IMC-2018 Learning Zone 41:33
by Alan Ross, SDMyers

The success of any reliability program is based on the ability to change the culture from reactionary to proactive. This presentation will focus on the seven major challenges that most production facilities are facing when it comes to their electrical system reliability and why a proactive approach must be applied. Reference to Uptime Elements will be used appropriately.

Challenges:
1. Maintenance departments have traditionally been set up as cost centers and to affect true reliability, there must be a change from cost center thinking to Asset Management and Reliability thinking.
2. A Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) program for electrical systems will require change from all functions of an organization, especially: Risk and Asset Management, Procurement, Plant O&M, Corporate and Plant Reliability teams and most importantly Finance.
3. CMMS or EAM's don't provide the same Work Order processes or asset management processes for electrical equipment, thus these critical assets need a unique maintenance Work Order process.
4. Selecting the main criteria we should use to maintain these assets: Age, Condition, Use.
5. The changing bathtub curve presents a new challenge for asset life cycle management. Older assets have been built more robustly than newer assets, thus we must have a 2-pronged approach.
6. While there are IEEE standards for the maintenance of major electrical components, most industrial organizations are either unfamiliar with them or negligent in adhering to them. Standardization across all plants requires discipline. 7. Creating leadership alignment and sponsorship at the financial, operating and maintenance levels. Once there is leadership alignment, then the RCM message can be standardized and passed down through the organization, because it will require significant changes in how major electrical systems are tested, maintained, monitored and eventually replaced.