Uptime® Magazine
The mission of Uptime Magazine is to make maintenance reliability professionals and asset managers safer and more successful by providing case studies, tutorials, practical tips, news, book reviews, and interactive content.
In the 21st century, companies that focus on just design and operations will be left behind. Intelligent, efficient and optimized systems must keep evolving and need to be integrated into the ethos of how people work and think. This same thinking must be supported by management and designed to evolve based on proven intelligence, changing market demands and with the adoption of new equipment and technology. To achieve this, companies must initiate a proper asset performance management (APM) program to assess the operational performance and define a path to success.
To develop a sustainable APM program requires a level of understanding and expertise. This article explores a case study that uses elements of the strategy management domain from one MSAT provider’s APM sustainability model to show the importance of preventive maintenance (PM) optimization in the development of a successful APM program. This company, Nexus Global, supports the Uptime Elements Framework to map the key areas of improvement within their five APM domains: leadership, work management, strategy management, investigation management and data management.
In the current economic climate, only the strongest businesses are likely to survive. That means companies who perform reliably with a healthy cost level and, therefore, are able to build a competitive advantage over weaker performers. This also allows them to maintain a positive margin even in a depressed market, while others fall into red figures.
For some time, supermarkets have accepted that the costs for high customer volume, regulatory compliance and increasing energy rates were part of the business model. But the Danfoss Group, a Danish global producer of products and services used within infrastructure, food, energy and climate, has been providing a smart store solution for the past 10 years to help its customers across 5,000 stores worldwide optimize food safety and maximize energy efficiency. This solution also allows its customers to view their operations at a presentation level, create reports on alarms and performance, compare performance between stores, and reduce energy costs.
With all the technology out there, all talking to each other, the world is increasingly becoming more and more connected – indeed, flat. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) seems like a nebulous concept that encompasses everything from machine learning and robotics to drone delivery systems and intelligent point-of-use vending. There is more information available than ever before, but making sense of all this data can be daunting. This article will help bring clarity to how the IIoT can enhance all aspects of manufacturing.
It’s hard to think of another environment where an equipment failure could have an immense negative impact on employee safety and lost production than an offshore oil and gas production platform. Yet, offshore platforms are among the world’s most difficult locations to operate and maintain equipment. In most cases, skilled people and supplies can only reach the platform by ship or helicopter, so the cost of bringing technical specialists, replacement equipment, spare parts and tools to the platform is very high. On nearly every offshore platform, oil analysis plays a critical role in alerting the maintenance team to problems that have the potential to damage a vital system and providing information that makes it possible to efficiently allocate scarce resources by planning maintenance based on actual need as opposed to simple intervals of time.
Part 3 of this series focuses on setting goals and KPIs for condition monitoring.
Let’s face it, most companies need a culture intervention – something like a 12-step program. This article will explore behavioral issues that are often at the core of a culture of neglect and mediocracy. It borrows much from management science, leadership principles and conversations with individuals working in the field of maintenance reliability.
This installment shows how the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) aligned its central efforts with the reliability strategy. It continues the journey from Part 1 in Uptime’s December/January 2016 issue describing the initial implementation of Uptime Elements at BMS and Part 2 in Uptime’s February/March 2016 issue demonstrating how the sites began to adopt and utilize Uptime Elements as a communication tool to set strategy and align reliability efforts with their specific site goals. This seemingly hands-off approach helped to create an organic culture with a sense of ownership for the sites while still maintaining a consistent approach globally.
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