Articles

Reciprocating Pumps: System Modification for Maintenance Improvement

System modification is an economically viable option to restore mechanical integrity, achieve optimum operation and reduce maintenance costs. This is realized through the development of a system modification program for a reciprocating pump with recurring leakage failures.

Asset Management

The Importance of Planning to Sustain Continuous Improvement

Leaders. They used to be represented at almost every maintenance reliability conference around the world. They were seen as the best in asset management with a seemingly limitless number of case studies that clearly showed the benefits of root cause analysis (RCA), condition monitoring, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), planning and scheduling. Their people gave presentations that clearly showed the value of the foundational elements of walking down your assets, developing an accurate equipment hierarchy and performing a thorough criticality analysis.

Work Execution Management

A Glimpse at the Future

Editor’s note: From 1996 to 2000, the author had the privilege of doing a greenfield construction and start-up of a chemical plant in Asia. Part of the land was still being reclaimed from the ocean when he arrived. This article describes how he and the work team developed work processes to do things in the way they had always wanted to do them.

Work Execution Management

Where CMMS Fits Into Your Reliability Journey

“Where CMMS Fits Into Your Reliability Journey”, an eMaint Best Practices Webinar hosted by Joel Levitt of ReliabilityWeb, discussed reliability functions that are only possible with accurate, complete and defect-free CMMS data. During the presentation, Levitt asserted that “CMMS is the hub that holds the spokes of your wheel, or reliability effort. Everything revolves around it.”

Asset Condition Management

Do No Harm: The Hippocratic Oath Applied to Reliability

The Greek physician Hippocrates (c.460 BC – c.370 BC) is credited with an oath that was meant to provide certain ethical standards a physician was to uphold. While maintenance is not of the magnitude as being a doctor, organizations would do well to apply portions of the Hippocratic oath to their maintenance practices. Two such examples are: “…to teach them this Art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples...” and “I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment … and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.”¹ This article focuses on the latter, “and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous,” or in 21st century vernacular: Do no harm.

Leadership for Reliability

Redefining Reliability Through Lean Practices

The concept of reliability changes from business to business. No one definition is correct because reliability needs change from one business to the next. However, personnel in charge of a reliability program should have a clear answer to what reliability means to them. This article helps define what reliability means to an organization, shows where flaws can develop in the program, explains how reliability responds to evolving business needs and demonstrates how lean principles can relate to these processes.

Asset Management

Strategy of Asset Management Seen as a Chess Game

Chess is a challenging game that tests a player’s ability to think methodically and strategically in order to beat an opponent. It involves specific knowledge and skills, along with a strategy. Engineers could probably say with confidence that all the attributes used to win a chess game are applicable to their work. They are especially prevalent when maintaining equipment. Chess attributes can help you successfully implement effective asset management strategies and help you win the game against your competitors.

When implementing asset management in an organization, it is not always about the tools and the systems available. In today’s world, organizations have recognized that it is essential to use other dimensions to help with the implementation. This article explains these “out of the box” dimensions mentioned in PAS55 Standards for Asset Management and compares these attributes to chess strategies.

Work Execution Management

Using Digital Technology to Revolutionize Turnarounds

When industrial companies have to take facilities off-line for essential maintenance or upgrades, careful management of the process is key. These turnarounds, or TARs, can be complex and require meticulous planning and solid execution because delays only mean more lost production and higher costs.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

The Cultural Shift That Can Save Lives

An interesting statistic reveals that 65 percent of the American population feels certain they are better at math than half the general population. While both ironic and funny, it is also quite telling of how people naturally tend to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes compared to less desirable results. It is simply human nature to hope for the best outcome. For the most part, there is no real harm in believing one’s math skills are better than they really are. But, when you overestimate the reliability of equipment that you count on every day to perform your various jobs, the results are not just surprising – they can be dangerous.

Work Execution Management

Do We Really Want to Be Proactive? (Part1)

As we struggle to move from reactive to proactive maintenance, maybe at some point we just need to stop and ask ourselves the basic question:

"Do we really want to be proactive in maintenance? Really? Honestly?"

BRIEFLY RESTATING THE DIFFERENCE:

REACTIVE MAINTENANCE is dealing with loss issues due to equipment malfunction that show up unexpectedly and repairs have to be done immediately, on a crisis basis, in a very inefficient, unplanned, unscheduled way.

PROACTIVE MAINTENANCE is monitoring equipment for signs of deterioration and performing the necessary repairs and adjustments, when needed, in an efficient, planned, scheduled way, before a loss issue actually happens.

Who wouldn’t want to operate in the Proactive Mode?

Asset Condition Management

Truth in Adoption: How Far in the Future Is IoT for ACM Applications?

Judging from the independent perspectives of three very different industry observers, the Internet of Things (IoT) for asset condition monitoring (ACM) applications is quite far into the future. Plant Services, a mainstream industrial trade publication, Gartner, Inc., a prominent global market research organization, and Russell Reynolds Associates, a leading global executive search firm, have each recently published surveys and opinion pieces that offer the perspective of industry insiders on the outlook for IoT ACM applications. The consensus is that the market may not be as ready or willing as its suppliers would have everyone believe.