Reliability Success

RCM Public Training for 1st Quarter

2011-12-06T14:29:00.001-08:00

Reliability Success is happy to announce our first quarter public training schedule for Reliability-centered Maintenance.

RCM 101 has now been delivered to nearly 4,500 people, provides the backbone for implementations globally, and continually evolving as a training course.

Practical and pragmatic, this course focuses on the skills and techniques people will need to understand some of the very complex themes contained in modern asset management, as well as covering the common mistakes made during implementation.

Along with the standard RCM themes, this also includes:

Layer or Protection Analysis (LOPA) and calculation and application of Fractional Dead Time (FDT)
Integrating risk into maintenance thinking (two steps beyond the standard criticality matrix)
Introduction to human error in maintenance, and what to do about it!
Life, the Universe and Everything (Understanding Conditional Probability of Failure)
Probability of detection as applied to condition monitoring techniques

Developed and delivered by Reliability Success in Western Australia, we are committed to making this training event one of the leading courses of it's type in the world; and as the owners of the Intellectual Property we are in total control of our training materials.

Our case studies are drawn from the Underground, Mobile, fixed and Handling assets used within the Metals and Coal mining fields of Australia. With additional case studies available from our experiences with the utilities sectors of The UK and Canada, as well as the petrochemical industries of the Middle East.

Within Australia this course has been attended by many of the countries leading organizations including BMA, Peabody Coal, Rio Tinto Iron Ore, Nickel West, HWE Mining, Western Power and The Water Corporation from WA.

I hope to see you on one of our courses, I can guarantee that you will learn something new, and at least walk away with the same level of enthusiasm for our job as we have every day.

Feel free to send me an email for more information on either the public training courses or how this course could be delivered internally for your people.

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Welcome to Shaun Humber

2011-12-06T14:04:00.001-08:00

Reliability Success Pty ltd would like to extend our warmest welcome to Mr Shaun Humber, our latest RCM Analyst within the team.

Originally from the aviation side of things in the Australian Defence Forces, Shaun is a dual trade professional who gained his deep practical knowledge of the mining industry as a Maintenance Planner / Supervisor for with companies such as Westrac, BHP Biliton, Fortescue Metals Group and Consolidated Minerals.

To uphold our commitment to top quality service, Shaun has attended our RCM 101 training course, as well as the RCM Analyst training and mentoring events prior to being deployed, and is presently Analyzing a Longwall system somewhere in deepest darkest Queensland.

Shaun has already proven to be an excellent resource for our clients, using his practical mechanical mining capabilities to help them to drive out the best management strategies for their physical assets.

He joins the other 15 RCM Analysts trained from within the Mining sector during 2011.

Welcome mate..

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Maintenance induced failure

2011-07-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

We are more dependent on machinery than at any time in the recent past. Today, when asset maintainers hear of issues like the Buncefield explosion or the BP Deepwater Horizon incident we realize that it is virtually an impossibility that asset failure, for whatever reason, is part of the cause somewhere.

And as this trend continues it is also inevitable that we will be hearing more about so called Maintenance Induced failure. (machines require maintenance, more machines means more requirement for maintenance, ergo more likelihood of maintenance error)

I wanted to spend some time running through some of the possible causes of maintenance error, and hopefully they will help you to both recognize them, and to act on them.

Read more »

What I would love to see on job boards!

2011-07-06T01:12:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be great if you could eliminate all of the jobs posted by 3rd party recruiters when you are searching through LinkedIn or job boards?

That way you would know immediately who the company is, and if you are tapped into the market then you may have a good idea what the role may entail. (E.G Union Pacific generally don't need to many chemical engineers now do they?)

Instead, with the current bucket searches, you are bombarded with reams of what could easily be fraudulent information.

Read more »

Reliability-centered Maintenance 101 in Queensland

2011-07-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

In August we will be running our second RCM 101 training course in mackay, Queensland.

This course has been delivered to over 4,500 professionals globally, and forms the backbone of improvement efforts in many large scale organizations around the world.

These include Mining and Coal mining companies,multinational petrochemical companies, rail and rail car companies, electricity transmission and distribution and water and waste water treatment industries.

I have come accross very few people world wide that surpass him in the RCM field - Steve Bird South West Water, UK

I have been working in the field of Reliability-centered Maintenance since 1991. When I started I was working in the mining industry of the Pilbara. it struck me immediately that there could be an order to maintenance, that things did not need to be rolling chaos.

It also started me on a journey that would cover over 35 countries, most industrial sectors, and the privileged position of advising governments, institutes and major corporations throughout the world.

Also, he is not deliver theories only like other trainer, he has the ability to prove theses theories and convert them to a real tangible benefit. - Alaa Hamal, RCM Manager, SABIC, Saudi Arabia

This included time indentured with John Moubray as a principal in the Aladon network, and the delivery of successful projects across a range of industries, cultures and countries.

I can sincerely recommend this training to you as something that has the potential to change the course of your career, just as discovery of RCM did for me.

You can see the details of the training event here, and I am more than happy to provide any number of referrals and referees your company may require to help them to decide.

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How to manage redesign

2011-07-05T04:53:00.000-07:00

Redesign is standard output from RCM.

It comes into play when the requirements of the asset exceed it's inherent reliability. In layman's terms, if we want it to deliver, say, 15 HP and it is a 10 HP motor, then it is not fit for purpose. Period.

And there is no form of maintenance known to man that will make it do what the users require of it. That would be a modification, which although sometimes managed by maintenance, is not actually a maintenance task.

The standard way of dealing with this during the RCM process is to note it, and to refer it on for redesign. RCM itself does not cater for redesign, but will determine when one is required.

The problem here is three fold...

Read more »

A few tips for maintaining conveyors

2011-07-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

Conveyor systems are one of my favorite areas when performing RCM analysis.

They are all different, and there is always a lot of scope for improvement.

I thought I would share a few of the changes that come about regularly with the readership in the hope that you may be able to make rapid and worthwhile changes to your conveyor maintenance regimes.

(Without getting too much into some of the great technologies out there for inline checking of conveyors)

Read more »

Common Errors Implementing RCM

2011-07-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

When carrying out an RCM analysis I often get a look at past efforts to perform some form of strategy review. Yet asset performance remains inconsistent. (At best!)

Below is a list of common errors I find in these sorts of analyses. This is not a trivial issue. Failed strategy programs produce failed maintenance, and failed maintenance produces assets that are unreliable, with high likelihood of failures leading to operational, safety or environmental integrity consequences.

I hope these are useful for you. I would also want to counter some of the uninformed hype out there that any RCM is good for you.

If it is poorly done then it can quite easily put you further behind where you are now!

Read more »

Why start maintenance analysis in the middle?

2011-07-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

There has been a rash of methods and practitioners out there actively recommending approaches that start in the middle.

By this I mean starting with the existing maintenance regimes and strategies and working their way backwards, then forwards from there, somehow optimizing the whole thing.

My experience with existing maintenance programs is that this is a inherently flawed approach.

Read more »

Separating Church and State in maintenance and Reliability

2011-07-01T03:45:00.000-07:00

What happens when independent bodies start to act like practitioners?

Within the world of maintenance and reliability practitioners there are a great number of independent bodies, often professional societies but sometimes fully fledged private companies also.

These include standards bodies such a the ISO, British Standards, SAE and IEEE; publishers and promoters such as Plant Services and ReliabilityWeb, and national institutions like the Institute of Asset Management in the UK, AMC in Australia and SMRP in the USA.

That is all well and good, the discipline needs independent professional bodies for regulation, establishing leading / common practices and for promoting their interests on the national / political stage. Particularly given our unique responsibilities for safety, productivity and environmental integrity. (note the emphasis on independence)

But what happens when the line gets blurred. What happens when these cross over from one area into another.

Is it really RCM software?

2011-04-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

It is amazing the array of software packages in today's market place that call themselves Reliability-centered Maintenance packages yet they often have little if anything to do with either the RCM standard, or with the original report written by Nowlan and Heap. (32 MB PDF file)

Yet they are positioning themselves as RCM packages, and nobody is calling this into question.

Read more »

Is your maintenance operation in trouble?

2011-04-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

I have posted on this before, but I think it is worth while making the point again. There are several obvious signs when a maintenance organisation is in trouble.

I think this is important to review because it is often hard to see the wood for the trees when you are dealing with it every day.

Read more »

Improving maintenance productivity

2011-03-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Since I first published the article on the Maintenance Productivity Factor metric it has opened up a whole world of investigations and analysis in to issues preventing companies from achieving high MPF, highly productive maintenance workforces.

However, one of the key errors people make when trying to implement high productivity is to immediately go for the global "measure everything" approach. My experience has been that companies need to ease into regimes that measure and discuss productivity of the workforce, or it can be seen as a cost reduction exercise only.

Read more »

Why common sense leads to common results

2011-03-15T02:36:00.000-07:00

This edition of the Asset Uptime newsletter will focus on this as one of it's core themes.

Over the years I have continually seen this concept of "common sense"rear it's head. Often it speaks about obvious issues such as eliminating the causes of downtime, making it easy for operators to operate, and following the numbers.

All this is excellent and I would hope that every plant has thinking like this at it's core. (Yet they don't)

However, once you focus on failure management then things start to change substantially. What people see as common sense is often counterproductive, and in some cases it is even dangerous.

Read more »

An Avoidable Disaster - The Buncefield Final Report

2011-03-09T00:49:00.000-08:00

In February of this year we saw the publication of the final report into the root causes of the buncefield explosion.

For those unfamiliar with this issue Buncefield is the location of a storage facility owned by TOTAL UK Limited (60%) and Texaco 40%. News reports described the incident as the biggest of its kind in peacetime Europe.

When combined with the 5 day fire it started this was Britain's costliest industrial incident at $1.6 billion USD. Fortunately there were no fatalities at all.

The report is as thorough, as you would expect, and quickly gets around to blaming corporate complacency and failures in the process safety management systems that are in place. All valid and expected criticisms.

However, when reviewed with an eye to the principles of Reliability-centered maintenance we see the all too familiar signs of a lack of application of rigorous maintenance management processes.

The RCM Analyst Decision Diagram

2011-02-21T05:36:00.000-08:00

yesterday we published the RCM Decision Algorithm publicly for use by any and all people who wish to apply RCM at their facilities and with their physical assets. (And even with their clients)

You will notice that is is quite different from other decision algorithms you have seen about the marketplace, yet still embodies the core principles and concepts associated with modern (post 2004) RCM.

Some of the things that set this apart, and better in my view, from other models out there:

a) There is a clear distinction between Safety/Environmental/Operational And Non-Operational consequences on both the Hidden and Evident sides of the algorithm.

b) The coding structure is clear, consistent, easy to follow and easy to understand in open discussions at any time.

c) It sets up the later discussion about whole of life asset management.

I hope it is useful to you.

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Common mistakes of methods with NO decision algorithm

2011-02-18T07:39:00.000-08:00

One of the key differentiators between RCM and other failure strategy management methods is the decision diagram. I use one I created based on the SAE JA1012, and there are other publicly available diagrams out there.

The real beauty of the algorithm is that it forces you to think very hard as to whether a strategy is both applicable, or able to be applied, and effective, or that it will make things better than not doing it. (In layman's terms)

It is never so relevant than when you look at the strategies that have been concocted using methods or approaches that do not rely on a decision diagram of some fashion.

Read more »

Get the failure modes right (Tip #13)

2011-02-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

Level of causality is one of the issues that most people understand, yet continually get it wrong in the analytical stages.

Level of causality means taking your analysis of failure modes to a level where, as the standard SAE JA1011 says, you can do something about it.

My caveat there would be "where you can do something proactive about it", because you can repair anything, and that's something.

Once you start investigating this issue it is amazing what you find. For example, the advent of better and higher probability of detection technologies in the condition monitoring space is actually decreasing our ability to successfully analyse failure modes.

Read more »

Condition monitoring or condition assessment?

2011-02-05T20:45:00.000-08:00

Prior to the end of last century I had worked exclusively in maintenance and reliability areas, focusing heavily on short life asset industries within the Oil and Gas, petrochemical and Mining sectors.

When I finally hit the utilities and infrastructure sectors I though that all the principles would be immediately transferable. This seemed logical. I knew that the scientific justification for maintenance was the second law of thermodynamics, and that our primary goal was managing the failure process based on consequences.

Read more »

Work order backlog analysis

2011-02-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

A lot has been said about the work order backlog, including a range of key performance indicators for drawing all sorts of information out of it.

So what can it really tell us?

If work is being recorded correctly the maintenance backlog should consist of three separate work order categories.

Work arising from inspections and other corrective work orders.
Schedules that have been converted into work orders but have not yet been done, and
Schedules that were supposed to be done but have been deferred or rescheduled for some reason.

There are other areas also. Things like capital maintenance work, replacements and refurbishments, off site planned work and so on... but when you get down to it they all fall under one of the three main categories listed above.

If your company also uses work orders for non maintenance or operations related tasks ... then good luck with that. This post has nothing to do with that.

So what can these three major categories, and their sub categories, of work tell us?

RCM doesn't have to be a team sport any more...

2011-02-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

When RCM was first popularised it was heavily promoted as a team activity. One requiring a group of people around a table for the duration.

The key here is the promotion, not the original intention which lent itself to analysts - not facilitated teams. (Who all need training)

And of course, they had to be good people. Technicians, operators and engineers who knew the assets, knew the area of operation, and understood the design and limitations of the machines.

All well and good. A very good way to transform culture, a good way to embed learning, and a good way to get the best available knowledge available in the company into the analysis.

If you can do it that way, you should do it that way. Unfortunately.. it is no longer very practical.

Many companies cannot spare the resources to do this type of approach even if they deeply understand and want the benefits that a facilitated team approach will provide.

Trying to force companies down this path leads to delays, one-man analysis team sessions, more delays, loss of momentum, people drifting in and out of the analysis, and worst - instead of getting the best people, you just get the people who are available.

Team facilitated RCM is great when you can do it... but modern pressures are making it it is largely a thing of the past unfortunately.

There is another limitation that could not have been foreseen when the method was popularized.

The old way of doing this generally limited your inputs to those available and in the room. Today that often means one or two people at best.

When RCM started to be popularised people commiunicated via large devi ces with circles on the front that were attached to walls with cables. (Telephones)

Today, I can find, contact and establish a conversation with the leading hydraulic expert globally in off road mobile hauling assets.. within 12 - 24 hours. (And then I can call her on her cell no matter where in the world she is at the time)

So why would I ever consider limiting my options to the people trapped in the room?

RCM didn't need streamlining, it needed a more efficient way of implementation, one I developed at the turn of the century called the RCM analyst approach...

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Long term planning and the scramble for new tyres in the mining iundustry

2011-01-30T19:33:00.000-08:00

I read today's Dryblower opinion piece with significant interest. He talks about the soaring price of rubber,the tightening of supply around the large haulage tyre market, and the mad scramble that is only just starting with the worlds leading miners.

Barrick, a gold mining company, acted ahead of the pack here. Moving into a tight economic agreement with Yokogawa for supply of it's perpetual tyres. Meaning that when the crunch comes, sooner rather than later as these things normally happen, they will be one of the few that are able to continue toput rubber on the road at an affordable price.

There is an old saying about failing to learn from history... one that we are going to start seeing very soon.

In August last year I posted on Long term planning, and it's ability to deliver competitive advantages to all companies. But this was particularly true for companies that find themselves staring into another tear away boom cycle.

The key issues for miners is not assurance about future capital expenditure. That is very important but it is not the killer application of long term planning here....

The real killer, the one that makes the difference that saw many careers and companies ruined during the last boom, is being able to access parts and materials when you need to.

In the past three months the number of OEM's servicing the mining sector has shrunk dramatically with Caterpillar gobbling up Terex and Bucyrus. Today, you are eithe rwith CAT, Hitachi, Liebherr or Joy MIning generally speaking...

As demand increases production will soar, as production soars the demand for volume of parts and materials will also soar, and there is just no way these suppliers can match the raging demands of all of their customers, all at the same time.

No way.

So long term planning allows companies to issue to purchase orders 18 - 24 months in advance. Locking in supply and locking out competitors.

Some very interesting months ahead of us....

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The great cost risk debacle!

2011-01-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

If you have been working in the field of reliability or asset management for any level of time you have probably come across the figure below. Right?

The implication is that as costs reduce, risk increases, and there is a point where the trade off between cost and risk is at its lowest point, or optimal. There are a few of these around. Spares management uses it, and a few other areas... but for now we are most interested in the use in managing assets.

This has infiltrated all levels of asset management and it appears in academic texts, training courses, framework publications and a whole host of other documents that have given it credibility over the years.

The problem is that in most cases this line of thought is not only wrong, but it can actually be counter-productive to balancing costs and risk.

Read more »

Life cycle costing is DEAD!

2011-01-28T19:07:00.000-08:00

Life cycle costing was a phrase that was bandied about towards the late 1980's. A form of thinking that came to be known as Terotechnology.

This was a very short lived term and wave and one that has all but faded from existence. But the term Life cycle costing still does for some reason.

Since the start of the 21st century I have been using the term Whole of Life Asset Management in place of Life Cycle Costing. Why? Because LCC thinking is far too constricted, to limited, and far too focused only on costs.

Read more »

The definition of Asset Management

2011-01-28T17:48:00.000-08:00

I recently saw the following definition on the Asset Management Council's website in Australia. Definitions are hard going at the best of times. You always come in form criticism, but I am going to have a go at this one in any case.

The life cycle management of physical assets to achieve the stated outputs of the enterprise.

All very generic really, and a sad example of what happens when comittees get involved in risky business sectors such as this. it basically says "whatever you want, over it's life".

It is really trying to be everything to everyone, and doesn't challenge anybody to think very much.

Read more »

Being busy ain't what is used to be...

2011-01-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

If you need something done urgently give it to a busy man...

Remember that saying? Well I don't think it's true any more. Busy people these days are incredibly busier than they were at any time in my memory during my working career, and probably at any time in history.

Read more »

Do Something! (Anything) Tip#12

2011-01-27T16:49:00.000-08:00

With all the planning and critical thinking and evaluating it is very easy to get into a situation where you produce near to nothing, but you have a great idea on how to do something.

Prior planning prevents... yeah, got it. Good advice in any situation, but also the catch cry of those paralysed in an analytical position.

DO plan, DO think it through, bot more than anything else DO something. Machinery is complex, you can get lost considering ever possible implication of every alternative path you could take.

Action, however, speaks volumes. If you are following the tips you know where to start, you know what you have to achieve, and you know what you have to do once you get near the end of the analytical stage.

Get moving then. RCA/ RCM/ problem solving... whatever. Get moving. it is all well and good to wait for training, but that won't make the problem go away any sooner. I have had very little training in my career and have solved many problems.

Why? When I don't know something I go and find out. And I have worked now on everything from mines to military ships to nuclear plants. (Never again on the last one by the way)

Even the most attentive of attention will go stale if there is not rapid, and effective action to back it up.

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Think critically (Tip#11)

2011-01-26T16:49:00.000-08:00

Absolutely blew it with 20 tips in 20 days but I am keen to finish this series in any case.

One of the most important things I try to teach people, and one of the most important things I have learned in my career, is to ask questions.

This is very, very hard. People do not like to be questioned. In fact, when you question people they often take it as an affront to them, rather than an enquiry about the subject under question.

Read more »

The Value Quadrant Approach to quantifying impacts

2011-01-23T23:32:00.000-08:00

The Value Quadrant is something I have been writing about here for a few years now and I wanted to flesh out the principles a little further.

I first started to use this in the early part of the 21st century. Maybe 2002 I think. I started to realize that as a consultant I was either helping clients to define the impact of what they wanted to do, or trying to show the value of work we had recently done.

This often became very difficult for a couple of reasons. Clients tended to be focused on improvement without any form of quantified statement to back it up, and results statements often suffered from the attitude of "well you would say that wouldn't you".

Neither flattering nor useful...

Read more »

The Reliability Success Newsletter

2011-01-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

The Reliability Success newsletter is posted once every two weeks and will soon be going to a once a month publication.

It is very different to what is in the blog. Sometimes it links to the blog but will also contain a lot of unique and previously unpublished information.

We have been publishing this newsletter, in one form or another, for the last ten years and have a pretty good idea of what our subscribers want to hear about. Themes range from RCM and tactics development, through to KPI's and maintenance planning, through to the high end issues related to asset management.

Meant to be light hearted, this newsletter also draws on recent news items from around our industry, recently published articles and books that come across my desk, and my take on changes in federal, state and international markets and regulations.

Every subscriber will receive the three part series "Getting Stuff Done" a look at how to gain momentum and implement maintenance improvements, not just talk about it.

From time to time we also publish a range of additional short series and tips which we will make available through the newsletter only.

Some themes we have planned over the following months include: (All with their own illustrations and guides.

RCM Myths and Legends
The truth about Uptime Measures
Asset Management for Beginners
Practical Planning and Scheduling

If you have been reading the blog for a while now I hope you will join our growing newsletter community. Good luck!

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The "key" thing about performance indicators

2011-01-23T20:17:00.000-08:00

KPI is a term that gets thrown around pretty freely these days, normally it gets used to refer to every single metric that an organization uses or can think of.

In reality it means what it says, the KEY measure to tell you what you need to know about performance, costs, process accuracy or whatever else you may need to review.

This begs the question, what would actually be the KEY performance indicator of your plant or process?

Read more »

Feigning Economic Discipline

2011-01-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

In my view, tight economic discipline is very definitely the key ingredient driving companies to achieve quantum leaps in their asset management programs, plans and practices. Of this there is no doubt.

And no matter how you play it, budget constraints is nowhere near as compelling as a group of angry shareholders, career risk, and the possibility that the company could cease to exist. (A la Metronet)

That is all very compelling of course. But bringing about mass privatization of the industry, large scale PPP intervention, or even the Asset Manager / Asset Owner separation is something for governments and administrative boards... not something for lowly asset managers like us.

So if real economic discipline is out of the question for now, how can we fake it till we make it?

Read more »

The danger of success (again)

2011-01-18T02:17:00.000-08:00

The war against ignorance in physical asset management is pretty much over and we won.

We were screaming about it in the 1980's and by the early part of the 21st century there is literally no major asset intensive company or institution that does not realize the fundamental importance of physical asset management to their businesses chances at success.Regardless of whether they work for a utility, a mining house, a resource company or any other form of asset intensive organization.

One of the ugly side effect of this however is the appearance of fleets of internal or contractor tactics developers.

You would think I would be happy about that right...?

The problem I see often, though not always, is that they turn the exercise from one focused on asset performance to one focused on data manipulation.

This is often evident when you look at these companies and you see failing or even appalling asset performance, even though there are teams of people squirreling away working like mad wallpapering the entire equipment register with asset tactics....

And for some reason the warning bells don't ring.

The converging factor in Asset Management

2011-01-18T02:11:00.000-08:00

I was talking to somebody today about the way that asset management strategies tend to align as companies become more and more economically accountable.

While mining and process industries are taking their first tentative steps in this direction, infrastructure companies have been walking the walk for many years. (The economic asset management arena, not the reliability and maintenance arenas)

And I think this they they converge regardless of whether they are in the Water, Electricity, Council or Infrastructure, Rail or any other sectors.

Read more »

The number one reason for failures of RCM programs...

2011-01-04T02:08:00.000-08:00

Is undoubtedly due to un-mentored facilitators.

Facilitators who, due either to commercial or time concerns, or merely a lack of knowledge, are unleashed with a potentially fatal weapon. And when they inevitably run into problems there is nobody there to assist them through it.

In the worst of cases there is a level of arrogance that prevents people from being mentored correctly. This is tragic for the recently trained facilitators, and for the company who has invested in them.

I have personally seen this time and time again. They are responsible for most brands of streamlined RCM as well as a range of other common mistakes.

However, my most vivid memories of un-mentored facilitators performing analyses comes from my own personal experience when I was first trained.

Read more »

The problem with data driven decisions (Or... why CAPEX forecasting is often no more than a guess)

2011-01-02T06:10:00.000-08:00

This post refers to an article posted on my website called Captured By Data. It was written in 2005, from memory, and the thinking behind it has been successfully implemented in several state and national level utility companies.

I have long been a supporter of Weibull engineering, RAM modelling and Crow-Amsaa as reliability methods. None of these are methods on their own and are generally useful as part of a larger exercise. For example, Weibull engineering is a fantastic supplement to RCA when you have the information to do so.

And there in lies the rub...

Read more »

Implementing metrics (Tip #10)

2010-12-30T07:23:00.000-08:00

Implementing metrics is about more than just selecting a few measures and watching them, even though most literature on this subject tells people to do exactly that.

If a metrics program is going to work well it needs to meet four fundamental criteria.

They need to be relevant to the company or plant that is implementing them.
They need to be able to be produced regularly, and accurately, with very little additional work.
They need to have an owner. Somebody who can interpret them, determine who the message is for, and make sure action is taken.
They need to be well communicated, explained and regularly distributed.

Just-in-Case Inventory Planning

2010-12-28T04:16:00.000-08:00

It amazes me just how little is written about Just-in-case (JIC) inventory planning, often termed MRO style inventory management, once you get into the world of asset management. Many of those people charge with maintaining large-scale inventories and warehouses for asset management purposes are often at a loss to find applicable advice on how to manage the maintenance store.

And when they do find some advice it is often given by software vendors, often slanting the view towards what their software will deliver. (Cynical but true!)

Read more »

The secret weapon for advancing your maintenance career

2010-12-03T19:32:00.000-08:00

Like most of us I am a gadget nutcase. I really started to depend on my iPod when I was frequently standing in immigration lines, and now it and my iPhone go everywhere with me. I have even looked into building my own maintenance and reliability gadgets on the iOS platform.

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What gets measured gets managed ! (Tip #9)

2010-12-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

This statement is as true today as the day it was said.

In the Reliability Success forum right now we see another raging debate on whether to start with Planning and Scheduling, or whether to start with asset strategy works.

Both of these have their problems. You can become very good at efficiently doing the wrong thing, or you can have perfect strategies that are never executed. Both are futile efforts without the other.

In my view the principle thing you need to do, regardless of what is hurting and what is bleeding, is to get a good and ongoing picture of performance.

Because of the system work involved audits often replace metrics as the way to do this in the beginning. But ultimately you will need a good system of measures and graphics that can be used every week.

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Is reliability all about design? (Tip #8)

2010-12-01T19:17:00.000-08:00

Categorically... NO ! This is a terrible misunderstanding that provides people with a cop out for poor performance.

Assets fail in three ways.

They wear and degrade, deteriorate over time. The people managing this is of course maintenance. Managing the failure process based on consequence etcetera.

They are used for more than what they were designed to deliver. Greater failure rates, intermittent failures etcetera. This is very much an operational issue, and often a deliberate strategy when faced with commercial pressures.

The third area is when assets are not fit for purpose. This either happens during the design stages, when the requirements are misunderstood. Or when new assets or components are purchased.

If we understand reliability as assets doing what their users require, then the third area is the only area of failure where design has an impact.

A great starting point (Tip #7)

2010-12-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that companies which are almost 100% reactive have little or no work order backlog?

Counter intuitive isn't it. You would think their backlog would be bursting with work that needs to be done. Yet it is often filled only with the remnants of PM schedules that were not done or not closed.

Backlog management is one of the unseen value creating areas within asset management. Yet it is often
overlooked, dumbed down, or just outright avoided.

By backlog management I am referring to the management of the work order life cycle. From work identification, through to planning and scheduling, and then to accurate closing and data entry.

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The ERP Game (Or, how corporations spend recklessly on IT)

2010-11-29T14:42:00.000-08:00

In the light of the recent SAP / Oracle court case I thought it would be worth while revisiting this post.

The ERP game has grown in popularity since the end of the 1980’s. Today a growing number of teams all over the world play the game.

Despite the surge in popularity, there is no record of the rules of the game. Therefore, for the first time, here is a guide to the unwritten rules of The ERP Game.

Telling the tale (Tip #6)

2010-11-28T04:05:00.000-08:00

In a perfect world people would notice when you do a good job. They would see the difference, recognise the efforts and reward the initiative.

But this ain't a perfect world. And in this world it is not enough to do a good job. People have to know you have done a good job.

I believe that every serious analytical effort should be followed up with a presentation back to management. Not a grandstanding presentation delivered by the initiative champions though. That would be self defeating.

They know you are in favour of it, and they know you are going to say good things about it. (You ARE the initiative champion after all right?)

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Keep track of what you have achieved (Tip #5)

2010-11-26T04:57:00.000-08:00

It seems pretty obvious, yet almost nobody does it.

You must keep track of what you have achieved. Not only after the event, but during the event.

For example. If you are knee deep in an RCM analysis always remember the principle reasons why you are there.

Have you encountered any of the failure modes likely to cause this consequence yet? Are they defined at the right level of causality? Are your actions the most effective and technically feasible? Have you avoided the temptation to redesign the entire world?

If so then... what is it worth and how confident are you?

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Some things reliability can learn from RCM

2010-11-25T01:37:00.000-08:00

Some of the stuff that came out in the original RCM report has often been either maligned or just lumped in with RCM. Over and over again some of these principles have proven to be some of the underpinning concepts of reliability.

This is particularly true when I work with people who have deep personal experience in reliability, but have had no dealings with the information in this report.

Here are a few of them. I don't think this is going to change the world, but hopefully it will help you to sharpen your own focus a little and be better prepared for these discussions when they arise.

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What are you going to achieve anyway? (Tip #4)

2010-11-24T16:59:00.000-08:00

Steven Covey said begin with the end in mind. This is brilliant advice for those of us in physical asset management because all benefits begin in asset selection. Every time.

We touched on this in Tip #1 and Tip #3. Your company will have some driving force underneath them.

During the last resource boom output was king. resource prices were so high that it was absolutely no problem to spend a few buck more per tonne because the margins were still great.

The boom bust, the bubble burst, and the buyers started to dry up. Suddenly demand was not infinite, unit prices fell and costs of maintenance started to come back clearly into focus.

Whatever you do - Do NOT do a criticality assessment (Tip #3)

2010-11-24T04:57:00.000-08:00

I have been saying this for many years now, and every time it still seems to raise eyebrows. But whatever you do DO NOT perform a criticality analysis.

The very first reason is because nobody actually has a consistent idea of what a criticality analysis is. Some say it is bad performing assets, others seem to think it is about relative importance of the assets, and still others often confuse the two leading us to a real disastrous and thinly constructed justification.

There are other more technical reasons, but lets keep it straight forward for now. The whole idea of a criticality analysis is supposedly to provide a justification for the work, and to gain an insight into how best to sequence the analytical efforts.

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How to talk to your CEO (Tip#2)

2010-11-23T01:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's tip focused on the problems between us and the executive leadership. The fact that while they understand the importance of what we do, they generally have little or no idea of how to do it.

This tip is a short glossary of terms that may come in handy when talking to the executive within your company. be warned though, make sure you understand them before tabling them. Because the people you will be talking to definitely understand them.

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Learning to be a geek(ish)

2010-11-22T18:14:00.000-08:00

In recent time I have been learnign a lot of stuff from iTunes University. If you aren't aware of it, and I wasn't, it is a place where many of the top line universities from around the globe have posted entire semesters of seminars and courses.

In the past few months I have learned quite a bit about programming in Java, Cocoa (For iPhone Apps) and electronics. As a lifetime devotee to the asset management cause, I find this to be a fantastic way to spread into other areas.

You cannot (I believe) work in physical asset management today without appreciating software, the array of hardware gadgets we work with, and the technology behind it all.

Which brings me to my point... I was wondering for a while if you could use an iPhone as an infrared camera.

Well, after finding some fake IR apps and asking around a lot, it turns out that you cannot. The camera needs to be modified electronically in order to produce an effective IR camera. WHich is where the Geek element comes in...

One of the projects I work on when I get time at home these days, is to create my own Thermographic camera, and hopefully design it dow to a point where it becomes an ultra portable device.

From what I have seen so far I think this means I am going to have to sacrifice some accuracy, but the extremely high end devices ($15,000+) would only be truly necessary in only a handful of cases. (Aside from the ego/gadget thing that maintenance people tend to have)

This is not a commercial project. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Rather it is a great hobby thing to do and something that hopefully will enable me and my son to have some fun while we work on it. And who knows, we may find a way to put other gadgets into here also...

Not easy finding a microbolometer in Perth Australia however...

Its production stupid ! (Tip #1)

2010-11-22T05:19:00.000-08:00

Lack of management support is the key reason quoted for failure of reliability and maintenance programs.

The underlying thinking is that they are just stupid. They don't get it. They don't see the value in what we are doing. And so on...

But this is so very, very wrong...

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20 tips in 20 days

2010-11-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

We have been planning to write this feature set of twenty tips in twenty days for a while now. The goal, as always, is to try to get as much useful information out there in the community, and hopefully to start a few arguments along the way. (Because if we aren't arguing then I probably haven't engaged with you well)

The theme for this series will be implementation (of course) as this is without a doubt the primary reason for failure of any asset program. Although we are still an evolving discipline, much of what we do is now known. That is to say, there isn't too much need for exploration these days.

Most things that work are tried an tested and it only takes a brief level of research to find it.

But knowing the answers isn't actually a problem. people can draw them out of their own organizations or hire them in from the outside. (People like me)

The trick, the real trick, is turning good ideas into reality. This is exactly where things fall down, and exactly where good ideas turn into nightmare failure scenarios.

I hope you will join me for this series. I have set out the posts based on the phases of each implementation program that I have ever worked in.

The first 5 posts will be around gaining support and generating momentum. The next 5 posts will look at some of the detailed elements that need to be taken care of. The third 5 posts will focus on technology and how to maximise what you have in hand now. And the last 5 posts will look at the bigger picture. How can we make this a permanent change.

From my own experience I am very confident that if you read through this series, and then take the step of implementing at least some of these actions at your own plant, then you will achieve a pretty significant return on effort.

Good luck, stay curious and stay inspired.

A busy month...

2010-11-21T17:31:00.000-08:00

We have been pretty busy at Reliability Success lately. We have some new ads which have premiered on www.longwalls.com, a site aimed at the underground coal industry. You can see one of them alongside the blog.

We have restarted the newsletter as of today. Took a bit of a hiatus during the past couple of months to focus on my business. The plan is to publish this every two weeks filled with our news, some stuff from the blog, a feature article and tips specific to the newsletter. (You can register here)

Our big news - we have signed a deal with The Reliability Center Inc from Richmond Virginia. We are now their exclusive agent for ProactOnDemandSM, a product I see as potentially revolutionary for our industry.

Why? Because it is an online RCA system. This is a big deal. It is cheaper, can be implemented across a global enterprise extremely rapidly, and means our clients can get a much quicker return on their efforts. You will be hearing more about this over the next few weeks.

For now you can see a 9 minute video here and get a 48 hour demo here. I am really excited about this. I think this changes everything...

In other items our business continues to grow with contracts from Queensland and the Goldfields, and we are in talks with one of the Gas Majors from Australia. Potentially a big deal for us, but still very early days yet.

Stay curious, stay inspired. Al the best.

Yet another victim of ERP

2010-11-07T17:35:00.000-08:00

In today's markets companies need to act swiftly and decisively. If they don't their competitors will and they will be left at the starting line.

With that in mind I read with some interest this recent article over an ongoing failure of an SAP implementation, and it's contribution to the poor financial results of a lumber company.

ERP, a left over from the 1980's, has definitely run its course and the world is still waiting for a capable successor to emerge out of the technological advances of the past decade. Unfortunately the gravy train is huge. Analysts, clients, people wanting to buy their way into the skills market via implementation, and companies trying to do what their peers do.

An appalling way to manage the funds their shareholders have placed in their care.

When you think about it hard enough it is hard to understand why ERP is still such a large market space.

It takes 12 - 18 months to do.

It costs an arm and a leg.

It is never open. You are signing a deal to be on a continual drip from the vendor selling you the product.

It requires substantial infrastructure

You would have to have rocks in your head.

Innovative asset management devices (A good find on the net)

2010-10-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

Following a post in the condition monitoring forum recently I checked out the C-Cubed website and found an incredible little gadget.

The Pocket Lube is not something they seem to promote heavily. In fact it was the last link on one of the major links. So I had to dig around a bit before I came to it.

But the concept is brilliant. I am not sure if this is new or if there are others out there but it really impressed me as a very innovative way to apply existing technologies.

It seems to work like this. The main input is a noise sensor. (Not ultrasonics as I read it, but a noise sensor.)

This is used prior to greasing, during greasing and after greasing. The difference in noise levels (presumably) has then been used to determine the right level of lubrication, the lube type and points, as well as trending issues like lubrication usage and providing optimized lubrication routes etcetera.

I think that is pretty cool, and pretty innovative. Gadgets tend to be VA, Thermography or calculators of some kind. This one was right off the wall.

When people start dealing with the complexities associated with lubrication routines they invariably refer to the manufacturers guides. Virtually nobody, or very few people, actually have a good enough understanding in this area to know if this the right lube for this application of this asset? Is the frequency right? How much should we apply and how much are we actually using?

Great little product, incredibly under marketed by the product manufacturer, and something that could quickly help companies to make a big difference.

Have you ever heard of anything similar?

How can SAP break into the SME industry market space?

2010-10-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

I read with interest and some entertainment the article on this mining blog about SAP Australia and NZ teaming up with another company to target the SME mining industry.

(You always need to be wary of companies that have a continent in their names - a rule I live by...)

These sorts of press releases and posts are beyond hilarious. They should be titled "How can we convince small to medium companies to regress to the early 1990's?".

SAP will NEVER break into this market space without dramatically changing their business model? Why?

Because at present their business model relies on technologically ignorant CFO's who like sexy reports and transactional control. Nobody has ever been sacked for buying SAP - but companies have gone out of business while waiting for it to fix their problems.

1. Most mid level miners are heavily leveraged. They need to fix their problems NOW, not in 18 months time.

2. SME miners are often dealing with plants in several geographical regions, not just a few miles down the road. Most do not have the cash or the patience to invest in the on-premise infrastructure to carry these behemoths

3. Mining and maintenance processes are pretty much well known these days. There is no reason for them to go through all the BS of mapping them and the whole AS-IS / TO-BE scam.

4. It is too expensive. Period. SME miners and other industry sectors do not suffer from the general confusion over purpose and means that dogs large corporates.

Here is a prediction for you. (Given that I am absolutely terrible at predictions...) Within 8 years only the very top of town will have the egos and general malaise to pay $80 million for an ERP system implementation...

The rest of us will have worked out better ways to manage this with readily available technologies.

The danger of daily schedules

2010-10-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

I wrote recently about some of the "tells"a maintenance department displays when it is running in a reactive fashion.

One that I left out but should not have overlooked is the issue of daily inspections. When a maintenance department is in a purely reactive mode they tend towards large swathes of daily inspections and regimes.

While I agree that there are definitely some inspections that warrant daily execution, the sort of thing I am talking about here is actually counter-productive and, I believe, extremely dangerous.

I ave come across this more times than I can recall and every tingle time the people in the offices think they are a good thing, while the people roaming the plant on a daily basis think they are utter bunk.

And one brief look at them generally speaks volumes. They are either generic things such as "Check motor" (wonderful) or they are attempts at sophistication like "Check holding bolts for tightness".

Within a few short questions you can usually establish their illegitimacy. For example, "Would these bolts actually come loose in one 24 hour day?", "Is there really the likelihood that this liner will have worn so dramatically within the last day?"and so on.

There are several dangers here, some to the assets themselves and some to the safety of the people doing them.

a) If they just say "check motor" then they are garbage and useful for nothing more than wiping the crib room tables with. Agreed?

b) If they are more prescriptive, and the maintenance is not needed, then a) You are wilfully putting people into situations that may be dangerous. Every time intrusive maintenance actually gets done there is an increased risk of human error. And b) You of course increase the likelihood of introducing failure.

c) If they are truly not warranted then the people who have to carry them out will be aware of this. (Let's go with the idea that they are not stupid...) The result? They ignore them and they become ballpoint services. meaning that if there is real inspection mixed in there, or a real reason why they should view, check (whatever) an asset - then it is not going to get done.

So even without issues like wasting time and annoying the life out of the technicians, these sorts of over reactions can lead to troubles, can lead to safety incidents, and can cause a false sense of security.

Yet there are people all over the world who will read this and justify themselves by saying "Yeah, but it sure beats doing nothing"... So does getting it right.

Some quick pointers to a maintenance organization in crisis

2010-09-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how companies with a very reactive maintenance environment tend to have very little, or no backlog of corrective work orders?

This is one of the "tells"companies have that can help you to make a quick assessment of their situation, and what you need to do about it.

Here are some others I use regularly.

Have a quick look over the maintenance practices in place for their hidden failures. protective devices ranging from stand by assets through to circuit breakers and PSV valves.

The sorts of things you are looking for here are: tasks more suited to operating assets, 50/50 rotations with no known justification for it, unexplainable frequencies for function tests, missing functional tests, and protective devices with no maintenance strategies at all.

Have a look at the weekly plan. Does it exist? Is it capacity scheduled? Is it in their system or in excel? (Shudder)

Look at their backlog. (Aside from the planned work order thing) Aside from a low level of corrective maintenance work orders you are also looking to find lists of routine work orders that were either not done or not closed off. (Nobody remembers anymore)

Before you got there they already knew they were reactive, but within two hours you now know:

a) They have no control at all over their short term maintenance planning. They can therefore have no good level of data flowing back for analysis, no real understanding of costs, and no way of driving continuous improvement aside from the old way of squeaky wheel maintenance.

b) Their maintenance strategies are at best causing them to have a high level of asset risk, potentially with safety and environmental consequences of failure. At worst their existing maintenance is actively contributing to the reactive state of affairs.

c) Their entire approach is not based on solving problems but on fixing them. Whether by design or by default, this is where they are.

Have a look around your own operations. You probably already know the answers to the questions here. I would be curious what you think...

There are only two types of RCM, not dozens

2010-09-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

The success of Reliability centered Maintenance has had good and bad connotations for professionals in the field of physical asset management.

On one side you have scores of companies who have successfully implemented compliant RCM as an integral part of their maintenance development program.

On the other side you have many companies who have fallen for the lie that "any RCM is good", and that they can achieve a similar benefit / impact using non-compliant versions of the method.

The rise of non compliant (streamlined) methods actually occurred before the RCM standard was published, and was one of the primary reasons why the standard was published in the first place.

Prior to the standard anyone could develop an FMEA base process, slap a decision guide on it and call it RCM. (Some didn't even go that far) The reasoning was simple. Compliant RCM took too long and used too many resources.So instead of trying to change the way RCM was implemented, (the important point) they hacked into the method itself.

Implementing RCM has evolved a lot since its early days. And the fully facilitated team approach was never essential for the application of rigorous RCM - the world just believed that it was !

Today, the trend behind non-compliant methods is faltering. My own experience has been one of helping companies on the streamline path to achieve some of the benefits from standard compliant RCM.

Some common forms of streamlined RCM...

- Only the critical assets - missing the point entirely. You can lose a heck of a lot of money without having troubles with your critical assets. (The curse of criticality strikes again)

- Only the critical failure modes - Inserting criticality matrixes into an RCM analysis is generally a waste of time and it makes the analytical effort longer. There is one good use for this approach and that is for calculating the real criticality of assets. But few do it for this reason.

- Missing functional failures or some other element. (dangerous - plain and simple)

Now this is where the problems and arguments start. There are many, many methods out there. Ranging from FMECA, to PMO, through to other light forms of strategy review.

I do not believe that these methods are worthless. Far from it. I actually believe that there are many different methods for a range of different applications. But don't call them RCM because they are not. Simple as that.

And in most cases their proponents would not argue that fact.

Two styles - not dozens

There are many different processes and ways to perform compliant RCM. The writers of the standard showed a bit of foresight by limiting it to criteria rather than trying to tell everyone how to do RCM.

But don't belive what you read around the place. There are not many different forms of RCM. If they are compliant methods then they all stem from two basic approaches.

1. The Moubray approach. Heavy on P-F Intervals and with a consistent use of the decision diagram in its many forms.

2. The Anthony (mac) Smith approach - not so heavy on a decision diagram, lots of age exploration thinking and less reliance on the P-F Interval.

Every other method or approach you see out there today is an adaptation of one of these two fundamental approaches. Both of which reach back to the founding study group on RCM, and both of which have gaind a lot of support and success within Industry and globally.

The point of this article? If you are somebody who purchases RCM services and software then it is worthwhile getting an independant opinion as to whether the method is standard compliant or not.

And hopefully this short post will help a little in recognising what you are being presented with and where it came from. (One way or the other.)

The primary responsibility of the maintenance manager

2010-09-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a hint. It has nothing to do with efficiency, ERP systems or reliability information.

The role of the maintenance manager has been hijacked by software vendors intent on redefining their roles in terms of how their products will best benefit from it.

And that is fair I suppose. Every person has the right to take care of their commercial risks of course.

But there is a need to think a little deeper than the standard statements revolving around "get the job done", "collect asset data" and the rest of the corporate-speak terms you hear. (Don't you hate the word "strategic"? Means nothing...)

The primary role of the maintenance manager, in my humble view, is the management of failure.

Not the response to it, although that is important, and not the faithful recording of it; but the management of failure...

This means understanding the likely potential failure modes and putting in place strategies for their management.

Often this pushes people back to rambling on and on about data again, and there is some merit to that argument. But there is a need here to recall what has been termed the Resnikov conundrum...

This basically states that for historical analysis of failure to be accurate you need a lot of failure data, and to get a lot of failure data you need - failures!

And failures cost money, the kill or harm people and they impact on the environmental integrity of the assets being managed.

Not a very ethical way to do it is it?

As engineers we would all love to have oodles of failure data to make decisions with. Yet the reality is that the vast majority of decisions need to be made in the absence of data.

This is the primary role then of the maintenance manager. Building the failure management policies which can then be translated into maintenance processes, efficiency improvements, and data capture via proactive action.

Not ERP, not planning and scheduling, and not data management techniques...

Prioritizing work in progress

2010-09-02T00:25:00.000-07:00

Before the turn of the century (makes me sound old doesn't it) I wrote an article on prioritizing works orders in progress.

A decade on it surprises the life out of me that there are still so many companies where the concept of setting work order priorities still seems to create so much confusion.

The process I described in that article was a bit intense, and took a bit to set up and run correctly. But it really did cut the emotion out of the entire process and changed systems from squeaky wheel scheduling to risk based scheduling.

Not only that but once you look at it - it is pretty straight forward and simple. Yet many companies still seem to get confused over what "priority" means when talking about a work order.

Confusion sets in around he curse of criticality, a common affliction for maintenance professionals.

"But it is a critical asset!!" Sure, but that doesn't mean the work on it is "critical/die for it/must happen yesterday" important.

Then you see complications over what to do with PM's, Standing work orders, modifications and additions.. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Priority (not criticality) of works in progress is there for one reason above all others. To help you (somebody) make decisions about the allocation of scarce resources.

That's it. Period. The more you dig into it, the more you come to this point.

So for my money, priority needs to represent the time window in which the work order should be scheduled. The underlying thought is - if it isn't done by this time, then there could be even more trouble.

Working through it may be different for your company, but generally the outcome revolves around some sort of answer like the following.

Priority Meaning
1. Immediate
2. 24 hrs 48 hrs (RM's belong here)
3. 48hrs < 1w
4. 1w - 2w (Modifications start here.)
5. 2w - 1m
6. > 1m (Standing work orders if you must)

it also gives you the ability to do cool stuff like reporting on the age versus priority of the work orders in progress to give you an idea of how well, or not, your planners are dealing with the task of backlog management.

Good luck...!!

Developing tomorrow reliability engineers

2010-08-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

The reliability engineering scene in Australia is a bit stale. By that I mean that nobody is actually doing anything to drive new talent into the industry. Companies are all chasing the established professionals, there is more work than people, and you end up with a situation where a lot of demand is chasing a few very talented people... and nobody is injecting new blood into the game.

Concerning and all headed towards an obvious end.

Added to this is the parasitic labor hire industry. Treating skilled people as commodities, dropping them as soon as a client has any issues, and competing with each other on price. Again, no efforts at all to inject new talent into the industry - just the urge to earn fees off the expertise of others for what is fundamentally an introduction service.

People who have had to bully, push, elbow and work hard to develop the skill set they are able to offer.

it all stinks...

My company is not going to do that. Sure, we will have our share of contractors, and one or two high level "reliability ninjas". But the goal is to get new and talented people into the discipline.

Mechanics, electricians who are motivated and have done well, along with graduates looking for a career into niche areas of the industry.

Young professionals who I can send either through the remote education course at Monash (3 years) to get their reliability engineering degree - Or through the Business Asset Management post graduate degree (2 years) run by the University of Western Australia.

They leave early then they owe me the cash, they finish and decide to leave then good luck to them, that was the idea anyway and hopefully I will have produced some good and talented people on the way.

It isn't the "grab a warm body" business model that has been adopted by many labor hire firms parading as consultants, but hopefully the investment in inspired people will pay dividends in terms of sustainable business relationships.

All very exciting stuff...your thoughts?

Quick 5 tips for backlog management

2010-08-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Backlog management is one of the most simple and powerful techniques in a planners arsenal. Unfortunately it is also one of the most overlooked.

Backlog management is the art of sifting through, acting upon and reporting upon the work orders and work requests within the backlog.

It starts at the point of work order creation and ends when work orders head into the analysis archives. The goal of backlog management is to help work be completed in an efficient and time saving process.

If the short term planner is doing their job correctly then they should be spending the vast majority of their time in managing the work order backlog. Reviewing statuses, parts ordering, preparing for execution and so on.

The Quick 5

1) Make sure that the role of work order creation and completion has nothing to do with the planning office.

This is the most dangerous area. Planners are all too often used as clerks because they take on work order opening and closing in order to get good data into the system. In doing so they train everyone else to avoid the CMMS, and they sow the seeds of their own failure.

2) Develop guidelines for work order status, and define the criteria a work order must meet before it can be considered as planned.

This is a key issue and is related to work order life cycle planning. it is striking how many work order backlog systems I look through where work orders are nowhere near planned, yet they have been given out for execution.

3) Force yourself to schedule via capacity scheduling.

Capacity scheduling is a great technique. Start with the routine maintenance, then add in only the "planned" work orders from the corrective work order backlog. In this way you MUST have a planned backlog available. A good way to force yourself into the discipline of managing the backlog.

4) Develop and implement a prioritization process for works in progress. (Including reports for age versus time work orders and so on)

The core of backlog management is this concept. Work needs to be planned from highest priority items first, and this is only going to be effective if the prioritization process is robust and accurate. (As opposed to the system of "he who shouts loudest")

5) Report, review and repair.

Age versus priority, exception reports on codes entered, Number of weeks planned work ahead of the team, schedule compliance and so on. A scorecard of metrics aimed at driving efficiency and accuracy in the work order backlog.

6) Fix the underlying strategies.

Backlog management, capacity scheduling and prioritization of work will never fix poor strategies. Never.

Cutting down break in work requires a detailed approach involving correcting the underlying asset strategies. Without this your potential impact from backlog management is limited.

The maintenance work order backlog is a source of advantage - but only if the time is taken to manage it in a disciplined fashion.

Competitive advantages through planning and scheduling

2010-08-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

Resource booms place significant strains on all mining organizations. From the small end one or two site companies, right through to the multi site companies that span the globe.

When they are in full seeing they change the dynamics within organizations. Driving them way from tightly controlled cost management in favor of the highest safe levels of production possible.

And why not? When demand outstrips possible supply then price skyrockets and the gains are worth it and under any economic trade off...

The only real problem is that everyone else in the same sector is feeling the exact same pressures to ramp up production. Skilled resources are harder to come by, to keep and far more expensive. But this again is only the tip of the iceberg.

All of a sudden you have a small hand full of providers being squeezed for parts, assets and consumables that is physically impossible to produce.

We saw this very clearly in the tire shortages of the recent boom in the mid 2000's, and we are already starting to see it again in the lead time for supply of many major assets such as haul trucks, excavators and blast hole drills.

Huge demands placed on OEMS the world over. Most of whom are nowhere near as large as their client companies, and have nowhere near the resources required to deliver these demands.

When faced with these problems the small end players have absolutely no chance when fighting against the spending power of BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto.

So how can they even the scales? How can they effectively compete for scarce resources when battling the industry giants such as these guys?

Not easy... but possible

The field of small and mid sized miners is pretty large. It ranges from small organizations like Mt Gibson mining and Western Areas through to Peabody and Xstrata. Some of these are giants in their own rights, but all are too small to compete with the global majors on buying power.

Getting the most out of boom situations means then that you are going to have to successfully out navigate the global giants, as well compete with the SME mining buyers from around the globe. A situation requiring arm twisting, threats and just plain bloody-mindedness...

The answer, like every other strategic issue in asset management, revolves around being able to take high confidence decisions over the long term.

Companies able to take high confidence decisions can post and pay for their purchase orders months, if not quarters or years ahead. Gaining commitment to time frames way off in the future, and locking out competitors for scarce resources no matter how big they might be!

But hurry, the race is already underway....

Planning Horizons

Regardless of whether the assets are mobile or fixed, above or below ground, or part of hazardous process plants; leading practice revolves around establishing tightly controlled planning horizons, and tying these to production and ore body management plans.

5 year look ahead - At the corporate level 5 years is a strong horizon to allow companies to ensure supply of scarce resources. Taking a mildly pessimistic view of market conditions, fleet selections, forward orders, and major rebuild and refurbishment programs need to be accurately planned at least 5 years out.

Regulated industries in the UK and Europe have blazed a pretty strong trail in these areas. Providing accurate, defensible and challenge-able asset management plans (AMP) for period of 5 years at a time.

The critical success factor here is the underlying understanding that they are betting the company on every 5 year plan. Errors in AMP preparation or accuracy means not having access to enough capital or dramatic overspends, all leading to reduced or negative profit margins.

2 year Look Ahead - Under normal circumstances this is where the purchase order horizons should be targeting. (And booms are not normal circumstances)

A company or site level function, working with plans and activities from 3 months out to 2 years. Solidifying the overall direction, spending requirements, logistics and forward purchase orders. making slight changes and reflecting these in the overall 5 year plan .. and so on. Obviously a power of work.

1 week to 3 Months - The standard area most courses and articles are written about. The tight planning skills like estimating, capacity scheduling, logistics, parts optimization and so on. All valid, all vital and all well and truly understood in todays marketplace.

Your planners are not clerks to enter time sheets, update work orders and print out the weekly schedule. They are the front line asset managers, responsible for your competitive advantages in chasing these hard to get resources.

Good luck !

Issues with mass defect elimination programs

2010-06-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

When a defect elimination program goes to a mass audience there are some significant trade offs that need to occur.

You get an army of people thinking about root causes and elimination of problems, which isn't a bad thing. But you also end up with an approach focused almost entirely on causal logic and missing elements of deeper analysis.

Bearings are almost always the classic study. In a plant or fleet where there re repetitive bearing issues there could be multiple reasons. Everything from bearing storage and installation practices, through to operating and maintaining practices.

You can get to the truth of the matter. Testing components for strains and degradation, wading through historical documents, and running through quality records. Not always the easiest or the quickest thing to do of course. (And without which the answer is often "design fault".)

Or you can analyses the failures to date, and work out when the next failure windows will be for remaining assets. Not the total solution, but a pragmatic method of reducing losses while the deeper solution is sought out.

Defect elimination is good as a mass initiative, but it also needs a core element of professionals who are expert in delivering detailed as well as causal analyses.

Beware....

2010-06-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

I saw this sign travelling from Dubai to Abu Dhabi one time and it frightened the life out of me.

I was driving along peacefully then all of a sudden - surprises.

What could they be? Is it the road? A herd of wild camels? Do they arrive by carrier pigeon...?

A stretch.. but it is sort of like RCM benefits. They exist sure, but if you don't deliberately go hunting for them they aren't going to just appear.

Ensuring benefits from RCM

2010-06-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

Estimating, forecasting and tracking benefits of RCM implementations is one of the most under developed area in the implementation process.

I firmly believe that one of the reasons some projects don't see many benefits is that they don't begin the work with the end in mind.

Always focus on what the company want to achieve.

Always estimate the impact before you complete the works. At the failure mode mitigation level. (And if the answer is not correct, then you chose the wrong asset or failed in your analysis)

Always record the impacts somewhere and make sure the story gets told.

Start recording the cash impacts the moment the analyses hit the ground.

Reliability engineers, for some reason, tend to shy away from staking claims on monetary impacts. Preferring to speak to the issues of risk reduction and loss avoidance.

I am writing a brief white paper on calculating benefits using the Value Quadrant approach. I will post it here when it is done. It covers a range of crash tested techniques I have used for issues ranging from asset selection, through to calculating benefits.

I will make it available if anyone is interested.

Risks of successful RCM pojects

2010-06-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

Every major resource enterprise that I am aware of, in the world, has a running equipment strategy team somewhere or other. What a dramatic shift in circumstances from the early days of the 1990's.

While good news, I think it exposes some issues related to the consistency and skills of the analysts, as well as larger issues about benefits and implementation.

In asset systems the scale of those existing in these (often hazardous) companies this poses a significant threat. If we get it wrong then the best that can happen is it costs us more cash than we want to spend. The worst that could happen...(fill in the blank)

It does make you ask, what is the minimum criteria here in terms of skills? What capabilities in equipment strategy creation should people have before being let loose on a significant item of plant? Would all of your team qualify right now?

More to the point, what quality checks are you doing now or should you be doing in future? And what are you doing about estimating and tracking RCM benefits?

The list goes on. It is easy for large undertakings such as this to become strategy factories sometimes instead of hubs driving improved performance.

Cash and maintenance, some online tools

2010-06-16T06:43:00.000-07:00

Cashed up is a great term when you are a small to mid sized industrial enterprise. Cashed up means that cash flow is under control AND you have cash in the bank.

Think about what that means to, say, Wessex Water, or one of the several dozen small miners, or small manufacturers. These are cash hungry businesses requiring capital spending, asset replacement and maintenance, raw materials and fuel and energy.

When you take sales out of the picture, then all that remains is the ability to meet demand, and to do so in an economic and safe fashion.

These are the enterprises that need an RCM capability. They need slick and efficient work processes, and they need inventory management processes that doesn't leave them with dead cash. Without these fundamental components the gap between cashed up and in trouble narrows considerably.

(And then we have to cut people, then we don't have enough resources, and then...)

Yet they are precisely the companies that cannot afford bigger-than-Ben-Hur software implementations or "cast of thousands"asset planning teams.

A few things from the net

Paul Barringer (great site by the way) has a great link to an old and outdated version of Raptor RAM modeling tool here. Its good enough to get moving and get some traction, but version 7 is only around $1,000 anyway. (And road tested in the military, aviation and other hazardous industries apparently) (I use version 7)

OpenFTA for fault tree analysis. Not too sure about this one. I have Windows 7 and it seems to cause problems with some things.

Open source project management, Gantt charting tool.

This is just an absolutely awesome link from the Department of Energy in the USA. The potential for energy efficiency just out of this technological contribution alone is mind blowing.

This is IRCMS, version 6. This is a great tool. Another example of the US government subsidizing reliability efforts. And another potential large booster for small industrial enterprises. I have used it on several deep engineering style projects and would do so again in a heart beat. (You have to create an account somehow.
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Not to be mistaken. Every one of these tools, particularly Raptor and IRCMS, are exceptional tools and not a compromise at all.

At the end of the day you can spend weeks deliberating and running through functionalities... or you can get something done.

Some keys to implementing successful maintenance backlog management

2010-06-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

Backlog management is an area that is often done more as a routine task than as a vibrant and strategic element of the maintenance effort.

When done correctly, successful backlog management systems will deliver almost immediate impacts in a range of areas, including:

The ability to forecast maintenance spend over the short to medium term with high accuracy. Meaning real visibility of resource demands.
The ability to produce accurate capacity schedules, driving inefficiency out of execution
Reduction of garbage in the work order backlog
Increased accuracy of historical work for bad actor and improvement analysis.

And of course, the reason why we are doing this in the first place. A better running plant? Why? Because the right work, is being done at the right time, with the right resources, procedures, parts, times...

When done correctly, backlog management includes the following elements:

An upfront prioritization system for emergent works.
Work request / creation exception reporting.
Focus on capture of work delay codes, enabling efficiency and time and motion optimization.
Capacity scheduling system and process
Suite of work forecasting reports. From resource levels through to weekly / daily inventory whereabouts updates.

The initial value we see in backlog management is the improvement in work processes and asset performance. The secondary, and arguably more important impact over the long term, is the improved maintenance history to take even further optimizing decisions on.

In fact, the amount of maintenance work order history that is not analyzed for anything beyond basic failure information is a wasted asset.

The power of work oder priorities in Mincom Ellipse

2010-06-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are not familiar with the Mincom Ellipse product this post will not add too much value.

I am a particular fan of the Mincom Ellipse system and have seen it put to phenomenal use in large scale organizations globally. But you do have to get a bit smart with it.

There are lots of little legacy fields, functions and processes in there that have a huge optimizing impact but are rarely used, unknown or forgotten. Others lend themselves to a variety of processes, allowing several points of control to be established.

One of these little gems is the fact that there are two distinct priority fields on the work order. A users priority and a planners priority.

This is a fantastic filtering and backlog management tool. The user enters a priority when the work order is created. A priority preferably linked to some form of emergent work prioritization process.

Here we start to see part of the work order life cycle within the system. Passing from creation through to the planing stage where the Planner, complete with a broader picture, is able to assign her own priority. This then becomes the priority of the work.

It enables for audit-able decision trails through the planning, scheduling and final execution of the work, and provides an additional lever over backlog management.

With a rigid, process based and tested prioritization system in place, the ability to manage work can be seen via tools such as age versus priority reports, or late work order reports. When performing capacity scheduling it allows you to pick off the corrective work orders based on priority.

A very small piece of functionality with a very large potential impact. But it also goes to underline that Ellipse, or any system, will not change organisations by itself. It needs to be interlaced with robust offline decision making processes and activities.

What are the core arguing points of Asset Management?

2010-06-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

I really don't know, but here are some issues that I regularly find rigorous debate and hardened positions. Your comments would be welcomed.

1. Asset selection - Seems to be a continuing push for criticality analysis on everything before starting the work. Not bad except there is no clear and consistent definition of criticality, and it often ends up targeting assets that are working well. (Okay, so that's my view of course)

Techniques often thrown into the mix include:

FMECA style studies
Bad actor analysis
RAM simulations, de-bottlenecking
Boss's opinion (Winning s surprising amount of arguments)

2. What is optimal? Often semantic debates about details of the final goal rather than concentrating on the journey.

Anyway, the arguments here often spiral around whether a) Its a cost risk trade off, as you spend less risk increases, or b) Its a cost - performance trade off - with safety and environment managed separately.

3. Failure codes and other hot button issues in CMMS implementations. (Every time)

4. The bathtub curve - consistent and entrenched arguments around the application, use and usefulness of the bathtub concept.

5. RCM, PMO or other - I see this ongoing discussion as a good thing. Particularly these days. It shows an interest in the detail and application. The whole equipment strategy thing turned from an optimization step to an almost "dump and run"exercise designed to get strategies in a CMMS and not overly focused on the material impacts.

6. Use an application of probabilistic techniques. Again, I see this argument as a good thing, and one that seems to show where we think we want to move. The arguments tend to revolve around issues related to availability of data, suitability of external data, and confidence in the answers.

Any of these issues surface often where you are? Or are there glaring elephants in the room I have missed?

Options for rapid site asset optimization

2010-06-12T02:51:00.000-07:00

Optimization in asset management takes on a slightly different meaning than the operations end of things.

There are swirling debates on this issue, as with many core issues for asset management, but the final result is generally a mix of low costs and tolerable risk considerations.

The challenge here is not to set up projects that will result in this "optimized state". It is to develop and implement optimizing techniques and methods.

Processes that, by their very nature, will sharpen operations capabilities, and drive higher sustainable performance.

Processes focused on root cause analysis, defect elimination, or other error reduction process will produce this dynamic. Eliminating first the major loss producing failures, then to the highest maintenance cost failures, and then onto whichever is the next priority.

Capacity scheduling in maintenance planning is one of the great removers of inefficiency,although it never seems that way at first.

The first week capacity scheduling is introduced it does one of two things. Exposes that you have too many resources, or that your maintenance schedules are woefully inadequate. (Normally the second)

It doesn't add up, the schedule isn't coming in as planned, there are huge levels of break in works, and so on.

It makes it all look too hard, but what is actually happening is the process demonstrating the weakness in your systems. Reviews of estimates and parts requirements, procedures, timing and steps, logistics, the discipline to complete work set before lower priority emergent works.

Two exceptionally focused, self improving and relatively low-tech solutions for beginning the journey towards an optimized state.

RSPT making mine sites like utilities

2010-06-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

A rant about the ongoing RSPT debate in Australia. I don't blame you for not reading on...

When I lived in the UK I worked almost entirely with the water and rail sectors of that country. Fascinating experience, and a study in paths of privatization.

The regulatory framework is a bit long and dense, so I wont go into it too much here, but there are elements of the coming Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT) that are strikingly similar.

Within the water industry in particular there is something called Regulatory Capital Value or RCV.

Fundamentally this is used by the regulator to help them determine what price a water utility should ask for their water over a 5 year period. (Their regulatory cycle) It gives them an agreed idea of the return on capital a company should be able to generate.

This is part of what the federal government is trying to do in Canberra Australia. By calling for a tax on all profits above 6%, they need to have an agreed valuation point to determine profit.

Return on invested capital seems to be the going approach, with the government looking to use historic valuations. meaning - cheaper.

So instead of a system like in the UK where RCV is indexed to the Retail Price Index (RPI), our beloved government is suggesting to state the value of the assets at lower rates. Meaning the tax kicks in on lower cash levels.

In a sense giving miners the ability to earn 6% on past valuations, not valuations that match what they would be bought for, which may be as low as two or three percent today. And for every dollar over that, 40% goes to the Government. (And whatever charges, royalties etcetera)

Makes a lot of small companies with marginal resources suddenly look a lot more appealing than one large one don't they? Not to mention the sudden attractiveness of other resource laden regions such as Canada, Latin America and Africa.

The problem here, when comparing to the UK utility regulatory framework, is that these were once public companies, and the regulator was set up to mimic the impacts of a competitor in their market space.

I don't think there is anybody saying that mining is not competitive is there? At any time there are countless West Perth and Terrace CEO's looking for cash, debt, skilled resources and ongoing client contracts. (The binding sort)

The work in environments with competition and negotiation at their core. Particularly in the unlisted iron ore and coal commodities. And lets not forget that not every year is a good year, regardless of how much demand there presently is in China.

Do they really need a cap on what they can earn? Do they really need to change the underlying financial justifications for many small and medium sized investments started over the past few years?

The further you look into this tax, the more ridiculous and inappropriate it appears. If you had access to 40% of every dollar over 6% profits from a major national industry, and you were charged with spending it wisely for Australians - would you give it to the Federal government?

Technical verification of RCM studies

2010-06-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

Every major Oil and Gas or Mining house I know runs on an engine room of people and systems dedicated to developing, reviewing and continually sharpening physical asset management strategies.

Every one without fail.

The principles of RCM have spread to such an extent that they now form a major element of most of the worlds major asset intensive organizations - if not all of them.

Sure they have lots of cash, in good years, and sure they are bigger than you. But your assets are just as important as theirs when it comes to profitability and productivity.

The point being, today's argument isn't so much about acceptance anymore. Or at least, it isn't as hard an argument as it used to be. The issue today I believe, is one of quality.

In the commercial world strategy development has become almost commoditized. With every man and his dog (old bush saying) spending time developing maintenance strategies somewhere along the line, combined with contractors falling over themselves to do more, faster, cheaper, remotely...etcetera.

This is, I think,a very real issue. And one that hasn't surfaced as yet. Asset maintenance strategies are serious business. (I am sure that somewhere there is an RBI inspector, an NDT specialist, and a sub sea engineer absolutely panicking over the situation in the Gulf of Mexico...)

Skills cannot be universally at an adequate level, implementation we all know is woeful, and there has to be some question over the technical robustness of the final product. Particularly when they are working in hazardous industries. And industries where downtime quickly converts into telephone number sized bills.

There is a definite need for technical reviews, assessment of facilitator / analyst skills, and overviews of implementation and impacts.

The principles of "good"RCM are universal. regardless of whatever system, streamlined or otherwise, you have developed.

The analysis still needs to be at the right level. Hard to describe what it is, but obvious when you see something that isn't. The functions still need to be written with a quantified performance standard, and describe the function, not the design!

And so on; failure modes at the right level, effects written from a zero base, and tasks that are both Effective and Applicable.

A vital element of modern asset maintenance. Strategy development is about far more than using graduates to wallpaper strategies across an asset hierarchy...

Rapid maintenance programs for small minesites

2010-06-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

I was speaking to the head of a small mining company today with a fascinating business plan.

Their intention is to purchase very small mining leases, preferably operating or past the feasibility stage, to rapidly have a cash generating mining asset. Profitable, although not rivers of cash.

Reminded me of Wessex Water. Another profitable though not huge operation. Assets geographically distributed, with a need to see performance across the asset base, and small margins before unscheduled downtime can impact dramatically on profitability.

In small enterprises such as these, and countless others globally, they either go too big or not at all.

They "over-capitalize" by installing systems that are too big, complex and require too many people to feed them.

Or...they do nothing. "it's too small", "We don't have any funds", "It all costs too much", "Just focus on production". Paralyzed into indecision by their limitations.

Fortunately, technology has changed the options that these companies have available to them. Only they aren't looking for them it would seem.

I have ranted here before about online systems, and will continue to do so until something better comes along. Particularly in small enterprises such as these.

Online CMMS means you instantly have a view of the asset / maintenance performance in every site, globally, with the infrastructure of a web browser. Not a bad start.

And there are other online systems, such as the very powerful Google Docs, DimDim.com for communications and training, and a few other projects that are currently under development. (I have one or two being built right now)

There is simply no reason why these companies cannot be up and running within a few short weeks, with global infrastructure, global document management and collaboration, and global reporting processes.

A few big company types will of course see this as lightweight, and not rigorous enough for "our"processes. And that may be fair enough...

But it is good enough for profitable, small enterprises to rapidly gain control over their physical assets, and start to put in place the sustainable, low cost processes they are going to need to manage marginal assets like this.

Reliability for every company...imagine that.

Fundamental elements of any defect elimination program

2010-06-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

We tend to burrow more than most managerial disciplines for some reason. We often get so buried into our methodologies that we cannot see the world around us.

When we implement defect elimination the rooms explode with heated debate over techniques, styles, semantical terminology arguments and so on. All very valid, and often debated by people with more grasp of it than I have.. but it tends to miss the point.

Most, if not all, RCA approaches are designed and honed by people who have been there and done it. They are pretty good, let's face it. And most will probably deliver different paths to a similar result.

All well and good.

The real heated issue, the one that is often forgotten, is that of implementation. How to you set up your organization so that you are able to rapidly find, analyse, approve and implement the results?

First, set up a screen. A production accounting system, capable of tracking the lost production opportunities and reporting on their dollar value.

Second, act on it - do the analysis. (Maintenance first, resist the urge to automatic redesign, etc)

Third, implement it. Increasingly efficient and rigorous implementation pathways. (Ops, Design, Maint, Procurement/Supply)

The first of these elements. Setting up a screening process, or processes, is possibly the most vital. It will decide whether your initiative is proactive, and dealing with issues before they become chronic, or reactive and waiting for the next ambulance to whizz past.

The goal is simple. Set daily production targets. record reasons for variance, and then quantify them in $/Ton sales or gross profit terms. (Whatever you prefer)

Act every day on every incident and trend them weekly to see what is happening over the medium term. Biggest number wins in terms of targeting resources, and the work needs to be well publicized when completed.

Getting rid of the bottlenecks in defect elimination

2010-06-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

Almost all defect elimination initiatives initially start well and then end up in a huge pile of unactioned design changes. (And often not near the right levels of causality - but thats another story)

There are lots of reasons for this, and sure - we can all point to processes that could be smoother, authorization loops with automatic escalation and other wonder tools of work process design. But the core reason I believe, has more to do with how resolutions are crafted.

There seems to be a tendency, almost universally, to opt for redesign instead of other options. This is not unlike Hazop analyses also, tending to end up in a range of new (and probably unmaintained) protective devices popping up everywhere.

Redesigns take time, require further work, capital and approvals, and may well introduce additional problems and labor requirements in terms of maintenance and inspection.

Meaning - they won't resolve the situation anytime soon normally.

Redesign does have its place, however there should be alternative options prior to arriving at the nuclear option. (Tear it down and start again)

I have long advocated for merging some of the elements of various initiatives, and defect elimination is one of those areas.

Analysis and estimation of human error risk using HEART, detailed analysis of failure data using probabilistic analyses in validating and disproving theories, and the integration of the RCM decision logic into resolution development.

The last point is one that I have had a lot of success with in recent time. The introduction of a proven, maintenance first decision algorithm reduces the benefits horizon, lessens the potential for workflow blockages, and most importantly - maintains momentum.

There is nothing more important to implementation than momentum.

When is end of life?

2010-06-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

Within asset reliability and management estimating end of life points has become more and more important. With credit harder to access and more expensive; companies, and their creditors, need to have greater confidence in the large flows of cash required, and it's timing.

This thinking has become sharper over the past twelve years, following from the developments since privatization of the UK utilities industries, and Public Private Partnership contracts, placing billions in spending and public welfare largely on a companies ability to forecast their asset management spending for the next period. (Nominally 5 years)

These plans, submissions and ongoing reports are reviewed intensely, against increasingly rigorous standards.

And this one is a serious game. Companies have been fined over 100 million GBP, people have been charged with fraud (imagine that), and companies such as Metronet have failed leaving a hole worth billions to the British taxpayer.

All due in part to their ability to manage their physical asset base.

So you can believe they're plans are pretty robust by now.

But thats not the problem...

The problem is, "when is end of life?" The underlying science of this, although often built on shoddy data foundations, is pretty much in place and there are a range of predictive methods in place to look at end of life.

With a few exceptions, most replacement decisions of multi-assembly assets are not made on one asset or component failure. They are usually tied to some form of replacement value thinking.

Once repair value exceeds (say) 80% of replacement value then remaining life trade offs indicate it is more cost effective to replace than repair. But when you have multi-assembly assets, each assembly alone rarely fulfills this criteria.

This is one of those classic asset management roadblocks that many of us have stumbled across as you get deeper and deeper into this. (Others include forecasting corrective maintenance spending and gleaning "information" through rivers of asset "data")

Do we just continue forever until the structure gives out, (or something like that), or is there really a point where the asset system can / should be replaced for economic effectiveness?

Answering this, in my view, requires a two pronged line of thinking. One that looks in detail at Asset Replacement Value, and works out what it is really worth. The other looks at end of life forecasts.

The key isn't when one item fails, it is when several fail in a similar period. This is the point where ARV gets compared with costs to repair and keep, with a view to determining optimal times for replacement.

Obviously not as tidy and straight forward as that. And as you can imagine there are layers and layers of thinking here. From mobilization, lost production and efficient scheduling, through to where is the asset data coming from, and the right application of probabilistic techniques. (Better to be approximately right instead of...)

The good thing is that all of the work required to deliver this sort of thing is all positive, and will have impacts far beyond replacement points for multi assembly assets.

A shot in the arm, performance "jump start" techniques

2010-06-05T00:47:00.000-07:00

There are numerous things I have seen as examples of leading practice in jump starting flagging performance. Some have been really very inventive, while others have been re-application of basic tenets.

In my experience turnaround initiatives need to have three fundamental qualities;

they must be easy to implement, with pilots and small projects up and running within days or weeks, not months,
they need to be designed to deliver impacts early and often, and
they need to be sustainable. (Defect elimination (for example) when poorly implemented, tends to produce endless lists of design changes.)

Within asset maintenance there are numerous jump start techniques. Most of which came to the surface during the recent financial crisis. They include areas such as CM for operational parameters - not just asset failure, alignment surveys, cleanliness (remarkably), as well as basic issues like torquing charts, time and motion studies and a raft of others.

Within the usual suspects for jump start initiatives are three stand out candidates.

Defect elimination (well implemented) - Focuses on lost production recording and accountability. Drives existing staff to reason through commonly occurring issues and rapidly implement solutions.

Capacity Scheduling - Uncovers a raft of issues in running efficient operations. Everything from exposing waiting times through to issues with front line supervision. (And it's always "too hard" at first)

Equipment Level benchmarking - Often overlooked. A quick shot in the arm for rapid discovery, validation, and transferral of leading practices.

Everyone of these delivers rapid results, a positive morale boost, and more importantly - Momentum!

The key here is to gt them in quick, produce the impacts even quicker, and then move on... Build on success and move towards sustainable low cost enterprises.

The problem with turnaround activities is that they generate so much initial results that they end up becoming the centerpiece instead of what they are intended to be. Just a standard part of operational discipline.

Good luck.

Where is reliability / maintenance software headed?

2010-05-31T22:05:00.000-07:00

I have long been a believer in on-the-web technologies. A big fan of SaaS systems myself I use them regularly in business and in delivering services. In fact most of the world runs a lot like this nowadays.

Except us..While industries from banking to consulting are more and more web based, our companies are fixated with racing towards the old SAP-style architectures of the late 1990's.

I am writing because I stumbled upon an old press release for a company that appeared back near the first internet bubble. A kiwi company called Sparesfinder.com. (Since changed ownership and now based out of the UK)

This is an absolutely great technology, a brilliant idea, and dramatically underused for some reason.

The core concept is simple, to quote their news release:

The service is totally unique in that it allows individual end-users of spares to trade their excess inventory between each other. Also, because the service is delivered through the internet, it provides all subscribers with a global choice of spares instantly and at the touch of a button.

A brilliant idea.

A way to get rid of excess inventory after taking a decision for technology reasons. Or a way to manage obsolescence, purchasing obsolete stock from other companies after upgrades.

The core idea of releasing capital from purchased inventory, easily.

The trick is though, of course there is a trick, the more people are in it - the more useful it is. But the possibilities are really intriguing. Particularly if it could become a business line for resellers of parts and equipment.

The other is of course emaint.com. Another long lived great little company providing online CMMS to small to medium sized industries.

The benefits of these systems are reaching the "obvious choice" level I think.

Rent rather than install.
The fees are generally lower
Implementation time characteristically lower
Functionality is between okay and really great.
Infrastructure is often a browser
Access is global. In an instant.

Then there is Google Apps Engine.. This is a really great little platform. For those of us in reliability in the early 1990's - it is the Microsoft Access for this period!

A relatively easy to learn, scalable, and robust platform allowing us all to create online business applications. Google have effectively turned business applications open source and free.

The need for data in our game is irrefutable. The means of accessing it, using it and analyzing it is where we really need to be thinking for the next big steps forward in productivity and costs I believe.

Three elements for successful RCM Implementation

2010-05-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

When implementing RCM there is often far too much focus on analysis or "discovery" elements of the work, and nowhere near enough focus on the "making it happen" elements.

When companies try to it is often wrapped up in warm statements such as cultural change, which normally come blaring banners and posters (even Mugs!), and a vague threat of horrible consequences from an Executive sponsor.

But what is really required to implement RCM? And what is the end goal anyway?

Sure, managers always refer to reduced costs, increased uptime, reduced Safety / Env risks or increased knowledge. But I have been working with companies on these issues now for sometime, and almost always the final answer is "confidence".

Confidence that costs and performance are at or near leading practice, confidence in budget production and maintenance costs estimates, confidence that safety and environmental incidents are controlled to a tolerable level, confident that "we will make it to the next shutdown", and confident that we actually didn't need that regular outage anyway.

If we look at it this way the question becomes "How can we establish an environment of confidence?", instead of "How can we implement RCM?".

Three elements of Successful RCM Implementation

Nowlan and Heap, as well as Resnikov, all recognized one thing. probabilistic analysis, when performed correctly, is a far better means of determining equipment strategies. (As long as it adheres to the fundamental concepts of RCM)

The problem was, and is, that the data for performing probabilistic analysis is almost never available. A few years ago I wrote an article stating that most companies have approximately 30% of data and 70% information when it comes to asset knowledge.

If this company wishes to be taking high confidence decisions, then they need to correct this issue. When a company starts to take decisions based on data and facts it changes the entire dynamic of the organization.

As he underlying data increases in integrity, quantity and quality, the company develops capability to perform accurate and relevant probabilistic analyses.

The early RCM people, Resnikov in particular, realized that the benefit RCM truly brings, is that it raises a lack of data to a positive. It provides a framework, structure, speed of implementation and rigor that allows minimum safe maintenance to be delivered.

My experience is that companies where the following three elements are in place, are best positioned to get the benefits of RCM, and to embed the thinking as part of the organization. Each are pretty complex and detailed, but there are only three.

Quality, speed and effectiveness of the Analysis effort. (From training to electronic implementation and every where in between)
Frameworks for the capture, management and use of Asset Data.
Introduction of probabilistic reliability techniques and higher confidence techniques

Its not the introduction of RCM by itself that causes corporations to change. it is the underlying driver towards increased confidence over asset decisions that drives many of them to make wholesale changes to core elements of their day to day work management.

This is often a shock for those who have been forcing RCM into a discussion about software and functionality. Reducing it to a process to be applied when it could be a transformational initiative.

(I thought the "RCM software wars" finished at the end of the last century)

Responses to The Super profits Tax

2010-05-27T18:28:00.001-07:00

In Australia, The PM Kevin Rudd, and his cohorts, The Ruddy Gang, have successfully demonstrated that Paul Keating (love him or hate him) was the only economic visionary in that party in it's history.

It's not going to have an impact, it is having an impact already.

A 40% tax on any profits above 6% is tantamount to nationalization, and puts a large portion of wealth generated in this country into the hands of those who are least qualified and least likely to spend it wisely.

The argument is that these are Non-renewable resources. We get one chance to sell them, and we (Australia) needs to benefit from that.

Fair point.

But The Federal Government isn't Australia. We are. Raking off large scale profits, primarily out of Western Australia, so Canberra can squander this cash on bloated government spending, short term point scoring and pork barreling.

If miners are going to see this through, particularly miners with deep cyclical products such as nickel and zinc, then asset costs will need to be reined in, and in a sustainable manner.

This will mean substantial hardening of the asset management practices underlying many companies.

A focus on more accurate capital projections up to five years out.
Higher focus on whole of life management of asset performance, not only costs
Alternative funding avenues for asset maintenance. (PPP, MARC, regulatory frameworks spring to mind)

The need for accurate short term forecasts and performance, tied with greater accuracy in longer term projections, is going to force a sea change on some miners in the short term.

Do you really think it's about management commitment?

2010-05-27T18:12:00.001-07:00

The oil leak in the Mexican Gulf is truly nearing calamitous proportions. With ramifications that are still widely unknown, but surely spread far beyond that small part of the world.

It is increasingly being referred to not as a crisis scene but a crime scene, and Tony Hayward, successor of the scandal ridden Lord Brown, as a criminal.

Keith Olbermann summed it up succinctly saying "Why is this man in charge instead of in jail?"

Of all the unknowns in this truly disastrous event, the one thing we know with certainty is that asset failure, of some kind, had at least something to do with this.

It is practically unavoidable in a failure of this scale in this industry.

Do we still think that management don't support physical asset management? Still? After the Hatfield Rail disaster (leaders charged with corporate manslaughter), The BP Refinery Explosion, the Buncefield explosion, and... the list goes on.

Then there are all the lessons to come out of the GFC.

Resource companies bloating in high cash times and having to thin down in low cycles,
the damage wrought when production becomes the only economic factor (because prices are incredibly high)
The extremely sharp and continual eye needed on bottom line costs. Particularly int he wake of The Ruddy Gang's proposed Super Profits Tax in the Mining industry.

In the past I think it was true. But today, I just don't buy the line that executive management do not support asset management initiatives.

Every senior executive I have spoken to in the last decade "get's it", and often get's it deeply.

What they often lack however, is a good guide to help them work out exactly what they should be doing about it.

"Lack of management support"when quoted today as an excuse for failure, normally means you are not engaging with them in the right way.

Not always, there are exceptions - but very, very often.

If you haven't been able to get support for what you want to do then the fault lies with either the initiative itself, the underlying story being told, or the right people haven't been spoken to yet.

That's it. They aren't uninterested, they just aren't hearing you clearly.

Another rapid results method

2010-05-24T23:32:00.000-07:00

When everything hit the fan a year or so ago, I recall writing a post on rapid ways to improve asset performance. From the few emails I received, (nobody writes emails anymore...), I think it was able to help at least a few people.

The reality is, there are always rapid means of improving asset performance. But in the hurry-up world of daily operations we often neglect to deal with them - Even though we know they are good for us. (Sounds like vegetables doesn't it?)

This is the real challenge. Finding time to do the important things instead of continually chasing after the urgent things.

We've known this for years, yet we continue to cut employee levels to a point where dealing with both becomes a physical impossibility, but that risk management issue is another blog post.

Jump starting asset performance initiatives are pretty standard these days. Alignment surveys of critical assets, lubrication management storage, cleanliness, defect elimination, etc. There are a standard set of "go to" initiatives that can turn around the bottom line or raise the top line. (Or both)

But often overlooked is equipment level benchmarking, yet if done correctly it holds a lot of easily realized benefits.

The basic premise is this...

Comparing costs per ton (say) for maintenance doesn't give you any idea as to the actual asset performance underpinning it.

For example, site A may have lower unit costs than site B, yet site B has dramatically lower costs of maintenance and higher operation rates for a key, and high cost, asset.

In site or even process level benchmarking this sort of thing would go largely unnoticed. But when compared with others within its asset class and type, the underlying performance narrative emerges.

The process? Straight forward, and only requiring some technical capability towards the middle.

a) Define what good performance is. (Not as easy as it first looks) Determine the key performance indicators that will best represent this thinking.

b) Break the asset groups into types / classes

c) Compare each of the assets to one another and to indicators selected.

d) Determine the landmark performers, and comprehensively investigate the maintenance strategies in place.

e) Validate them! The most important and overlooked step. They might not be smart, they might have just "gotten away with it"for some reason. Each failure management strategy needs to be validated against effectiveness and applicability criteria.

f) Implement them. (Again, not as easy as it sounds - And more than changing a few lines in your ERP.)

The result? The financial result is the rapid transition of validated leading practices, within your own organization, that can be easily transferred.

But there are intangible results here. Issues like momentum building, gaining support, and pulling a rabbit out of your hat. By far the most important, as I read it, is the reliability focus it builds, particularly as the end result is a combination of existing work, with a few minor tweaks.

Very enjoyable projects, particularly the implementation part.

Getting good SME's involved in the RCM analysis

2010-04-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

When I started out facilitating RCM analyses the "standard" approach was to try to get the BEST people, lock them away for a week or more, and send them off with Homework to ask others in the plant. (If they didn't know the answers)

And what happened? It all got very busy. Resources were slashed to the bone. Instead of getting the best people you started to feel privileged if you had any available people.

Not only that but people (or at least me) started to come to the conclusion that maybe the answers we require aren't in the room?

This is the beauty of implementing RCM in the modern era. If I want to speak to a rocket scientist with experience in extreme cold climates you could find one in less than 5 minutes.

I use LinkedIn as first port of call for all hard to get SME requirements. And it hasn't let me down yet.

Most people are more than happy to answer s brief question or recommend someone who can.

Send an email, get in touch within days if not immediately, and with Skype and DimDim.com in particular you can even set this up in a good environment for knowledge transfer.

Thought it might be of use.

The continuing popularity of Time-Based maintenance

2010-02-08T04:44:00.000-08:00

A recent post in the Reliability Success forum asked the question: "WHy is time based PM still very popular if > 80% of failure are not related to time"

My take on this? There are four reasons. Some are easy to get around with adequate training and mentoring, others take a bot more time to sort out.

1) The message still hasn't reached everybody... Believe it or not. Every single time I give the RCM course, and I have trained nearly 4000 people now, people are always taken aback by the fact that 89% of failures in the N&H study were not related to time.

2) Fear of the new. I have trained and facilitated groups in RCM who, after working through every failure mode themselves, still want to run their old program in parallel with the new RCM failure management strategies. There is no logic to this...just a fear.

3) Safety. The catch cry of everyone who is losing an argument in maintenance and reliability. Yet time based maintenance is demonstrably **more dangerous** than other forms.

4) Bad introductions. I have seen many (MANY) RCM practitioners who drop the nowlan and heap failure curves on people without explaining the back story.

What is a "constant failure mode" really, how do they come about, what is the difference between complex and simple assets...etcetera. Once the facts are known, the logic makes sense.

This is what I have seen in any case. I would be interested in hearing what others have seen on this issue.

(By the way) I was working with a colleague once who said that any conversation with an RCM practitioner always starts with "first accept that you are wrong".

That might be part of the reason also... ;-)

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

Preventing Failures of RCM - Pt 1

2009-11-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

After a long and winding journey RCM is finally findings its rightful place as a cornerstone of modern asset management. The benefits are well documented now and cover all aspects where physical aspects have an impact on corporate performance.

Yet still many programs end with a whimper.

Lack of management support, poor asset selection, lack of momentum and taking technical shortcuts are undoubtedly killers of any RCM program. The overuse and misuse of criticality, streamlining the method instead of the implementation process and poor program management accounts for a lot of these issues.

Yet all are joined in one classic error; the failure to adequately train RCM Analysts.

When reviewing RCM analyses I often come across annoyingly similar mistakes, all of which have potentially harmful impacts, and all of which are avoidable if the RCM Analysts are properly prepared in the first place.

These errors tend to fall into three categories, and aside from the impacts below they are all motivation and momentum killers.

Failure modes at the wrong level of causality. Leads to blanket strategies not connected to the failure mechanisms, over use of the run to failure options, and excessive spares options required.

The worst effect of this of course is the fact that not all of the reasonably likely failure modes have been uncovered. Yet everyone familiar with RCM expects that they are. False sense of security, unmet expectations, classic failure of the implementation.

Combed of ambiguous failure modes - "Control Failure" is a classic example of this, so too is "bearing fails due to wear or contamination". Again there is almost no way to get the right sort of failure management strategies in these situations. This is not uncommon where someone is trying to justify what already exists, instead of determining the real maintenance requirements.

Developing strategies without using the decision diagram(s) - This is a shocker and almost always happens to first time RCM Analysts. The trap is to fall into inserting the strategies that already existed instead of developing strategies to manage the failures found. This has the effect of a zero benefit analysis, or worse - one that is incorrect. (And potentially dangerous)

It is easy to come undone here. Time based failures really seem like they should be managed using a predictive task of some sort... but how is this done? Lots of questions like this exist between completing an RCM Analysts course and becoming good at it.

Misapplication of the Detective maintenance formulas - This is far too big to discuss as part of this stream. But suffice to say that it is one of the real potentially dangerous areas of the analysis.

These are all errors related to technical soundness of the analysis, and there are of course, lots more like:

Defining design capacity instead of user requirements
Defining functions that are already covered by the primary function
Basing detective maintenance frequencies on evident (safe detected) instrument failures... and so on...

In the next posting in this series we will go into some of the program management failures. Those failures that almost guarantee the work will get little support, little momentum, and very little chance of accomplishing what the organization has set out to accomplish.

The way to combat these failures is to have adequately trained RCM Analysts. Analysts who have received both classroom and on the job training, as well as being coached through the program management issues.

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

Re-defining the role of Electrical tradespeople

2009-11-21T03:15:00.000-08:00

Even at the beginning of the twenty first century, almost every maintenance review we do uncovers a raft of electrical tasks and routines that serve no purpose apart from raising the likelihood of equipment failures.

When I was a baggy shorts apprentice back in the 1980's we used to do lots of tasks like opening up motor termination blocks, and marshaling cubicles and checking for tightness of the terminals.

And then, at least once a year, there would be a huge influx of large DC motors from the mining shovels and draglines which we were supposed to overhaul.

This ended up being a change of the bearings, re-painting the windings to restore the insulations original resistance to failure, and running a wheatstone bridge over the windings looking for indications of early life failures.

In the vast majority of cases this was a dramatic waste of time! And I cannot believe that this thinking still exists today.

Something I have learned - if it is not subject to ambient vibration, and the cables don't move - then nothing is going to come loose! (Period)

In fact, you run the risk of loosening the terminals by mucking around with them. As well as messing up the gaskets, introducing foreign matter and moisture, and a whole host of other issues under the heading of "messing with things that are working fine".

In the case of DC motor overhauls, most of this stuff can be done in situ. Skimming armatures, replacing and bedding in brushes, and getting rid of excess carbon build up are all small and regular tasks that need to be done in situ, not in an overhaul situation.

Bearings should NOT be replaced on a hard time basis! This is one of the greatest scams of modern asset management. Do you really need to re-paint the windings to restore the insulation? I have yet to find a case where not doing this has led to early failures. (But there are many cases where interfering has caused failure!)

So what should Sparkies do then?

There are routine tasks that electricians should be doing, and some of these are above. But principally electricians are there for the hard hitting end of the deal. The moment when it all turns to muck and we need to rapidly get to the bottom of the problem.

The job creation works as outlined above are more likely to lead to failure rather than prevent or predict it. The heart of the problem is our attitudes towards maintenance people and their employment.

If hey aren't actively engaged in maintaining assets then we see them as wasting our funds. Yet with a small mind change we could employ the electrical trades in a lot of higher end tasks such as analytical problem solving and reviewing general maintenance practices.

We don't need to force them into activities that are detrimental to our operations...surely.

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

Maintenance and Management - The root of the problem (Pt 2)

2009-11-14T03:07:00.000-08:00

If we are ever going to get around The Budget Game, and build budgets that truly reflect our real spending for a desired level of performance and risk, then we need to get to the base of how it is done nowadays.

When a maintenance manager starts thinking about what she will need for maintaining the plant over the next twelve to twenty four months their first port of call is often a combination of the anticipated routine activity for the future, and the near past.

Routine forecasting

Future proactive activity generally comes from the forecast planned maintenance tasks held in the companies CMMS / ERP system. If an organization has its act together, then this will include both the OPEX maintenance and the Capital maintenance planning. (And surprisingly few actually do have this stuff together)

But... where did this stuff come from in the first place? If your plant is anything like most plants then job-expectancy is around 5 years. meaning that few people even realize why these activities are being done and even fewer have the foggiest as to where they came from.

Once you star to dig into it a little, you find out that the routine OPEX stuff, operating maintenance lets call it, generally is a combination of manufacturers recommendations and experience. (Experience meaning "Ouch that hurt, lets not do that again")

There have been reams of articles written on this, but there are many issues with manufacturers guidelines. One particularly nasty issue is the facts of a manufacturers business model. This is generally something like; "move as quickly as possible to the next model, rush through the basic engineering, make sure all maintenance recommendations are conservative, and above all DO NOT GET SUED!"

So it isn't too much of a leap in logic to work out that building and relying on a maintenance strategy that comes from this background, or waiting until things go wrong and force our hand, is both undesirable and possibly even unethical.

And then there is the real fun stuff...the capital maintenance plans. For the sake of this article we will say that these are all the major refurbishments, replacements and overhauls.

Where does this come from? Does anybody ever really know?

My experience, again after researching into the dim dark pasts of many plants, sites and companies, is that it is often provided by either accountants or the initial contractor.

And the logic is often tied to either the depreciation dates of the assets, which is a bit of financial black arts once you get into it, or it is tied to something a contractor put into his / her spreadsheet because "thats what they were asked to deliver".

Thats a bit frightening isn't it? Not something you would want to bet you career on is it? (or worse, the lives of those working with or near these assets)

Forecasting Corrective Maintenance

This is where things really go haywire. Every person who has had anything to do with Life Cycle Modeling, or Whole-of-Life asset planning, has generally encountered this problem.

How do you forecast corrective maintenance? Most people generally arrive at the point where they decide to take an average of the past 2 years (pick a number) and then use this, minus 10% (because you're going to get better right?) as the means of forecasting corrective actions.

And the problem is???... It is absolute sheer and utter garbage.

What happened last year, or in the last five years, may have little or nothing to do with what will happen next year. There are failure modes that have not yet occurred, corrective actions that have been eliminated totally, and a whole range of additional considerations on the efficiency front.

The size of the prize

So we are now facing the point where we know:

a) The routine maintenance may, or may not have anything to do with the levels of performance and risk we require from our assets.
b) Not only that but they came into being in uner dubious circumstances to say the least.
c) Our routine capital maintenance is probably overly conservative or some other derivative of fairy land forecasting, and
d) Our corrective forecasts are, at the very least, dead wrong.

Comforting isn't it? Took me a while to get to this point in my thinking some years ago.

But if we get it right what could happen?

1) On the local front the Budget Game turns from an annual competition and negotiation to a discussion about performance and risk.

2) We get strategies designed to deliver the performance and risk we are chasing, and most importantly...

3) We start down a path that will get us a greater level of confidence, dramatically greater, about our net present costs. (All of the costs we will ever have in todays money)

The last one is a kicker, and we went into the real value of high confidence Net Present Value forecasts in the last article.

In short, it takes maintenance from something we think (because everyone is telling us) is a strategic initiative - through to a firm board room topic and long term competitive advantage.

Not bad for bunch of grease monkeys (like me) and technicians is it?

At the heart of reliability

2009-11-14T02:07:00.000-08:00

"Reliability engineering is concerned with forecasting and preventing failures..."

I just read this in an article I am reading by a respected author and practitioner on reliability engineering. The sad fact is that he is wrong, and this line of thinking has been wrong for about half a century now... old habits die hard I guess.

By forecasting this guy means "forecasting" as in probabilistic modelling. Now while I agree with the use of probabilistic tools where it is warranted, blanket statements like this are what lead people into dramatically over analyzing and over maintaining their plant items.

Lets take the case of a bearing failure. Due to long term minor overloading cracks have developed within the inner race, breaking the surface and rapidly contributing to the deterioration, and ultimately the failure, of the bearing.

The consequences of this failure are severe, so severe that a condition monitoring regime has been put in place and is being done at 33% of the P-F Interval. (To make sure that the onset of failure is detected)

How then are you going to prevent the failure in this case? There's no way known to man.. the bearing is going to fail just as the sun will rise again tomorrow. Nothing in this world will stop it... what we can do however, is preempt it somehow. Through early interventions, changes to the production run cycle or whatever other options you may have.

Are we about predicting failure here? Yes! Not forecasting but predicting as part of our failure management strategy.

And why have we bothered? Because the consequences are severe.

Lets take another example of an over speed switch in a turbine. A plant has 6 turbines. After careful consideration of the demand rates, failure rates and acceptable / tolerable levels of risk we calculate that these need to be checked every 18 months. (say)

We perform our baseline checks and find everything to be okay, and it is not until we check for the third time that we actually find that one of the over speed switches is now in a failed state. (Meaning it will not work to protect the machine if it is needed)

Preventing, avoiding and even (in this case) predicting the failure is way out of the question. Actually it has already failed.

Again we see that the reason why we are doing this at all is not to predict or avoid failure per se, it is to manage the consequences to a tolerable / acceptable level.

So where is all this going...

Even those who are very deeply embedded in probabilistic analysis realize that the likelihood of accurately forecasting failure is very remote. Because the data is never available. In fact, in my own experience with probabilistic analyses I have found that most turn into projects to try to find relevant data to use in the model.

The famous statement on the use of Weibull is that you only need 3 failure points. Fair enough... but getting even those three is often exceedingly difficult.

They need to be of the same failure mode, and if they are serious enough to warrant investigation then they carry significant safety / economic consequences. So analyzing them after the fact is almost in the realm of negligent isn't it?

The whole point of modern asset management is not to predict / forecast dates of failure - it is to manage the failure process where the consequences warrant it!

The Predictive and Detective maintenance examples above are pretty clear on this. And then there are run-to-failure cases, where we have determined that the most effective means of managing the asset is to actually let it fall over.

Do probabilistic methods have their place? Of course!! I'm a big fan of most of them and I use them regularly within my team and our business - but only where they are the best option. (You know the old story, when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail)

The real danger is thinking that it is all about preventing or avoiding failure, it is not - and thinking it is will lead only to frustration, over maintenance, and misapplied maintenance strategies.

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

Maintenance and Management - The Budget Game (Pt 1)

2009-11-10T02:48:00.000-08:00

The Budget Game is played out year after year in the vast majority of asset intensive organizations all around the world.

And what is the budget game? I'm sure you will recognize it.

1) I know that the manager is going to try to cut back my budget so I am going to pad it out a little.

2) The manager knows that you are trying to pad it out a little, so he knows he has to cut it back.

3) And when we are getting near to the end of the financial year make sure to spend every cent you have or they will take it away from you next year.

Survival of the fittest. Those who can outmaneuver each other wins this round and gets what they want. But generally, the entire organization pays the price.

The seriousness of this didn't occur to me until I saw the case of Severn Trent Water in the UK. Where the Serious Fraud Office was called in by the industry regulator, with implications of charges being laid against individuals.

Wow...the entire industry took a deep breath and suddenly every conversation had a different shade to it.

This was obviously a very specific case and an extreme example. But the more I thought of it the more logical it became. When you pad out a budget what you are actually doing is defrauding the shareholders, owners, and in the case of regulated industries sometimes even the general public.

Yet everyone plays the budget game every year... that's a frightening thought when you look at it in the light of this line of thinking.

It was about this time that I, and a few select clients at the time, began to look seriously at bidgeting practices and how they could be improved to eliminate The Budget Game.

The screamingly obvious issue was that without a solid and logical tie between performance and risk, and the activities required to achieve it, that this issue was never going to go away.

And in the mire we uncovered a few practices, techniques and planning mechanisms that would not only eliminate the budget game, but when implemented correctly it could force an entirely new dynamic on the management of the asset base.

The first of these was Zero Based Budgeting, the second, an evolution of the first, was Risk Distributed Budgeting.

While Zero based Budgeting was not new, what had been missed previously was it's capability to feed into the long term planning accuracy by setting the framework in place for proactive data capture. (E.g. failure data without crashing a few more assets)

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to post a series on both of these methods, trying to go into detail about what they are, why they matter, how to do it, and of course - how to implement it. (You might want to subscribe via the links at the top, or via the email subscription box on the side.)

Without even considering the financial and risk impacts of this form of work during the implementation, other impacts of this work includes:

Tying costs directly to the required / expected performance and risk of the physical asset base
Eliminating costs tied to bad habits formed over years. (Remember the monkeys?)
Setting up a framework for proactive data capture
Increasing the accuracy of capital maintenance activities
Elimination of The Budget Game

And if your organization track such things, and if they do not then they should do, you start to get a vastly higher level of confidence about the net present costs of the asset base. Meaning, more importantly, a far greater level of confidence over the Net present Value or profits of an organization.

Thats the sort of thing clients can take to the bond market for billions, not millions, of dollars in potential benefits.

Game changing ideas...

Part 2 - The Root of the problem

Monkey see, monkey do...

2009-11-08T04:04:00.000-08:00

Ever hear the one about the monkeys and cultural change? I am probably not going to do it justice but it goes something like this...

There are three monkeys standing in line in a cage, and above the third monkey there is a bunch of bananas. The third monkey naturally reaches for the sweet treats, and as he takes one, the other two monkeys are drenched with water.

So they immediately start at the third monkey who is busily munching on his favorite food. But he doesn.t realize what.s happening, so he reaches for another banana and the other two are deluged.

By the time the third monkey has eaten the bunch of bananas, the other two are quite annoyed. So in steps the scientist, and replaces the third monkey with a new monkey. He spies the bananas and as he stretches out his arm, he is attacked by the other two monkeys.

The new monkey doesn.t quite understand why, but quickly stops going after the bananas. Some time passes and the scientist comes back and takes one of the drenched monkeys and replaces him. This new monkey again goes for the bananas and the other two attack him.

Then the scientist replaces the third of the original monkeys, with a new one. This new monkey is immediately attacked, and has no idea why. Even when the banana/water system is disabled, and another monkey introduced, he is attacked immediately.

And if the scientist keeps repeating the experiment, the two monkeys in the cage attack the new ape being introduced, though nobody can remember why, its just the way it is.

This is how maintenance regimes are formed, how streamlined and often counterproductive RCM techniques become "the way we do things around here", and repeat or chronic failures become accepted as part of the cost of doing business.

In the past twelve months we have seen the downfall of several global banking institutions. Accompanied with more than a few career burn outs as well.

These people were all exceptionally smart, just like you. And they were all exceptionally motivated and hard working, just like you.

So what went wrong? Mindless copying of their peers... monkey see, monkey do...

What are you doing?

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

RCM Rules of thumb

2009-11-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

I thought I might just post some of the rules of thumb I have learned to use for RCM over the years.

I hope they are useful to you, feel free to add your own in the comments section at the end of the post.

Operating Context

Anything nearing a page or more is generally wrong, over technical and focused on the process description or functions instead of how the assets are used.

Functions

Anything less than 16 shows an analysis at too low a level, or a highly inexperienced facilitator.

Much more than (say) 28 functions means you are generally in too high and the analysis risks becoming superfluous.

Omitting functions is often a tool used by facilitators with a vested int erest in making the analysis agree with what they had developed in the past.

Failure Modes

An analysis filled with human errors and containing little in the way of engineering failures (Mech/Elect) generally indicates two things:

The analysis team is inexperienced and probably has no right being involved in the analysis from a technical standpoint.
Their is an incredible level of distrust between maintenance and operations which is being made worse by conducting the analysis without operations involvement and over sight.

If you have more than (say) 30 failure modes for the primary function then you are going in at too high a level and risk an analysis that is superfluous and devoid or real ability to deliver results.

If you have doubts over the level of causality of the failure modes the question to ask is, "what causes that?" If there is a plausible answer that the team could deal with, then the analysis is at risk of being a waste of time.

Strategies

Strategies that are shoe horned in and do not comply with technical feasibility or effectiveness criteria are generally because the facilitators want them to be included and is unable to justify them on the logic. It means things are not headed in a good way.

Developing strategies is the best point to include corrective actions and develop the zero based budget, as well as the whole-of-life framework.

Starting out

Money generally speaks louder than risk. If you select assets where their are revenue improving or cost reduction opportunities then you are more likely to get corporate support, and more likely to gain the momentum required to turn a pilot into a project, and ultimately into "the way we do things here".

Most (not all) variations from SAE JA1011, the RCM standard, are due to the limitations of software sold by vwendors, as opposed to any true scientific or logical divergence. Your question needs to be - are they selling you their solution - or are they selling you your solution.

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Not a Moubray-esque summary of rules of thumb - just a short note on some of the things I have noticed during my career running around doing these things. Feel free to add to it in the comments below.

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

New maintenance titles and the evolution of "smart"

2009-11-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

Our area is always awash in change. Every week there are talks about new technologies, methods and studies. In the last couple of weeks I have been noticing a trend that I find particularly exciting.

Three of my contacts, two of whom I trained in the past, have recently been promoted to the positions of Global / Corporate RCM Managers. Both work for significant organizations.

On checking this further I found no less than 130 professionals within my network who are now working in roles called RCM Manager. This is in industries ranging from Healthcare to Steel manufacture, through to Oil and Gas and out to the mining industry.

This is a fantastic development. One that recognizes the true strategic importance of equipment strategy creation as a foundation and centerpiece of all reliability initiatives.

It also shows that the message is filtering out quite rapidly now. In the past 10 - 15 years there have been scores of methods and approaches that have sought to dumb down the field of physical asset management.

Reduce it to its lowest common denominator, preaching to that core of managers who just don't "get it".

And they had a lot of converts. In fact, in some markets they were able to convince a frightening amount of people.

Fortunately the tide is turning on this sort of dumbing down of the discipline. And while there will always be a core of people defending dumbed down reliability, the number of people who now understand the message is growing everyday.

This can only be a good thing.

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

The economic crisis and maintaining mining equipment

2009-09-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

Times have been tough lately for those of us in the maintenance game.

I work predominantly for Mining, Steel, Oil and Gas and Infrastructure firms. I have done some stuff for Beer producers, food producers and others in the manufacturing sectors, but predominantly I am in the sectors above.

Take the Nickel industry as a case in point. I like Nickel as a commodity. I believe in the long term story around Stainless Steel and its market prospects. But the last year has seen it drop dramatically, while the stockpiles listed on the LEX have grown inordinately.

Demand down, driving prices down, driving stockpiles higher. Even if things pick up tomorrow there will still be a lag on profitability for my client organizations.

In Australia we have seen BHP close Rocky's Reward, sell off the Yabulu smelter (Possibly for different reasons) and recently announce lay offs at Mt Keith. There is a long road ahead for Nickel...

On the other side of the coin are the Gold Producers. Newmont, Barrick, Newcrest and Lihir Gold. These guys were doing okay under the boom conditions of the past few years. But as always, when everything else turns south Gold shoots through the roof.

As always there are purchases, acquisitions, new ventures and projects everywhere.

Somewhere in the middle is Iron Ore and Coal. Sure these guys have been hit with reductions in market prices recently, but they were enormously profitable industries in any case. Pricing is another issue that is different with these industries, but we will leave that to one side for now.

But just as Nickel has a long way to go, these other industries (Gold, Iron Ore and Coal) will soon find themselves under increasing pricing pressure regardless of what happens with the settlement price?

Why? projects coming online. I grew up in Iron Ore provinces, it is literally everywhere. And there are a raft of "juniors" who are entering the market, challenging pricing levels and threatening to create a panoply of providers instead of the few that are in the game now. Coal is similar, and Gold mines always spring up when the money is good.

The lesson here is to avoid the boom and bust of the past. Not on the pricing side, that is a little hard for any one company to control, but on the costs side.

When times are good resources companies tend to bloat up, filling themselves with additional staff, departments and functions within the company. When times are bad it all ends in tears with many promising careers cut short and general disarray facing the organization.

The lesson in all this is simple. Establish the minimum safe cost for maintaining mining assets from the word go, and then stick to it.

And the way to do it is to continually think as an entrepreneur thinks. Focus on what your business is, how you earn money. And push everything else out to the side. Out to where it becomes somebody else's problem, and where it can easily grow or shrink to match corporate requirements.

Decision Making in Asset Management (Or...beyond criticality matrices)

2009-08-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

Making decisions in physical asset management is an incredibly complex task, and one that carries with it substantial risks, penalties and rewards.

Yet for an area with so much importance there is surprisingly little information out there on how to make high confidence decisions. Decisions that will progress the organization and support present goals and objectives.

These could include decisions on operational budget spending, CAPEX spending, where to start with a reliability / improvement initiative, how many assets a company should have (fleet management being a gigantic issues here), and many other areas. IN fact, the list is as long as your imagination is...

My experience is that there are four very different ways that asset intensive organizations can make decisions.

Yet they normally all gravitate to one method, that of criticality.

A method that is severely questionable both in terms of application and in terms of results.

This is a short list of methods I have used, their applications and their limitations.

1) Criticality (Of course)

Overused, misunderstood, and often the cause of reliability program failures. However - criticality does have very good uses, and can be deployed for great effect where certain criteria have been met.

Namely:

It must be applied at the failure mode level. Meaning all functions and all failure modes must be identified first.
Best used where assets/systems have relatively few functions. Such as instrumentation systems or "simple assets". (Pipes, tanks, vessel structures etcetera)
It should not be used in any way that aggregates the consequences, nor tries to place numeric dollar values on issues such as human life. This is an inherently dangerous practice as you can often find high cost operational failures coming in as more critical than failure that can kill people. An unacceptable situation.
Very useful for managing the work order backlog as the corrective / reactive tasks therein are already at the failure mode level.

As indicated above criticality approaches need to be conducted based on a "first past the post" approach. If it is intolerable in the safety area then you do not need to assign any further consequences to it. (At all, ever)

Safety wins...

One of the most puzzling issues surrounding criticality is that it is a term that is used so widely in industry, without any real consistency.

But normally it is a process used to determine the most important assets. This is where the problem actually starts.

Most important does not mean most beneficial, nor does it mean worst performing, highest cost, or largest impact on the companies bottom line. Just the most important. (More on that in another post)

2) Prioritization (Analytical Hierarchical Process)

I discovered AHP when I was working int he UK and it has proven its value to me time and time again. I really like this method as a quick way of prioritizing work and / or spending.

The heart of the approach is to first find out what is really important tot he organization. (Not just what they say is important) And then use this as a guideline to prioritize the work/spending that is under consideration.

This is of course a simplification. The process is a bit involved, but it is rapid, accurate, and delivers superior results in my views.

The reason for this is that it supports the current views and thinking of the organization at large. Particularly if it has been well applied. So instead of the most important assets, we immediately shift to thinking about the highest impact assets.

Variations of this approach have been adopted by rail and infrastructure organizations throughout the world.

3) RAM Modelling

Another favorite of mine. Availability modelling of process plants, heavy equipment fleets, conveying systems, water networks and so on is probably the most accurate and rapid way of highlighting weak points in the existing asset base.

The overall approach falls under de-bottlenecking and is another excellent proactive means of deciding where to place resources and funds for future performance requirements.

4) Bad Actor Analysis

Easy, simple and abundantly available. Production loss accounting is probably the most widely used prioritization method globally and for good reason.

It enables maintenance / reliability managers to pinpoint where the money is draining from the organization (in terms of lost profit opportunities) and provides short term results that are normally of a very high magnitude.

I hope this is of some use, and I hope it stops you reaching for the criticality matrix first next time you need to make decisions related to how your maintenance is carried out.

Taking decisions is a very complex area, and one that needs to be addressed using a range of sophisticated solutions.

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

Two Types of Reliability

2009-07-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

It bears remembering that there are always type types of reliability that we talk about when we use that term.

The first (without getting into semantic posturing please...) is roughly defined as making sure assets do what users require of them. And that covers a range of areas from safety to the environment, and from operations to reputation and brand issues.

Most of us think we are at work trying to achieve that every day. But there is another kind of reliability. The type that Amazon customer service exemplifies.

Ever used that? Probably not, they are generally pretty darn good at getting the things you want onto your doorstep. I had to use them once when I was working in Saudi Arabia.

My books had gone missing and I had waited several months for them. So, even though it was so late, I filed a complaint with the online web form they have.

This really annoyed me because I hate web forms. Nothing ever happens. So I decided this was a lost cause.

Within two minutes I had an email in my inbox. Not a "We have received your comments" type email - but a real one from a real person asking me intelligent questions about the issue.

I shot back a response and within about another two or three minutes came the reply offering to replace everything I had lost at Amazon's cost, immediately. (There were a few more issues around address etcetera)

I was blown away. Within twenty minutes my issue had been totally resolved from the other side of the world and my books were, apparently, on their way. This same person checked in with me several times over the next week until my books truly were in my hands. (Not an easy thing to do in backwaters like Dubai)

That's reliability.

The first is a definition, and it has to do with organizing resources in the most efficient and effective way to deliver what people want. The second is a passion, springing from people who are determined to deliver what you don't expect.

I am building a consulting team that I hope will exemplify the second type of reliability. Amazon Reliability. The sort of specialists that can give you the answer even though you haven't quite worked out the question yet.

People who are determined to give you what you don't expect. The types of people that can be relied upon.

Which type of reliability department do you work for? Which one would you like to work for?

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

What the economic crisis means for asset management...

2009-07-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

A recent article on the Huffington Post really turned the light on Physical Asset Management in infrastructure and some of the trends that are starting to emerge as a result of the economic crisis.

In a nutshell it reveals how cities in California are struggling under the shrinking tax base from the crisis, meaning they are looking for alternative methods to fund their estimated $2.2 trillion in infrastructure maintenance spending over the next 5 years.

And even though they didn't say it there is another side to this as well. The USA, along with many other Western nations, have been on a spending spree to try to circumvent the fallout of the economic crisis.

Regardless of what you think of this one day somebody has to pay... so there will be even less cash for cities, states and nations to spend on something as un-sexy as infrastructure maintenance.

Their take was on the Public-Private Partnership (P3) model which sprung out of Europe. In fact the London Underground is probably the most prominent case of a P3 contract worth billions.

The financial model is somewhat complex, but the end result is private industry sharing the costs for funding, and managing the public infrastructure such as trains, roads, water and electricity where this is still in government hands.

So what does a PPP contract mean to California or the USA?

First, there are far more options that just the PPP option. The UK in particular has stood out as a leader int he utilities infrastructure industry for the way that they privatized their water and electricity utilities.

But in the area of PPP by itself there are many advantages for consultants, contractors and maintenance professionals.

There are arguments to and fro regarding whether they are a good thing or a bad thing. And of course everyone can easily point to the costly and potentially dangerous collapse of Metronet.

However, my experience has been:

Decision making becomes more diverse. With more players in the game there are more decision makers, hence more decisions made.

A variety of strategies and activities spring up as each looks for the leading practice to try to shine brighter than others in the field.

The imposition of harsh regulations and penalties, (As per the Severn Trent Water fiasco) means that a lot more work goes into accountability, and getting it right.

New techniques and focus emerges in asset cost management generally, and in CAPEX justification specifically. (E.g. the PAS-55 work)

The list goes on, but for me it is a no-brainer. Their just isn't the cash in the state coffers to continue to fund this directly, and ways and means are needed to share the immediate costs. Even if this does mean merely putting the full cost off until a later date.

Despite what the naysayers may come up with, I have no doubt that this and a raft of other measures will need to be taken to address the problem of infrastructure maintenance spending on an already neglected US infrastructure sector.

An unexpected but totally obvious side effect of the economic crisis.

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

Transferable Skills for Reliability

2009-07-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have always found that there are three elements of a reliability professionals skill set, they are, in order of importance:

1) Their implementation and "doing" skills.

2) Their knowledge of reliability theory, application and methodologies

3) Their knowledge of specific asset types and engineering disciplines.

The first area is 100% transferable. Once you can turn ideas into reality in one company or industry, you have the foundations to do it in any company or industry. The third one is a little more specific and also a little less important.

For example, you will only get experience working with Dragline reliability from the Mining industry. Period. Nothing else can give you that. But the good thing is that if you have good knowledge of reliability theory, application and methodologies...then that can be easily adapted to virtually any industry. (Any that I have come across anyway)

So what are the transferable RE Skills?

In my opinion there are three groups of these, and your relative strengths in each depends on what you actually do.

Please note: Being able to say that you can do some of this stuff is not enough! You must have a verifiable track record of achievement in an area before you can claim it as a strength.

Thats not always the case, sometimes there are people who will accept your word for it and give you the job...but there isn't too many managers like that out there.

(I think this would form the basis for a fantastic trainee-ship of some sort)

Maintenance Administration

Maintenance planning and scheduling (Ideally this would include an appreciation of the power of time and motion studies)
Shutdown / Turnaround planning and Scheduling
Work reporting, KPI's and efficiency data analysis. (Like delay codes etcetera)

Reliability Engineering

RCM understanding and track record. (Fundamental) This also means an understanding and preferably track record in FMEA, FMECA and other associated areas.
Weibull analysis and track record (Great to have)
RAM modelling (Great to have)
Root cause analysis and problem solving (Again, great to have)
And behind all of this, an understanding of reliability theory.

We could go into areas like Finite Element Analysis, RBI or SIS - but these are specific rather than general and would be essential for people working specifically in that field.

Regardless, the core concepts above still stand out as must have skills for a reliability professional I think.

Technical Knowledge (Not asset based)

Real strength in at least one of the condition monitoring and/or NDT techniques
A broad appreciation of CBM/NDT techniques, technologies and capabilities.
Data analysis techniques and tools. (Not the high end stuff, the Excel / Access type stuff)

Lots more stuff in the other two areas. Particularly around issues like benchmarking, holding reference information on great performance, presentations, managing change and lots more.

But for core reliability skills I think these cover it. Any others that strike you as core and essential?

Check out the best roles in the game for maintenance and reliability professionals!

Reliability Success

RCM Public Training for 1st Quarter

Welcome to Shaun Humber

Maintenance induced failure

What I would love to see on job boards!

Reliability-centered Maintenance 101 in Queensland

How to manage redesign

A few tips for maintaining conveyors

Common Errors Implementing RCM

Why start maintenance analysis in the middle?

Separating Church and State in maintenance and Reliability

Is it really RCM software?

Is your maintenance operation in trouble?

Improving maintenance productivity

Why common sense leads to common results

An Avoidable Disaster - The Buncefield Final Report

The RCM Analyst Decision Diagram

Common mistakes of methods with NO decision algorithm

Get the failure modes right (Tip #13)

Condition monitoring or condition assessment?

Work order backlog analysis

RCM doesn't have to be a team sport any more...

Long term planning and the scramble for new tyres in the mining iundustry

The great cost risk debacle!

Life cycle costing is DEAD!

The definition of Asset Management

Being busy ain't what is used to be...

Do Something! (Anything) Tip#12

Think critically (Tip#11)

The Value Quadrant Approach to quantifying impacts

The Reliability Success Newsletter

The "key" thing about performance indicators

Feigning Economic Discipline

The danger of success (again)

The converging factor in Asset Management

The number one reason for failures of RCM programs...

The problem with data driven decisions (Or... why CAPEX forecasting is often no more than a guess)

Implementing metrics (Tip #10)

Just-in-Case Inventory Planning

The secret weapon for advancing your maintenance career

What gets measured gets managed ! (Tip #9)

Is reliability all about design? (Tip #8)

A great starting point (Tip #7)

The ERP Game (Or, how corporations spend recklessly on IT)

Telling the tale (Tip #6)

Keep track of what you have achieved (Tip #5)

Some things reliability can learn from RCM

What are you going to achieve anyway? (Tip #4)

Whatever you do - Do *NOT* do a criticality assessment (Tip #3)

How to talk to your CEO (Tip#2)

Learning to be a geek(ish)

Its production stupid ! (Tip #1)

20 tips in 20 days

A busy month...

Yet another victim of ERP

Innovative asset management devices (A good find on the net)

How can SAP break into the SME industry market space?

The danger of daily schedules

Some quick pointers to a maintenance organization in crisis

There are only two types of RCM, not dozens

Two styles - not dozens

The primary responsibility of the maintenance manager

Prioritizing work in progress

Developing tomorrow reliability engineers

Quick 5 tips for backlog management

Competitive advantages through planning and scheduling

Not easy... but possible

Planning Horizons

Issues with mass defect elimination programs

Beware....

Ensuring benefits from RCM

Risks of successful RCM pojects

Cash and maintenance, some online tools

A few things from the net

Some keys to implementing successful maintenance backlog management

The power of work oder priorities in Mincom Ellipse

What are the core arguing points of Asset Management?

Options for rapid site asset optimization

RSPT making mine sites like utilities

Technical verification of RCM studies

Whatever you do - Do NOT do a criticality assessment (Tip #3)