Getting Started on Your Reliability and Asset Management Journey

IMC Presentation 48:47 Minutes

by Neil Meyer and Jon Nicolaus, Central Contra Costa Sanitary District

A reliability program is a continuous journey filled with challenges, successes, and occasional failures that require perseverance and a willingness to experiment. This presentation will summarize Central San’s efforts in reliability and asset management.

Taking the first steps on a reliability and asset management journey can be daunting and requires building support and momentum, collecting data, and developing a plan. Central San’s reliability journey started with its district’s pen-and-paper maintenance system in the 1970s to its first use of CMMS software in the late 1990s to employing an expansive, GIS-centered asset management system today. With a renewed commitment from the Board of Directors, Central San restarted its reliability journey in 2014 with the creation of an asset management policy and plan along with an asset management steering committee. This was Central San’s first steps in developing a comprehensive asset management program with documented processes and procedures for data management, analysis, and evaluation for the water resource recovery facility, collection system, pumping stations, recycled water distribution system, and general improvement assets.

The district established a strategic framework aligned with its vision, mission and values for improving maintenance efficiency and functional reliability of assets. This plan was centered around the Uptime Elements framework, Effective Utility Management (EUM) guidelines, and the EPA’s 10-step Asset Management process. The asset management implementation plan included a pilot for reliability centered maintenance (RCM) analysis, a new district-wide CMMS system, implementation of an asset hand-off protocol, an asset registry, succession planning, systematic failure analysis, and more.

Although significant progress has been made, Central San’s journey will continue with steady improvements, both large and small, which will allow Central San to effectively meet the maintenance needs of its aging and expanding plant site.