right time?”

An example of a failure mode would be pump bearing failure which could have been caused by poor alignment practices.  If an inspection checklist for alignment had been followed, the problem would have been found.  A failure modes analysis would identify Vibration Analysis as the most cost effective maintenance strategy for detecting alignment problems.  Vibration Analysis will indicate if the shafts are in alignment, if a bolt is loose on the motor, if the pump has bearing stress, etc.

Failure of critical assets is unacceptable, as is spending too much money on reliability.  The focus should be on applying the maintenance strategy, which predicts or prevents a failure mode in the most cost effective manner.

Identifying the Most Dominant Failure Pattern in your Operation – Many organizations today are focusing their resources on the most dominant failure pattern in their operation instead of reacting to problems.  Identifying the most dominant failure pattern allows a company to focus on the common thread which has the largest impact on Asset Integrity.  The US Navy conducted a study of their assets and found the most dominant failure pattern was infant mortality and considered the findings to be unacceptable.  They put forth an effort to reduce infant mortality of their assets.  Focusing on the dominant failure pattern allowed them  to identify commonalities between different types of assets.  They were successful in doing so as the percentage of Infant Failures dropped from 69% to 6%, which had a significant impact on their overall Asset Integrity. 

The failure patterns shown in Figure 5 were conducted back in the 1960s by United Airlines.  These failure patterns have been found to be the same across different industry verticals.

Causes of Infant Mortality has been found to be the same in most industries.  Here are a few examples of Infant Mortality:

Number 1: Lack of effective preventive, corrective and lubrication work procedures.

Number 2: Employees fail to follow the steps for a given procedure because either they do not agree with them or there is a lack of leadership follow-up.

Number 3: No contamination control – personnel apply grease into perfectly good bearings with contaminated grease on the end of lube fittings on the motors or the lube guns.

Number 4: Not removing the relief plug on large motors to relieve oil grease to purge out of the motor.  Walk out to a 30-100 HP motor and look for a plug under the motor bearing and see if the plug has ever been removed.  My guess is that is hasn’t.

 

Number 5: Welding on equipment without attaching the ground lead within 6” of the weld.   Most construction and maintenance personnel attach the ground for welding as close to the welding machine as possible, thus allowing current to flow to the path of least resistance (aluminum conduit, etc.).  We do not want arcing between bearings, motor stators, electrical circuits, etc.  If the welding lead and ground lead on your (or your contractor’s) welding machine is not the same length, then it will cause either infant mortality or random failures.

This list could go on and on.  Just remember that if you could reduce the occurrence of this failure pattern by 50%, you will make a large impact on both asset reliability and cost.

The ultimate goal is to extend the life of the equipment without seeing “P” on the P-F Curve.  You can accomplish this by applying Precision Maintenance, which includes training craft personnel, effective work procedures, etc.  Look at the I-P Curve in Figure 7, and decide on which curve your maintenance staff is currently working.  This is exactly what the US Navy did, and their results speak for themselves.

I am sure that some people will say, “we do not have infant mortality”. Well, I hope that after reading this article, you actually investigate for yourself.  If you would like a longer list, send me an e-mail and tell me which industry you are in, and  I will share industry specific issues which cause infant mortality.  The long I-P will never be obtained as long as the focus is not on the reduction of infant mortality by everyone from Project Engineering to Operators.

What a Successful Asset Integrity Manager Does

A successful Asset Integrity Manager focuses on providing reliability to an operation at the rate which its customers demand.  However, we know this is not easy.  Many organizations have spent millions of dollars performing Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) on their assets with what seems like very little Return on the Investment (ROI).

Doug Plucknette, a noted RCM expert and author states in his book Reliability Centered Maintenance using RCM Blitz, “The key to RCM was abandoning the philosophy of “preserve-equipment” in favor of “preserve-function”.  Simply put, equipment became the means to an end, not the end in itself.”  Doug has performed RCM on thousands of assets world wide and is noted among the best in the business.

Past studies have concluded that a maintenance policy based on operating age would have little, if any, impact on failure rates.  Thus, applying time-based maintenance on equipment which has no “wear-out” pattern is futile.  This conclusion forced a change in philosophy from, “It wasn’t broken, but we fixed it anyway” to “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”.  These studies also concluded that:

1.  Time-based maintenance works only for a small percentage of components, and then only
     when there is solid information on their “wear-out” characteristics.

2.  Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) is the preferred option.  That means monitoring,
     observing and taking non-intrusive actions, such as lubricating and cleaning, until a
     conditionsignals that corrective action is necessary. This means striking the balance
     between PM and Condition Monitoring (CBM) / Predictive Maintenance (PdM).

We know it to be a fact that the cost to repair increases the longer we wait to correct a known defect, and that the time in the x-axis on the P-F Curve is an unknown.  We can’t determine how long that interval is, nor can we tell when something is going to fail (Figure 8).

If you hear people say, “I think it will last a little longer,” when a defect has been identified using one of the Condition Monitoring technologies (IR, UE, Vibe etc.), then you are taking a great risk if you leave that equipment in service.  You should be using asset criticality and defect severity to determine when to make the repair.  Have you ever seen a large pump fail after the bearing defect has been identified 6 months earlier?  It is all about risk and the consequence of that risk.
 
3.  Run-to-failure is a viable tactic in situations where there is little economic and no safety
     or environmental impact.

4.  In a significant number of situations, the very act of maintenance itself causes subsequent
     failure of the equipment.  This should be more clearly defined.  This suggests that even if
     we do maintenance correctly, we still cause problems.

5.  Non-intrusive maintenance tasks should be used instead of intrusive maintenance
     whenever possible.  In other words, don’t do any maintenance, except monitoring and
     non-intrusive sustaining actions, until condition directs intrusive corrective action. 

A simple example is v-belt tension.  The PM states “Check tension of Belt”.  The equipment is stopped, the belt checked and found to be “loose”, so the mechanic tensions the belt using his hand as the tension gauge.  It is highly probable he has over tensioned the belt because if he under-tensioned it you would hear the belt squeal when it returns to full speed and load.  Over-tensioning of the belt will cause bearing failure.  Why not use Infrared Inspection and look for belt slippage while the equipment is running (Figure 9)?

You must move from being a PM Centric organization to a truly PdM Centric organization if you ever want to obtain “Optimal Asset Integrity at Optimal Cost”. PdM is the most non-intrusive and precise method for conducting inspections while the machine is running under full load.

In his book, Plant Engineer’s Handbook, Keith Mobley links the following benefits to PdM:

  •  Maintenance costs - down by 50%
  •  Unexpected failures - reduced by 55%
  •  Repair and overhaul time - down by 60%
  •  Spare parts inventory - reduced by 30%
  •  30% increase in machinery Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
  •  30% increase in uptime

Now these numbers may seem high. But even if you take only a fraction of these benefits the financial impact of an effective PdM program at most organizations can easily reach into millions of dollars.

Despite what you may have heard, the foundation of a successful, comprehensive inspection program is simple: a detailed equipment list.

Why?  Because your equipment list is the foundation for all of the key steps that follow. For example, a good list is essential for:

  •  Identifying how your equipment can fail (identifying failure modes)
  •  Choosing the right PdM technologies to apply to the asset
  •  Determining the ideal amount of PdM coverage for your operation
  •  Ranking the criticality of each piece of equipment
  •  Building databases for each PdM technology
  •  Determining PdM staffing levels

So if your list is incomplete or incorrect, everything that’s built from it will be flawed. Any shortcuts or inaccuracies will be exposed as big problems later.

Figure 10 illustrates a sample of recommended technologies by equipment type for a specified environment.

In the last 40 years, no better method than RCM has been found for determining what maintenance should be performed to increase asset integrity.  Four statistically significant studies have confirmed the validity of RCM.

In a survey conducted by Reliabilityweb.com in 2005, many companies offered the following excuses for the failure of their Reliability Centered Maintenance Implementations.

“Organizations want results right away, not in 6 months or a year.  The classical RCM process
is too time and resource intense.”

“RCM is a great tool but very resource intensive.”

“100% reliability is extremely expensive, difficult to attain, and not necessarily the right answer.”

“RCM is misunderstood to be software.”

“In the beginning, it was hard.  And, it is still a challenge to steer the mind-set toward more
condition-based maintenance than time-based.”

“We always ran into the problem with implementation.  In the few places where we
implemented it successfully, it was at the maintenance level.  And recognition
for it was non-existent.”

“The system is very strong but too high level“

The truth is, there are many pitfalls in RCM.  But few get revealed when an RCM project fails.  You see, nobody wants to write an article or present a paper at a conference that reveals how money was wasted or about great visions that were never realized.

In order to ensure RCM works in an organization, you must focus on the systems that will give you the best Return on Investment (ROI).  Simply put, RCM is a slam dunk when it comes to ROI for critical assets.

Begin your RCM effort by identifying the top 10% of your most critical assets.  Once this list has been identified, you should now begin to measure Reliability on these assets; performing RCM analysis on those critical assets that have equipment-based operational, speed and throughput losses and thus reducing total cost of maintaining these assets by reducing contractors, overtime, maintenance parts, and fines.  If you have selected a critical asset, your implemented RCM maintenance strategy will show measurable improvements with added improvements in Health, Safety and Environmental performance as well.

As a general rule, the success of your first RCM analysis will build the business case to complete RCM analysis on the remainder of your critical assets.  In the simplest terms, RCM is a decision-making process which calls for answers to questions such as:

  -   What is this system supposed to do?
  -   How can it fail to do that?
  -   What causes it to fail?
  -   What happens when it does fail?
  -   Can we predict or prevent that from happening?

Getting the Tools in place - Funding, Staffing, Practices, and Reporting

Step 1 – Do not accept excuses for why you cannot transition an organization to the optimal maintenance model.  Steven Covey once stated the following: “Your sphere of influence is very small, your area of concern is very large, focus on your sphere of influence and not on your area of concern and you will find your sphere of influence will grow.”

When an organization transitions from their current maintenance model to a more proactive one, you will find staffing is not a problem, costs are lower, and emergencies become a rare occurrence, however, you must take it one step at a time and follow the industry proven best practices.  There are no excuses for following the wrong path.

Step 2 – Develop a business case for the reliability improvement process.  Identify costs and Return on Investment based on known data. Involve senior leadership and the financial team in the business case development.  You must have everyone sold on this idea of change or it will never happen.  Too many organizations have had many false starts. You should never start a journey without everyone knowing success is the only option.

Step 3 – Develop a master plan that focuses on results and moving an organization to having a balanced PM and PdM program using the Proactive Work Flow Model (Figure 11).  In this plan you want financial targets and metrics to ensure you are receiving the benefits expected.  You want short term results with long term gains.  Note the Work Flow includes Management of Change (MOC) procedures to ensure consistency of processes and data.   In addition, a process for a Failure Report Analysis and Corrective Active System (FRACAS) is identified for ensuring failure data is analyzed and used for decision making.  This means implementing known best practices at the right time and not trying “new ideas” which are not proven.

Step 4 – Ensure you have identified Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and financial targets.  Make sure you have leading KPIs and lagging KPIs developed which equal the expected financial Return on Investment (ROI).  These metrics and financial targets must be aligned with the process changes being made.  In financial targets we want “hard dollar” savings and not “soft dollars”.  Here is an example of what I mean: While working at the Pentagon with the US Army I was in a meeting and a Lean Six Sigma Director was reporting to his General officer (3 star General) and he stated they he had exceeded their expected goal of $70 Million Dollar savings and the General looked at his comptroller and ask if he had seen the savings and, if so, he wanted to use this money for a critical project.  The comptroller stated he had not seen any monetary savings.  Needless to say, the General was not too happy about this situation.  Remember only “hard dollar”, verifiable savings can reported. 

Figure 12 shows some known benchmarks in  the chemical processing industry.

Benchmarking can be deceiving, but it is a great way to know where you stand in relation to other companies.  The metric is the amount of money spent annually maintaining assets, divided by the Replacement Asset Value (RAV) of the assets being maintained, expressed as a percentage.  This metric allows one to compare the expenditures for maintenance with other plants of varying size and value, as well as to benchmarks.  The RAV as the denominator is used to normalize the measurement given that different plants vary in size and value.  Here is what we know:

  •  Companies who are leaders have an RAV of less than 3.5% for Maintenance
  •  Companies who are in a reactive state have an RAV between 3.6-14%

Where does your organization you stack up?

The definition has been defined by the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) after years of research.  Here is SMRP’s definition:

Guidelines provide additional information or further clarification on component terms used in SMRP Best Practice Metrics. This guideline is for Replacement Asset Value (RAV).

A. Definition:  The Replacement Asset Value (RAV) is defined as the cost that would be incurred, in today’s dollars, to replace the facility and equipment in its current configuration. It is intended to represent the realistic value to replace the existing assets at new value.

B. Purpose:  RAV is used as the denominator in a number of calculations to normalize cost performance of facilities of various sizes within a given industry. These calculations are used to determine the performance of the maintenance and reliability function relative to other facilities within its industry.

C. Inclusions:

  •   Building envelope
  •   All physical assets (equipment) that must be maintained on an ongoing basis
  •  The value of improvements to grounds (provided these must be maintained on
       an ongoing basis)
  •  Capitalized engineering costs

D. Exclusions:

  •  Value of land on which the facility is situated
  •  The value of working capital:
    –   Raw material inventory
    –   Work-in-process inventory
    –   Finished goods inventory
    –   Spare parts inventory
  •  Capitalized interest
  •  Pre-operational expense
  •  Investments included in construction of the facility that are not part of the facility assets
  •  Mine development

Replacement Asset Value Formula:

Best Practice Leaders typically have an Annual Maintenance Cost per RAV in the 2%-3.5% range, while Reactive Organizations tend to run anywhere from 4%-14%.

Look at this example of the cost a company incurs by not following codes and standards identified to optimize Asset Integrity.

This is not including increase equipment performance and output which can be 2-10 times these losses.

Step 5 – Educate everyone from top leadership to operators on your plan and what your organization’s future state looks like.  You want operations to understand they own reliability integrity as an equal partner with maintenance and of course engineering.  This is a three legged stool which will fall if not supported properly.

Step 6 – Execute the plan and always meet targets and goals set by the plan.  Ensure everyone sees the KPIs and financial targets which were established, and thus always knows the “score in the game”.

In summary, organizations can be successful if they apply best practices at the right time and tie all changes to “hard savings”. Remember, the ultimate goal is “optimal asset integrity at optimal cost” by following best practices.

Ricky has been involved with maintenance for over 30 years as a maintenance manager, maintenance supervisor, maintenance engineer, maintenance training specialist, maintenance consultant and is a well known published author.  Today he is a Principal Advisor at GPAllied, LLC.  Ricky has worked with maintenance organizations in hundreds of facilities, industrial plants, etc, world wide in developing reliability, maintenance and technical training strategies.  He has worked for Exxon Company USA, Alumax (this plant was rated the best in the world for over 18 years), Kendall Company, and Hercules Chemical providing the foundation for his reliability and maintenance experience.  Ricky Smith is Vice Chairman of the Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical SIG for the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP), is the Reliability Engineering Discipline Manager for PetroSkills and is well known as a Reliability Advocate in Asset Reliability and Process Integrity in the Middle East and around the world.   Ricky is the co-author of “Rules of Thumb for Maintenance and Reliability Engineers”, “Lean Maintenance” and “Industrial Repair, Best Maintenance Repair Practices” and “Planning and Scheduling Made Simple”.  Ricky holds certification as Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP) from the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) as well as a Certified Plant Maintenance Manager (CPMM) from the Association of Facilities Engineering (AFE) and is also a Six Sigma Black Belt.  Ricky lives in Charleston, SC with his wife.  Aside form spending time with his 3 children and 3 grandchildren, Ricky enjoys kayaking, fishing, hiking and archaeology.  He can be reached at rsmith@gpallied.com

Positioning For An Economic Recovery.pdf

Measuring Performance

The Need for Metrics Standardization

by Walter Nijsen, CMRP

Understanding how our plants perform and how well we perform in relation to others often reveals opportunities for improvement, at least in principle. The key question first raised is often, “Are we comparing apples with apples?” If not (as in many cases), the whole exercise of comparison, and to some extent, measurement, becomes somewhat (or completely) meaningless.

 

On top of that, a question that really should be answered first is, “WHY should we measure?”, along with, “WHAT should be measured and HOW?”

The measures we believe are truly important are often referred to as Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), since, apparently, as the wording implies, those contain key information on performance. But does it, and if so, what precisely is it indicating?

When measuring true performance, a number of questions and preliminary steps need to be taken first:

• Which KPI’s are useful at what stage?

• Is this a leading or a lagging indicator?

• What is the correct definition?

• How will we interpret the results?

• How will you benchmark KPI’s?

 

Why Should We Measure?

Joseph Juran famously said, “If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Ron Moore said, “Your measurements should expose your weaknesses – those are your improvement opportunities.”

When asking this question to several persons in an organization, you will typically get different answers.

 

An operational leader or business leader could answer: “to measure our profit and losses, or to understand if we are achieving our goals”. A reliability improvement leader could answer: “to identify opportunities for improvement, or to measure the improvement progress”.

 

Both answers are correct and make sense, depending on your role and interests, because you want to measure and trend the results or the improvements at your facility.

 

“To compare and benchmark between industries or within the company” is also an expected answer.

 

On top of this, there is another important, and mostly forgotten, or at least not identified, reason why we should measure: “To share success, which encourages changes and improvements”.

 

To achieve reliability excellence many changes and improvements need to be made. Some are easy, and some are more difficult, but sharing success will help drive forward these changes. Benchmarking at a facility level, company level or industry level is a part of sharing those successes.

What Should We Measure?

If the “Why should we measure question?” is clear and understood, the answer to “What should we measure?” is simple. Let’s focus only on the maintenance and reliability process. At the end of the day, the financial results, product quality and availability will determine your profit and losses and your business growth. So KPI’s such as, OEE, maintenance cost as a percent of replacement asset value, quality index, on time delivery, production cost per unit produced need to be in place.

 

However, these indicators are lagging indicators, or results indicators, which give a snapshot or update for the moment, but will not tell you what the future results will be, nor if these results are sustainable.

Further, many persons or processes can influence these KPI’s. For example, maintenance cost is influenced by many things, e.g., amount of unplanned breakdowns, amount of pro-active work executed, quality of the executed work, efficiency of the executed work, etc. Therefore, it is important to also implement KPI’s, which tell you something about your potential performance in the future, or so-called leading or process indicators. These indicators are typically used to measure the process improvements that bring us to our new goals.

The leading indicators should show us the direction of future results, or in other words, the leading indicators will tell us if the lagging indicators will get better or worse.

There are three sets of measurable components that make up the maintenance and reliability process at Cargill (See Figure 1: Components of the Maintenance and Reliability Process).

• Behaviors and management processes (people skills, mission and vision)

• Operational execution (operations, design and maintenance)

• Manufacturing performance (availability, quality, cost and benefits)

Each component is a process on its own, which can be measured using both leading and lagging indicators. To determine the quality of each process, the results of each process need to be measured using lagging indicators. To assure good results, we must have good leading indicators – if you do the right things, the right things will happen for the business.

The components of the maintenance and reliability process can also be explained as:

approach, deployment and results.

Manufacturing performance is a (end) result of the (correct) deployment of operational execution. Operational execution is, in part, the deployment of maintenance planning and scheduling, defect elimination, predictive and preventive measuring and follow up.

To understand if these manufacturing performances (results) are sustainable, it is important not only to measure the deployment (operational execution) but also the approach (behaviors and management process).

Without having a clearly defined approach, the result can be, and often times is, based on individuals deploying to their best effort, but without any vision and strategy for the future.

In this context, and as a supply chain, the components of the maintenance and reliability process are both leading and lagging indicators depending on where in the process the indicators are being used.

This simplified view of leading and lagging measures betrays the full value the definition can have. There is a cause and effect relationship between leading and lagging; the action being measured will cause a resulting action or effect, which is also being measured.

This means that a given measure could be both a lagging measure for a previous cause in the chain, and a leading measure for a following effect. There are a series of causes and effects in the chain until the final lagging measures are reached.

The Leading and Lagging Indicator Mapping in Figure 2 shows the concept of an indicator being both leading and lagging.

Preventive Maintenance (PM) Compliance is a lagging indicator, or a result of how much PM work is completed when viewed in the context of work execution.

However, when viewed as an indicator of equipment reliability, PM compliance is a leading indicator of the reliability process. The better or higher an organization’s PM compliance, the more likely this will lead to or predict improved equipment reliability. Similarly, improved equipment reliability will lead to reduced Maintenance Costs, which is a lagging indicator of the maintenance process.

 

Before applying and implementing leading and lagging indictors, the maturity of the facility or company needs to be understood.

 

For example, if you are in a transition stage from reactive to pro-active, then KPI’s like training compliance and percent pro-active work completed are more applicable to use than inventory turns increasing, or maintenance rework reducing, which are typically results of a more mature reliability process.

 

To implement which KPI at which particular moment is unique for each business or location.

Some ground rules need to be considered:

- Focus on leading and lagging indicators for each reliability process component, see Figure 1

- Provide clear definitions and examples

- Assess the operational readiness to implement the KPI.

 

How Should We Measure?

 

When implementing key performance indicators and setting goals, it is a natural human behavior to produce the results you are aiming for. This induces a natural bias to get the results you are targeting. For example, at our company we are measuring percent pro-active work completed, and we are aiming to achieve 80% pro-active work.

Clear definitions with examples are set and the unit of measure is hours. When starting the measurement, plants were only asked to report the percent pro-active work done, and within several months, almost all plants were achieving this number, even though we knew it could not be possible considering the maturity stage of some plants. A thorough review showed that not all plants used “work hours complete” as a unit of measure; that is, some used number of work orders complete, some used actual cost, some included contractors, and some not.

 

So, we made a change in the reporting. Instead of asking plants to report the percent pro-active work completed, we asked them to report actual hours spent on pro-active work and the total actual hours worked.

 

This changed the results completely; some plants captured only 60% of the total hours, which were typically the hours spent on proactive work. The hours on reactive work were not included in the total hours show, and thus a much higher percentage of proactive work was reported done than actual.

Plants not capturing hours at all actually failed to report anything.

Lessons learned on how we should measure are:

- Provide clear definitions and examples, in multiple languages if applicable

- Understand the unit of measure and report the raw data, not the end results

- Use uniform reporting systems

Benchmarking and Standardization

Cargill is a leading company in the food industry with over 1500 locations in more than 80 countries. Comparing and benchmarking within the company and with other industries is a challenge.

During the last 10 years, a major change has been made within the company, from a focus on traditional lagging indicators to more leading indicators.

Cargill has learned a great deal in the last 10 years, and many others can learn and benefit from both these lessons learned and from Cargill’s experience. In fact, these lessons learned drive the process of standardization of key performance indicators.

The Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (www.smrp.org) is a group “by practitioners for practitioners”, who in the last year, has developed standardized Maintenance and Reliability Key performance indicators. Each of these indicators have a clear definition, objective, formula, component definition, qualification and sample calculation developed by experts from several industries world wide, validated and evaluated by practitioners, and are ready for use.

A total of 77 key performance indicators are identified and under development, 21 KPI’s are finished and will be published soon by SMRP. Figure 3 provides several examples of the key performances indicators from the body of knowledge (BoK), including the reliability process component upon which they can be used.

 

Worldwide adoption of these metrics will benefit Cargill, but also all other industries. It will also create transparency and unique benchmarking opportunities within the maintenance and reliability industry.

 

 

Walter Nijsen, CMRP, holds the position of Asst M&R Leader for Cargill grain and oilseeds in Europe. Based in the Netherlands, he is responsible for developing and implementing the maintenance and reliability strategy for about 40 locations across West and East Europe

. During the last 5 years Walter has implemented maintenance best practices, and has been instrumental in building the overall reliability culture and vision for Cargill worldwide by actively participating in maintenance steering committees, conferences, facilitating trainings, developing systems and procedures. He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering and joined Cargill in 1995. He is certified in several predictive technologies, is a certified maintenance and reliability professional since 2003. He is an active member of the SMRP Best Practice Committee.

 

Download MaintMgmt_Dec_Jan_2009

Finding Hidden Machinery Faults With Operating Deflection Shape Analysis

Case of the Whirling Pump
Finding Hidden Machinery Faults With Operating Deflection Shape Analysis
by Daniel T. Ambre

This article is a vibration case study using Operating Deflection Shape (ODS) and Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) tools and computer animation techniques to solve difficult rotating machinery problems. Mr. Tim Schuyler and Mr. Steve Werness from Xcel Energy Fort St. Vrain Generating Station requested the services of Full Spectrum Diagnostics to perform a vibration investigation on a vertical river water supply pump whose vibration had significantly increased recently for unknown reasons.

The Fort St. Vrain facility is located in Platteville, Colorado, and was both that state’s only nuclear power plant, and the United States only commercial High Temperature Gas Cooled (HTGC) reactor design. The plant was decommissioned in 1989 and converted from a nuclear fueled facility to a natural gas fueled steam generation facility in 1996. The site added heat recovery steam generator (HRSG), and a second gas turbine in 1998. A third combustion turbine with HRSG was added in 2001, providing a current combined rated output of 720 megawatts. Two more combustion turbines are planned to supply up to 300 additional megawatts.

The generating station has a pair of vertical river water pumps used to control the cooling water in the facility. The P4119 and P4119S units are similar in design, both manufactured by Worthington and driven by Westinghouse 200 hp AC electric motors. Overall vibration levels on the P4119 unit were noted to have "jumped" from a stable trend of 0.150 ips to levels approaching 1.0 ips. The dominant frequency was found to be the 1x response at 1180 RPM. A resonance condition was suspected, however, a history of foundation issues suggested a deeper underlying problem or contributing factor.

Cantilever mounted vertical pump designs will typically have natural frequencies near operating speed points. These so-called "reed" modes are a function of the height of the cantilevered structure (above deck), the length of the pump shaft (below deck), the mass of the drive motor, and the "footprint" of the mount interface structures. Each of these parameters effect the mass and/or stiffness of the overall structure, thus the location of the natural frequencies. Also, as a note, symmetric systems (like this unit) will have two fundamental cantilever natural frequencies (N-S and E-W).

These modes are fairly close together, but may appear below operating speed, above operating speed, or even straddle the running speed point. This makes identification of the modes a top priority in establishing a proper structural correction, if required.

In addition to the planned Experimental Modal Analysis used to detect natural frequencies, an Operating Deflection Shape (ODS) analysis was also planned to investigate the operating characteristics. This analysis is helpful in resolving unbalance, looseness, misalignment, and bowed rotor faults. Operating analysis also provided an evaluation of historical repairs to the pump foundation on these units. Xcel Energy provided periods of both operating and non-operating test conditions for the ODS and Modal analyses, respectively.

Machine Design Information

Drive:

Westinghouse AC Induction Motor

200 HP @ 1180 RPM

Rolling Element Bearings:

Driven Machine:

Worthington Single Stage VTP River Pump

1180 RPM

Direct Drive Coupled

3-Piece Shaft Assembly

2 Spider Bearings

6-Blade Impeller

Capacity 6000 GPM, Total Head: 70 ft

Even though the operating vibration problems were found only on the P4119 pump, natural frequency testing was performed on each unit for comparison purposes.

Experimental Modal Analysis

An Experimental Modal Analysis is a diagnostic performed on structures to determine their natural frequencies, damping, and mode shapes. This analysis is performed with the machinery in a non-operating condition, which limits background vibration from other machinery sources. An impulse (usually a hammer blow) is applied to the structure to impart broad-band energy to the system. This energy functions to excite all of the system‘s natural frequencies, similar to the response of a bell or tuning fork to a sharp impact. This hammer has a load cell built into the head that measures the force parted to the structure and allows this signal to be compared to the accelerometer response, via a transfer function, resulting in a measurement of the frequency response of the structure.

Given enough response locations, each system’s natural frequency can be curve fitted and its mode shape animated with specialized modal analysis software. The Mode Shape is an effective visual representation of the deformed structure when amplified by a driving force.

The natural frequency analysis of each unit revealed some curious results. The problematic unit (P4119) appeared to have significant operating margin on its fundamental natural frequency modes. The operating speed was well above each mode. In addition, the secondary unit (P4119S) had no amplified response; however it was operating smoothly at a point between its EW and NS cantilever modes, and with significantly less speed margin?

A summary is presented in Tables 1 and 2. Figures 2 & 3 show the measured natural frequencies in relation to the operating speed (cursor).

Vibration levels in the P4119 River Water Pump were found to be considerably above the vibration alarm levels typically recommended for a pump of this configuration. The historic overall vibration trend obtained from Mr. Schuyler indicated that the levels had recently increased. Operational vibration velocity levels were measured at 1.0 inch per second (ips) on the motor frame, and up to 1.5 ips on the outboard end (bell housing) of the motor. Typical alarm levels for vertical pumps would be set at roughly 0.290-0.340 ips, depending on vertical elevation. The harmonic content (multiples of 1x RPM) were considered low and acceptable.

From experience with vertical pumps of this type, an amplification of a natural frequency is typically the cause of unexplained vibration response(s). The symmetric cantilever design dictates that two natural frequencies should be present (inducing North-South, and East-West motions), i.e., the so-called "reed" modes of the pump. The biggest dilemma in correcting resonance problems is defining the locations (frequencies) of the modes. The two dominant corrective methods used to alter the natural frequency in resonant systems are the addition of a stiffness (bracing) and/or addition of mass to the physical structures. Unless the natural frequencies are first defined, the wrong correction method may be applied resulting in increased vibration levels instead of the desired reduction. With symmetric systems (like this one) the worst case is when the operating speed is between the two modes, which increases the potential of inducing additional problems no matter what corrective method is chosen.

In addition to the Experimental Modal Analysis, this analysis included Operating Deflection Shape (ODS) analysis. This test method is described below.

Operating Deflection Shape Analysis

An Operating Deflection Shape is measured with the machine at its’ normal operating condition. This analysis measures the machines’ response at a specific time or frequency. Both amplitude and phase information are collected at various locations on the structure and, via special software, the vibrating "shape" or response of the machine can be animated.

These animations show the analyst how the machine is moving during normal operation. Note that this is not a resonant response of the machine, but its operational response. The forces within the machine are responsible for the motion, or shape of motion measured with this analysis tool. For example, the unbalance response of any rotating system will produce a response or driving force at 1x RPM. Misalignment and looseness generally produce synchronous multiples of running speed (2x RPM, 3x RPM,etc.).

Examining the operating shapes gives the analyst additional insight into the root cause of many vibration related faults. Combining this analysis with an Experimental Modal Analysis is very effective in ruling-out suspected machinery problems associated with resonance.

Analysis & Conclusions

In this analysis, the P4119 pump indicated some unexpected characteristics. Typical resonance amplification will induce a linear response in the direction of, and similar to the mode shape defined in the EMA. The closer the driving force is to the natural frequency, the more mode shape resemblance in each animation.

This characteristic was not found in the ODS animations. In the P4119 pump operating shapes, a "whirling" or "orbital" ODS animation motion was noted. This visual response,along with the seemingly adequate resonant margin, was another indication that this system was unusual.

The whirling orbital motion in Figures 5 and 6 suggested that the excessive vibratory response was NOT due to resonant amplification.

ODS animations near a resonance will typically correspond to the linear mode shape. The animations suggest that the pump rotor (extended below deck) was driving the response in the motor. A possible reason for this is excessive clearances in the seals and "spider" bearings that support the rotor. Significant leakage from a problematic seal in this pump tends to support the theory that radial clearances are larger than desired.

Additional animations without the motor (Figure 6) more clearly show the whirling motion in the motor standoff support structures. The final animation in Figure 7 shows an isolated view of the support base plate structures. The foundation amplitudes suggest that vibration levels are higher than normal; however, the dense measurement mapping confirms that the plates are moving in unison (in-phase).

Out-of-phase motion between plates (grouted interfaces) or bolted joints would imply looseness response. These animations confirm that the foundation is not the source of the vibration problem. The relatively new bolted joints in the base plate are considered acceptable based on this analysis.

The final analysis performed was an "added mass trial" on P4119. Mass is added to resonant systems to alter the natural frequencies. Adding mass (with sand bags) should both reduce the natural frequency, as well as dampen its response via the shifting sand. Since the natural frequency for this unit was below operating speed, adding mass should increase the operating margin. If a stiffener support were applied instead, the likely result would be an increase in vibration since the operating margin would be reduced.

The Xcel Energy maintenance support acquired several sandbags totaling close to 120 lbs of weight. The unit was started up and the bags were stacked on the motor. No change in vibration levels were noted regardless of the amount of sand applied.

The unit was shutdown for a natural frequency (impact) test. The test indicated that the natural frequency at 1027 CPM was shifted lower by the added 120 lbs of mass to 990 CPM, or approximately 6%. If resonance were the root cause of the elevated vibration levels, a significant drop in the 1x RPM amplitude would have been noted during pump operation. This proved that resonance was not the dominant contributor to the excessive vibration levels.

Based on this analysis and discussions with Xcel Energy management and maintenance personnel, it was recommended that the unit be removed and inspected. It was suspected that some internal unseen fault was responsible for the elevated vibration levels.

Disassembly and inspections of the hardware showed that a locked coupling was likely the root cause of the excessive vibration. Continued operation in this "locked" state resulted in significant wear in the spider bearings, the shaft, and rotor bushings. This extra clearance allowed the rotor to "whirl" as a unit, inducing the orbital motion noted above deck.

The operating animations (ODS analysis)proved to be invaluable in isolating the root cause of the rotor problems.

Dan Ambre, P.E. is a Mechanical Engineer and founder of Full Spectrum Diagnostics, PLLC, a Full Service Predictive Maintenance Consulting company. Dan specializes in Resonance detection, Experimental Modal Analysis, and Operating Deflection Shape machinery diagnostics.

Full Spectrum Diagnostics provides Vibration Analysis level I, II, and III training and certification, as well as training in advanced diagnostic techniques. Dan is a certified software representative for Vibrant Technology, Inc., the creators of ME’scope VES software tools. He also provides ME’scope VES Software Training targeting the In-Plant Vibration Analyst.

Animations referenced in this article are available via email at modalguy@aol.com. Please visit www.fullspec.net

There is also an online Modal discussion at MaintenanceForums.com

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RCM & the Sub-Prime Mortgage Meltdown

Turning A Blind Eye
RCM & the Sub-Prime Mortgage Meltdown

by Neil Bloom

You might be curious and wonder what in the world RCM has to do with the current financial crises, so let’s explore what it is that they have in common. As we will see, RCM has a distinct similarity to the current global sub-prime financial fiasco. Many of you have heard about Reliability Centered Maintenance, or RCM as it is called. But how much do you really know about it?

RCM is a logical way of identifying what equipment in your facility is required to be maintained on a preventive maintenance basis rather than a let-it-fail-then-fix-it basis. Many have heard the phrases "don’t fix it until it breaks" or "don’t break it by trying to fix it." There is a grain of truth to these axioms, but they depict a very shallow approach if you are striving to achieve reliability and safety levels for your facility that are the best they can be.

Many plants have tried the "hit-and-miss" approach, or the old "how-we-used-to-do-it" approach, or the "runon-luck" approach to maintenance. These methods will get you only so far until your luck runs out, and the potential for a disaster looms right around the corner.

In the absence of a structured RCM approach, reliability will rest solely on the basis of seat-of-the-pants experience, with a strategy consisting of a best-guess decision process. That approach falls far short of modern-day expectations.

However, in real life everything is not perfect. For example, there is no universally perfect climate or environment. Likewise there is no universally perfect reliability environment. For example, there are those who are responsible for plant reliability that may still be in a relatively early stage of getting their program going. They are really doing the best they can with the resources they are allocated. In meeting and talking with many of the people in this stage of their reliability program development, I am deeply encouraged by their devotion and passion. They are continually striving to do better. They implement predictive maintenance (PdM) in all the ways they can and use the best judgment available to them.

Then there are those reliability professionals that find themselves in a more experienced and progressive reliability environment. These folks have the benefit of being in a more highly developed situation with a greater flexibility to implement more advanced preventive maintenance methods and tools such as RCM.

Even with those employing a methodology such as RCM, there are those just beginning in their journey, there are those who have been through the challenges of attempting to begin an RCM program and then there are those who have successfully completed the RCM process.

RCM originated in commercial aviation and, unfortunately, since it left that industry, it has become a very difficult and costly process. It was never intended to be that way. In fact, RCM today hardly resembles what it was intended to be by its founders Stanley Nowlan and Howard Heap.

It has been conservatively estimated that less than 10% of all RCM programs attempted will succeed. Looking at it another way, over 90% of all RCM programs attempted are destined for failure! For those of you with first-hand experience, who have attempted to implement an RCM program, you understand why RCM has been so difficult.

Remember, there is a major difference between a program such as RCM, which is designed to truly enhance safety and reliability and its cost avoidance benefits, such as avoiding potential disasters….. and a more generic PdM or betterment program which is strictly an economic exercise implemented solely to reduce known costs. There is nothing wrong with PM betterment efforts or using standardized PM task templates.

However, with almost the same amount of effort, one can successfully achieve a true comprehensive RCM program instead of settling for something with far less value and effectiveness.

RCM and Reality

From many decades of first hand experience with RCM and associated preventive maintenance program initiatives, approximately 80% of those people who are contemplating implementing an RCM process to improve their plant reliability, do not have a grasp of what it really is. The majority of these folks have good intentions, however, what they are settling for is a means to convert time-directed overhauls into condition monitoring PdM tasks. Or they want to use cookie-cutter PM templates, or find better ways to schedule their PM’s, or review the 20% of their known problem components that they believe cause 80% of all of their plant problems. I wholeheartedly endorse all of these measures but let me be very clear; these betterment techniques are not RCM.

It’s The Unexpected

It has been proven over and over and over that the vast majority of major disasters that occur… that were not due to either acts of nature, human error, or sheer negligence…were caused either by equipment failures whose consequence of failure was unexpected and never analyzed, or from components which were incorrectly analyzed to be run to-failure. The disasters caused by these two reasons are "surprises" because they were totally unknown, unexpected, and unanalyzed.

In this light, think about the following statement……."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."1

RCM And The Sub-Prime Mortgage Fiasco

Now that we have a better understanding of what RCM is and what it is not, what does all of this have to do with the sub-prime mortgage fiasco? Can you see how the above quotation can be directly compared to the vulnerabilities that existed in the sub-prime mortgage market? Can you see how shortcuts in the mortgage application process, such as verifiable income statements and job validation not being required, contributed to the debacle? How about the wishful thinking that, through some uninterrupted string of luck, home prices would continue to escalate indefinitely? Can you see how the absence of ascertaining the real vulnerabilities, such as overstating the inherent value assessment and understating the inherent risk of the mortgages that lenders wrote, resulted in a catastrophic failure of the investment banking industry?

The vulnerabilities that existed on Wall Street, prior to the mortgage meltdown, are eerily, yet specifically similar to the vulnerabilities that existed prior to the countless number of plant catastrophes that have occurred previously, and, in fact, vulnerabilities which currently exist in many plants and facilities today!

What can we in the reliability community learn from the mistakes that were made in the financial community?

It is very easy to fall into the mind-set of cruising right along on a wave of "Reliability Nirvana".

What do I mean by this? What I mean is that the plant or facility is humming along just fine without any significant problems. There have been no calamities recently; there have been no explosions, no fires, no fatalities, and no negative front page headlines or litigation concerns. So how does this Nirvana continue?

It usually continues on a prolonged streak of luck. But, at some point in time that luck will run out.

Quite often, plant managers know that all is not right. However, the inertia of the status quo becomes too great to overcome and they continue to depend on that streak of luck. Unconsciously, they may even turn a blind eye to "reliability reality", thinking that since everything is running well today, everything is just fine with their plant or facility. There may even be a reverse incentive to continue to do nothing, since the option of doing nothing saves money in the short term.

Can you see where this faulty logic is taking us?

A Faulty Logic

That same "cruising right along" logic prevailed at our most prestigious investment banks on Wall Street. Let’s look at the makings of that global financial misfortune in detail. Not unlike the plant management with visions of "Reliability Nirvana", the Investment Bank CEO’s and Managers had that same kind of misappropriated confidence without being realistic about the risks involved. They were in what I call a "Financial Nirvana." Many of those in risk management at the leading Wall Street institutions inadvertently set up "blinders" so they could not really peek at the true risks involved in the undertakings they were dealing with.

How about the profits? They were enormous. Sounds a little like some of those folks in a state of "Reliability Nirvana", making more money by doing nothing and cutting costs capriciously.

Did any of those financial leaders really want to challenge the status quo that was bringing in all the money they could possibly hope for? Could they not see, even for a moment, that they were running on luck? Did it take that much insight to figure out that when they loaned money to people who had very little chance of repaying that debt, they were playing all their cards on the hope that home prices would continue going up by the day. And if that upward trend suddenly stopped, they would pay dearly. Surely it didn’t take a genius to see that their formula for success also put them on the brink of disaster?

Those subprime mortgages were further packaged into Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO’s), then even further re-packaged by the CDO’s into Structured Investment Vehicles (SIV’s). Each financial instrument in the process brought in more money and more bonuses for the Wall Street crowd. At each step of the way the financial leaders turned a blind eye to risks and to reality.

The Similarities Of A Disaster

In summary let’s look at the similarities of the mortgage disaster and the impending equipment disaster just waiting to happen at a plant or facility.

A FALSE STATE OF "NIRVANA":

In the Financial World: Senior management believed their current sub-prime mortgage process could continue indefinitely and their "house of cards" could not fail.

In the Reliability World: Senior management believes their facilities will continue cruising right along and their facility could not incur a disaster.

TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS TO THE REAL RISKS:

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.

THE PROFIT MOTIVE TRUMPED EVERYTHING ELSE:

In the Financial World: The investment banks on Wall Street were too busy making money to perform a "self-assessment" of their true vulnerabilities.

In the Reliability World: Plant management is often so focused on reducing costs and saving money that they become unmindful of the true vulnerabilities in their plant.

THE ADDITION OF COMPLEXITY AND CONFUSION CAMOUFLAGED THE RISKS:

In the Financial World: The mortgage documents were so complicated that the people in China, Japan, Europe and even here in the USA had no idea of the "exposure to danger" that they were investing in.

In the Reliability World: The PM program becomes so convoluted that it camouflages the real "exposure to catastrophe" in ones plant.

COVERED THEIR EYES TO REALITY:

In the Financial World: They inadvertently put on a set of blinders to prevent seeing the deficiencies that existed in their mortgage lending program.

In the Reliability World: They may inadvertently put on a set of blinders to prevent seeing the deficiencies existing in their preventive maintenance program.

If your plant management team’s primary goal is to "keep things humming along" and only pay lip-service to preventive maintenance, then disaster is right around the corner. While it may not happen on their watch, especially if they are close to retirement, it could quite possibly happen on your watch.

Was there ever a doubt that a "day of reckoning" was going to happen in the financial world with so many billions of dollars being lent to people, many of which had no job and offered bogus applications to substantiate their income? Was there any doubt that home prices could not continue to skyrocket 15% to 20%, year over year over year?

Likewise, was there ever a doubt that a "day of reckoning" was going to happen and cause the hundreds of plant shutdowns, fires, explosions, and fatalities that have occurred due to equipment problems whereby a less than robust preventive maintenance program was in place? Is there any doubt that unanalyzed or incorrectly analyzed failure modes or hidden failures in standby, backup, and redundant systems are just waiting to wreak havoc on our plants or facilities?

Is there any doubt that this situation exists, and just might happen at your plant or facility?

If so, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Different reliability professionals and different corporate organizations will no doubt be at different levels of understanding and different levels of implementation in their quest for achieving reliability. A large number of you are just beginning to realize and understand that the unknown and unanalyzed consequences of failure pose the most serious threat to the safety and reliability of your plant, and to the well-being of your plant personnel.

There is a new wave that is bringing classical RCM back to its simple original roots like it was always intended to be. Many astute Maintenance and Reliability professionals have already begun to realize the benefits of riding this new wave, and let’s hope that many more will ride the wave to reliability success.

Neil Bloom is the author of "Reliability Centered Maintenance – Implementation Made Simple" published by McGraw-Hill. He is a mechanical engineer with over 35 years of both hands-on and senior level engineering and maintenance management experience in RCM and Preventive Maintenance Programs in the commercial aviation and commercial nuclear power industries. He is an international guest speaker on RCM and an Instructor of RCM in the Continuing Education Division at the University of California-Irvine (UCI). Neil provides 3-day RCM Training Seminars/Workshops and can be reached at neilbloom@RCMAuthor.com or (949) 218-1286. His website is

www.rcmtrainingseminars.com

.

References

1. RCM

–

Implementation Made Simple, Bloom, Neil B., McGraw-Hill Professional, (2006)

Download OctNov_Reliability.pdf

Lessons Learned Implementing an Infrared Program

by Jennifer Daugherty and Roger Miller

Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee, has focused efforts toward an improved infrared (IR) program. As equipment ages, the need for improving inspections and making work more effective becomes imperative. Infrared inspection of equipment allows equipment health to be determined and tear-down intervals to be driven more by condition at optimum frequencies. This paper discusses lessons learned while implementing an infrared program and passes those lessons on to others that may find it useful. The goal of the IR program is to increase availability and improve equipment health by detecting impending failures.

Arnold Engineering Development Center is the largest ground flight simulation test complex in the world. AEDC is the world’s premier flight simulation test facility, conducting performance tests in aerodynamics, aeropropulsion, hypersonics, rockets, space systems, and technology. AEDC’s mission is to test and evaluate aircraft, missile, and space systems and components at simulated flight conditions. Twenty-seven of AEDC’s test units have capabilities unmatched elsewhere in the United States; fourteen are unique in the world. Facilities can simulate flight conditions from sea level up to 300 miles and from subsonic velocities to Mach 20. AEDC has motors up to 83,000 horsepower and pumps up to 50,000 gallons per minute and compressors with flow rates in excess of 1,000,000 cubic feet per minute. Protecting the equipment to increase availability is imperative. The Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) is the operations, maintenance, information management, and support contractor to the Air Force at AEDC.

AEDC has performed Predictive Maintenance (PdM) and Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) for over 20 years. The IR program had been a fragmented program and had experienced trouble overcoming the scheduling and safety issues involved with high-voltage electrical equipment, but to improve equipment health assessment and reduce the cost to maintain equipment, AEDC continues to improve the infrared program that assesses electrical and mechanical equipment. The purpose of this paper is to share some elements of our IR program that may have been originally neglected but have since been determined to be crucial for continued IR program growth and effectiveness. The specific elements this paper covers are the plan, program quality control, safety, and justification.

IR Implementation Plan

One of the most effective ways to improve an IR program is by developing a good implementation plan with the right elements and actually using it. The plan must be solid enough to be used for the growth of the program, and time should be put into developing the plan because it should ultimately include the scope of your program and the map to get there. Many programs have been successfully started without good plans; however, few programs are sustained and grown to their true potential without a solid detailed plan. Certain elements should be included in the plan to ensure that it will give the direction and foundation needed as the program continues to grow.

Every plan must include the program’s mission, vision, and goals. Ensure the goals are tied to the company’s mission. Each goal should support the company’s goals in some way. This is important in showing management that the IR program is in agreement with the company’s goals. It is also helpful to gain an understanding of what the real goals of the IR program should be. Many times goals may not be what originally seemed to be intuitive. Establishing and directing the program toward these goals are paramount.

Once the goals have been established, metrics must be developed to gauge the performance of the IR program. The metrics chosen should be related to your internal and external goals thereby relating them to your type of business. In some enterprises, ROI may be most critical while availability may be more important for others. That is because equipment availability is directly associated with the test length of an aerospace R&D program. One of our goals is to shorten the time required to test at AEDC thus shortening the R&D phase of critical aircraft development. If ROI is chosen ensure to be consistent with assumptions and lean toward the conservative side to improve program credibility. However, don’t be so conservative that the program is undersold.

Another part of the plan should state how quickly you plan to mature the program, including the funding scenarios expected in the future. This will help provide structure for the program and give the company the necessary time to allocate funding. Documenting the maturation plan will build additional credibility and support. The plan will demonstrate that forethought was used in developing the program and that the goals.

Quality Issues

Another very critical part of a good IR program is to ensure that your program appears professional by addressing any quality issues. One of the most obvious ways to ensure high quality for the program is to become procedural based. Procedures document and provide a roadmap for the way data will be collected and analyzed. They help to ensure that IR data is collected consistently and accurately. Procedures should address any equipment calibration issues as well. Procedures give much more control for managing an IR program.

Another way to help ensure that the data collected is accurate is to develop a good qualification program, which should also be included in the plan. It should include expected certifications, training, critical procedures testing required for the job and at least one field evaluation of the technician collecting data. A qualification test may include questions associated with equipment failure identification, knowledge of the IR equipment being used, IR pattern problems, and IR calibration issues. Qualification time periods should dictate a specific time period and qualification records should be maintained. Any qualification and currency issues should be documented and followed. If a technician is removed from IR duties for a period of time they may need to be re-qualified; this could mean simply taking a test or starting the qualification process over.

Consistent data analysis and reporting is another important consideration. Consistent alarming rules should always be used. When the program is in its infancy, use rules that are available from other sources. When issuing reports refer to these sources and ensure the recommendations are based on those rules. Be consistent when reporting findings. Use the rules to identify when a problem exists. Ultimately however, the IR program’s structure should be based on tools e.g. reliability centered maintenance, root cause analysis, and failure modes and effects analysis. Once problems have been identified document the findings and report them using a consistent reporting method. AEDC uses standard database to both document and report findings in a predetermined reporting format.

Understanding both IR and plant equipment builds credibility and accuracy to the program. Both the technician and the analyst should understand the IR equipment being used. The technician should have a good understanding of the effects of emissivity, reflectivity, FOV, effects of surrounding conditions, etc. Without a good understanding, misleading images could lead to a misdiagnosis of equipment. Not only are good IR images essential but the analyst should also understand the plant equipment that is being surveyed. For example, electricians and electrical engineers usually make good electrical equipment surveyors because they understand how breakers, connections, motors, and transformers work.

Safety

Critical to any PdM program is the safety practices. Safety should be considered in all aspects of the IR program. Minimizing technician exposure to hazardous equipment is not just a responsibility but an obligation for the people who work in your program. Putting a technician in unnecessary risks should not be an acceptable part of your program. At AEDC, NFPA 70E compliance is mandatory. Imaging equipment with a high energy rating could no longer be accomplished until IR windows were installed to allow safe access to technicians. The use of windows and mirrors not only improved technician safety but also improved the consistency of data and productivity by greatly shorting the amount of time the technicians are exposed to a hazardous environment. Understanding the potential hazards of electrical equipment is vitally important. Many times the highest voltage equipment may not be the most dangerous. Experienced personnel should calculate arc flash energy levels to determine where potential hazards may be hiding.

Justification

Justification will always be required for the entire life of an IR program. Always be prepared to provide proof that the IR program is working and that company goals are easier to attain using IR technology. It is better to voluntarily provide periodic proof that your program is working than to wait until asked to do so. In some cases, it could be too late to put together your program’s justification after being asked to do so. Decisions may have already been made that could adversely affect the IR program after it is too late to react. Program justification can also be aided by having one or two very simple demonstrations to demonstrate how IR technology works and help the company achieve its goals. Also periodically take a couple of your successful findings and put them on a slide for your management. These will also be useful for management to show to stakeholders. This will help to make management more supportive of the program and will boost support. This can also prove to be very beneficial in those times that extra funds become available. Remember that you are all on the same team and making your management look good usually translates into further funding and support.

Conclusion

In closing, a good IR program includes not just one element but many: a thorough plan, good metrics, control of the quality of your program, smart thinking, working safely, and continuous program justification and self monitoring. Just as important however, is that ability to work well with technicians and management. Strive to build program credibility, management support, and build on the IR program’s strengths. Through continuous improvement and never being satisfied with where the program is currently, a strong IR program can be very beneficial to a company. Many more elements are required than simply understanding IR technology to sustain and improve the program to the next level.

Note: ATA/Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee were awarded Uptime Magazine Best Infrared Program in 2007 and Best Overall Predictive Maintenance Program in 2008 

Motor Maintenance Regimes

  Listen, look, but keep them running

 

Excerpted from 100 Years of Maintenance and Reliability: Practical Lessons from Three Lifetimes at Process Plants by V. Narayan, James W. Wardhaugh & Mahen C. Das (Industrial Press)

 

 

 

 

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.  - William Hazlitt, Writer and Critic.

 

Author: Jim Wardhaugh

Location: 2.3.3 Corporate Technical Headquarters

 

39.1 Background

 

I left my Far Eastern idyll for cold dark Europe. Those who move the pawns in the corporate headquarters noticed my success in my assignment in the Far East. So they head-hunted me and I joined this elite group. The job was to help locations that were less well performing to make significant improvements. I met Vee Narayan, who was already in this group; later, Mahen Das also joined us.

As an electrical engineer, I had been extensively involved in previous lives for the implementation of computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS). So I became responsible for electrical maintenance and CMMS implementation.

 

An Electrical Engineers’ Conference gave me the opportunity to prompt the collection of some data. In the Far East, I found that motor repairs were a significant ongoing manpower consumer and, hence, cost. I decided to put some effort into collecting data on this subject so that we could make informed decisions.

39.2 Motor Failure Data

 

A few of our bigger locations and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) had been collecting data for many years. We captured this data and collated them (see Tables 39.1 and 39.2). We found large differences between our numbers and those from IEEE. We can account for these in part by the difference in the ways of collecting data and in definitions. We believe that IEEE figures give a pessimistic view of overall failure rates that one might expect from a professionally-managed site.

The information shows that motors are generally very reliable. There are few electrical failures and most failures are bearing related. The most significant underlying causes of failure are:

• Defective components

• Poor installation/maintenance

• Poor lubrication

• Water ingress

 

 

 

 

 

39.3 Electrical Failures

 

Scrutiny of the data showed three prime causes of electrical failures:

• Catastrophic failure due to bearing collapse and rotor rubbing on the stator

• Water ingress due to cooler leaks or cleaning with high-pressure water hoses

• Breakage of connections (due often to inadequate bracing)

There did seem to be some deterioration of motors with age. This was most apparent in large motors with a high starting frequency. We found that the larger the machine, the higher it was stressed. Manufacturers had algorithms which could predict the end of useful life with reasonable accuracy. For this they needed service and operational data, such as frequency of starts. This might be worth doing for older machines in critical services.

 

39.4 Bearing Failures

 

Scrutiny of the data showed four main causes of (premature) bearing failure:

• Wrong (or inadequate) bearing installed

• Poor installation practice causing initial damage to the bearing

• Poor lubrication regime

• Poor alignment of driver and driven

 

 

39.5 Performance of Seven Motors at Locations

 

We looked at the motor maintenance activities in seven of our companies in six different countries. Each was a company plant built to corporate standards, with most rotating equipment having an installed spare. However, there were a variety of maintenance strategies in place.

 

Figure 39.1 summarizes our findings. It gives the percentage of each site’s inventory of motors removed to the workshop for significant repair each year. These percentages have been broken down by reason for removal:

• Breakdown (i.e., the motor had been run to failure)

• Condition monitoring had indicated imminent failure

• Time-based overhaul regime in place for some or all of the motors

 

Considering this, we found that:

• The large proportion of time-based overhaul activities of Location 7 did not seem to reduce breakdowns significantly.
• Location 6 did seem to be somewhat more effective, but arguably was still not cost effective.

• Location 5 had many breakdowns, even though a significant percentage of motors were repaired because condition monitoring was predicting imminent failure.

• Their condition monitoring did not seem very effective in predicting and/or pre-empting failures.

• The site had an extreme blame culture.

• Location 1 had minimized repair efforts by using run-to-failure as a default strategy.

• The small amount of time-based maintenance was for a very few un-spared furnace fans which were overhauled when the plants were shut down every four or five years.

• This location had a fairly skeptical view of the merits of condition monitoring. They would keep motors running until imminent failure was very apparent.

• What they also had found was that running motors less than 30 hp to failure did not result in significant additional consequential damage and cost compared to pre-emptive action.

• The proportion of breakdowns is fairly constant whether you do condition monitoring and/or overhauls or just let things run to failure.

 

39.6 Summarized Findings

 

From our review, we learned that electrical motors are very reliable. In more detail, we found that:

• Windings do not exhibit significant wear-out unless they are:

• Too frequently started or

• Large and highly stressed

• Winding connections are prone to breaking if not well braced against movement.

• Bearings do wear out, but long life is a function of a few simple things:

• Correct bearing selection (not necessarily the same as found in the machine)

• Correct installation, using bearing heaters etc. to minimize damage

• A good lubrication regime (correct type and quantity of lubricant)

• Correct alignment

• Smaller machines (less than 30 hp) make up the bulk of the population and can be run to catastrophic failure without significantly increasing consequential damage to shaft or windings.

• In many locations, there is a high level of installed sparing so the consequences of failure are low.

• Motor condition monitoring has to be quite cheap; else it is not an economical strategy. We concluded that:

• Vibration monitoring could not be justified for most motors; it became viable (just) if you were already going to check the driven equipment.

• Ultrasound was potentially useful if you had many close packed fractional horsepower motors.

• Winding monitoring could not be justified for most motors; a special justification was needed for critical applications.

• Winding monitoring is improving, so this would be kept under review.

 

39.7 A Maintenance Strategy for Refinery Motors

 

We carried out an evaluation of possible strategies and monitoring techniques. There were many magic bullets being advocated by credible universities, consultants, and large companies.

 

We concluded that for very large critical machines:

• A proprietary monitoring installation that continually monitors vibration, axial displacement, etc., should be the norm.

• Information should be centrally monitored.

• Alarm and trip parameters should be set after agreement with the manufacturers.

• We should do regular (annual) internal inspections, using a boroscope.

 

For the bulk of industrial motors, we concluded that regimes described briefly in Tables 39.3 and 39.4 were justifiable and should be the norm in most environments. Obviously in environments which are extremely arduous, additional steps may be needed.

 

 

 

 

If ultrasound and thermographic tools are available, a minimum effort periodic inspection could be beneficial. They are particularly useful if you have a large number of motors very small, and closely packed.

 

39.8 Lessons

 

• Buy reasonable quality motors which are inherently reliable enough for your application.

• Ensure good lubrication.

• Select correct bearings and install correctly.

• Run small spared motors to failure. Run to failure or at least imminent failure is a very respectable strategy for equipment where the consequential loss is low.

• Predicting and pre-empting failure, however cheap, is only cost effective if you can pre-empt catastrophic failure or major production loss. In general, pre-emptive actions must cost less (and probably significantly less) than the consequential loss due to failure.

• Condition monitoring can be costly and ineffective so you need to audit the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of the system.

• When motors fail, investigate to find root cause and try to eradicate repeat failure causes. (Think correct lubricant, correct lubrication regime, correct bearing, starting frequency.)

 

39.9 Principles

 

Preventive and predictive maintenance are generally sound strategies, but not universally applicable. Run-to-failure strategies are perfectly acceptable in many common situations. Maintenance strategies must be based on a rigorous understanding of the risks of failures, not on current fashions.