work execution management

The RELIABILITY Conference - 29:56
by Michael Aroney, Allied Reliability Group

The Executive Function of the brain is a set of mental skills that helps us get things done. It occurs in the frontal lobes and allows us to manage time, pay attention, switch focus, plan and organize, remember details, and do things based on experience. Individuals with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) have lowered functioning in the frontal lobes resulting in a diminished ability to (1) organize: gather information and structure it for evaluation; and (2) regulate: take stock of the environment and changing behavior in response to it. Without some manner of response to enhancing these abilities, the results are often disorganization, inefficiency, increase in spending on lost items, increased time to complete tasks, and last minute changes in plans.

It is an amazing coincidence that the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder are also displayed in reactive plants. The diminished Executive Function, in this case, is analogous to disengaged leadership due to functional silos and fragmented communication between them, resulting in what Dr. Michael Hammer called "process fragmentation". What is also notable is that the interventions for helping someone with ADD compensate in order to lead a more proactive life are very similar to what a plant with a reactive maintenance and reliability environment would employ to move from a reactive posture of "fixing an asset after it breaks" to "fixing an asset before it breaks".

This presentation will present the parallels between ADD in humans and reactive plants and the interventions used to build proactive behaviors and results.

The RELIABILITY Conference Learning Session - 38:02
by Jamie Dugan, Luminant

Traditional alarming associated with plant process data typically does not go far enough in providing adequate margin to ensure acceptable levels of equipment reliability. Through the integration of remote monitoring, modeling and diagnostics, Luminant’s Power Optimization Center (POC) identifies, forecasts and advises plant personnel of emergent issues impacting power production. Emergent equipment issues are communicated directly to plant control room operators. For longer term issues, plant engineers and other support organizations are engaged.

The POC provides technical expertise, operating and maintenance recommendations, and field support to facilitate optimum plant performance. The POC provides a mechanism for knowledge transfer, sharing of best practices and leverages the strengths from a decade of operating experience supporting both nuclear and fossil fuel generation. The POC monitors real time plant performance, equipment critical to generation and other key process parameters in order to identify improvement opportunities.