Articles

How Nova Scotia Power Implemented Its AM Program: Equipment Integrity Through PdM and RBI

Aging assets, changing utilization, demographics and regulatory changes precipitated the need for an innovative and comprehensive asset management (AM) program at Nova Scotia Power Inc. (NSPI). Building on the elements of PAS55 and ISO55000, NSPI constructed a program for its power production business. The universal challenges of an aging infrastructure and workforce, along with industry specific and regulatory changes, demanded a shift in the company’s organizational philosophy toward asset management. Many of the company’s generating equipment assets are 30 to 40 years of age and had reached a point where new strategies were required. Among those strategies is the implementation of condition-based monitoring (CBM) techniques.

Internet of Things Digitalization (IoT)

Will Digital Twin Replace SCADA? Will Anything Else?

For decades, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) has been the industry standard for asset management. But, the sizable investments in digital twin concept offerings on the part of two leading digital industrial companies have generated much discussion about the long-term viability of SCADA. Gartner’s recent forecast that digital twin will be one of the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2017 is one of several reports that point to momentum in this category.

Asset Condition Management

Internet of Condition Monitoring Community - Special Interest Group Founders Meeting

Companies’ explosive focus on improving financial performance through leveraged (i.e., fixed) asset optimization has become even more fiery with the rapid adoption of the Industrial Internet, which enables multitudes of devices and equipment to be connected. The result of this combination is accelerating levels of asset management innovations and creativity not seen in the industrial asset space from both a products and services perspective.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

Asset Strategy Management: The Missing Link in Reliability Programs

While the process of reliability-centered maintenance has not changed much over the past 20 years, technology has certainly changed. You are now able to be more efficient in the way you go about reviewing maintenance tasks and you can improve how you use the increasing data available to you. However, even with new technologies, more data and a strong approach to maintenance strategy development, many asset managers are still leaving millions of dollars of their organization’s money on the table. It’s money that can be easily saved if you know why it’s disappearing and how to save it.

From a Different Angle: A Perspective - The Myth of World-Class Maintenance

We’re all guilty of using the term “world-class” when referring to a maintenance department or program. Clearly, world-class is important because there are books (2,951 on Amazon, but not all are about maintenance world-class), papers at conferences and consultants doing extensive assessments all based on world-class maintenance.

Leadership for Reliability

Back to Basics for True Operational Excellence

Many companies are beginning to search for and implement sophisticated maintenance and reliability (M&R) tools and technologies in hopes of finding the next best thing to help achieve operational excellence (OE). Terms, such as asset performance management (APM), predictive analytics, machine learning, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the Cloud, connected plant, etc., are making their way into everything M&R. As game changing as these concepts can be, adopting advanced technologies without first addressing the basic fundamentals of M&R is like building the world’s finest home on a crumbling foundation.

Asset Condition Management

Minimize Costs Through Machine Learning

Machine learning is an approach of exploring and building algorithms that enable computers to continuously learn and adapt.

With utilities, unknown failures and the maintenance that goes into fixing them can add up at lightning speeds. A recent study conducted by GlobalData Power estimates that expenditures for wind turbine maintenance have been projected to rise from $9.25 billion to $17 billion by 2020.

Work Execution Management

The Top 10 Improvements to Pursue in Your MRO Spare Parts Program

Proactive organizations recognize that one of the critical success factors in achieving a best practices reliability program is developing a sound maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) spare parts program. That notion is quickly followed by the realization that there are potentially hundreds of improvement opportunities that typically could be associated with a materials management effort. As such, it becomes overwhelming to determine where to start.

Asset Management

Realizing Commercial Value from ISO55001 Aligned Asset Management

This article demonstrates the commercial value for an organization improving its entire enterprise asset management approach in line with the ISO55001 standard. An organization implementing ISO55001 must first come to terms with clear asset management objectives, a planning process that optimizes the investment portfolio which, in turn, is delivered by efficient lifecycle processes, and a persistent and comprehensive continual improvement process that is documented and controlled.

Asset Management

Maintenance Budget and Variance Practices Redesigned

Do you ever sense that your plant’s budget and variance practices may actually hurt the business? Here is what your gut is telling you and what to do about it.

Maintenance job plans are two-dimensional and activity-based. The foundation dimension, the determined tasks to each job plan, is activity. The other dimension, also determined by analyses, is the resources and their unit costs to be engaged or consumed by each activity.

The alternative to activity-based, two-dimensional job plans is unacceptable to maintenance professionals. Maintenance professionals would never accept the practice of one line job plans for which the total cost of labor, parts and materials, services, etc., are set by rule of thumb or by what management arbitrarily allows. It would be chaos.