Reliability and Maintenance Management Consultant Idhammar is president of IDCON, Raleigh, NC, a reliability and maintenance management consulting firm, specializing in education, training and implementation of improved operations, reliability, and maintenance management practices.

Feedback on this reliability article is appreciated. Send to info@idcon.com

To include operators in essential care of equipment including preventive maintenance inspections is one of the reliability and maintenance improvement initiatives that can yield the best return on investment. The investment is low and results in increased reliability and lower maintenance costs can be substantial. Still, very few pulp and paper mills can claim that their operators are involved to a significant extent in these activities.

Why include operators in maintenance?

The main reasons why operators should be included in essential equipment care include:
• The urgent need to increase competitiveness and productivity.
• Preventive maintenance programs will be much more cost effective.
• The partnership between operations and maintenance will improve.

The urgent need to increase competitiveness and productivity.
This is obvious to most people, but not by everyone. You can still hear comments like; “This is not part of my job” or “We are not going to take the work from the maintenance employees”
In USA we compete with mills in countries with labor rates in the $1 - $3 per hour ratio, and these mills are in some cases very modern and reliable. If employees in a US mill are paid $25 per hour we have to be eight to twenty five times more productive than these mills. That means we have to produce eight to twenty five times more quality product throughput per hour worked just to keep up on a productivity comparison. I do not think we anymore can have the luxury of limiting work to traditional demarcation lines. To include operators in more maintenance work is, in my opinion a minor change and very difficult to deny with common sense.

Preventive maintenance programs will be much more cost effective.

If you avoid the common mistake of adding inspections to be done by operators to an existing program without optimizing the total preventive maintenance (PM) program, your mechanical PM program can become much better at the same time as it is reduced by 30 – 60%.

Many basic equipment inspections require inspections to be done with a frequency of less than eight hours. It can not be justified to have maintenance crafts people to do these inspections twice a day. If it makes sense, these inspections will be done by operators who combine them with process inspections they do anyway.

To be able to optimize your PM activities efficiently you need to us a route based PM program where you can see all PM activities (Basic Inspections, Predictive Maintenance, Lubrication etc) under each equipment number. The system must have the capability to sort inspections in a route. Unfortunately most of the bigger systems on the market today do not have this capability.

I advise you to start implementing the system using a printed paper route and then evolve into handheld computers. You will save a lot of money in initial investment and maintenance of these devises if you wait until the system is up and running to enhance the system.

An excellent tool to use to speed up training and implementation is existing Condition Monitoring Standards. These standards use color illustrations to show how a component works, how to inspect it and why you need to inspect it. If you would like an example please contact me at info@idcon.com and I will send them to you.

The partnership between operations and maintenance will improve.
This is one of the most important things you need to do to promote a better partnership between operations and maintenance. It also lays the groundwork for a future integrated operations and maintenance work system.

Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries.

Transition From Breakdown to Reliability - Ron Doucet

It would be unrealistic to cover the entire process of transforming an area from a breakdown environment to a proactive Work Management Process (WMP) in one short article. Achieving this involves the proper implementation of hundreds of critical activities that all have to be done correctly for the effort to succeed.

Implementing the proactive six block WMP (shown below) does not seem daunting at first, yet underestimating and under resourcing this effort is what most organizations do. The result being that most WMP implementations fail.

Once one realizes how many activities have to come together to make this work, it could become overwhelming figuring out how and where to begin. This article will focus on the initial steps down the path to reliability.

Unfortunately there are no silver bullets. The details of how work is going to be identified, planned, scheduled, executed, analysed and improved will be different for each area. A one size fits all at the execution level does not exist. On the other hand what does fit all organizations, at a higher level, is the six block model.

There are various approaches to starting this initiative. There is the Top Down “tell you how to do it” mandated approach, the Bottom Up “tell us how to improve maintenance” approach or a hybrid with a mix of mandates in terms of direction and goals set by management and getting the required input from the people closest to the assets.

Both the Top Down and Bottom Up approaches usually end up failing. The Top Down approach usually fails due to a lack of buy-in to generic work management processes, and they are usually overly focused on the maintenance software. The Bottom Up approaches usually fail due to a lack of focus on improving work practices. Both the Top Down and Bottom Up approaches inadequately deal with the required changes, in the maintainers and operators work practices, that are required if there are to be changes in equipment performance.

In the hybrid approach, management and the people closest to the assets each have a role. Managements’ role is to define the direction, criteria and goals of the new WMP. Management can mandate the transition to a proactive WMP. The details of this mandate should be no lower than at the six block model along with the expected criteria of the proactive WMP. Examples of what could be detailed as expectations are;

• Work is scheduled for one week at a time.
• The schedule is issued in the previous week.
• Work will be scheduled daily and account for all schedulable resources.
• Preventive maintenance tasks and Pre Operational checks will target the identification of future plan-able work by looking for potential failures.
• All work will be planned and archived in the CMMS.
• All work plans will have Safe Operating Procedures.

The next step is to assemble a representative team of supervisors, planners, operators and trades people and educate them on the function of maintenance. In a proactive WMP the function of maintenance is to maintain equipment functionality and not just to fix it when it breaks. Operators and maintainers need to understand their role in early work identification and the resulting benefits of planning and scheduling. Remembering what John Moubray once said, “First change the way people think and then apply the changed thinking to doing something different”. This is where the change in thinking occurs. This may be the first time that the maintainer is asked to look for future plan-able work instead of broken equipment. It may be the first time that the operator or attendant is asked to report symptoms instead of what is broken on his equipment.

Once everyone is clear what a proactive work management process is, it is now time, and now possible, to use the changed thinking to determine who does what and how, for each block of the six block model such that the WMP expectations are met. This should be done in a facilitated session with the trades and operational people who know the equipment best, along with the supervisors, planners and schedulers who will have to manage the process.

With this method, even though the six block WMP model was mandated, the actual work processes that come out of this exercise are developed and owned by the people involved. The outcomes are clear roles, accountabilities and processes for all involved in managing assets proactively.

Now the real work starts.

To meet the criteria for Work Identification, current and new PM tasks and pre operational checklists will have to be improved to reflect the need to identify potential failures, and a means to get this information to a planer will have to be determined, etc. For Work Planning, job plans will have to be documented, parts lists updated, equipment hierarchy updated and created, etc. For Scheduling, there will be a need to develop coordination processes, staging areas, scheduling systems etc. Implementation activities will be required for each block. These activities and processes will be specific to the area and reflect its unique operating context.

Some critical success factors using this methodology is that firstly the work processes and implementation activities are determined by the people involved who are familiar with the requirements of a proactive WMP. Secondly the WMP reflects the unique operating context of the area and thirdly the work practices, between man and machine, physically changes. With Buy-in, applicable WMP’s and changes in work practices, equipment performance now can also be expected to improve and be sustained.

We will cover the details of each block in upcoming articles but suffice to say that a project of this size is not successfully managed in an ad hoc fashion. There should be resources made available to oversee the entire implementation and resources made available to participate in all the required improvements. Sound project management principles need to be used, as the amount of parallel activities required to implement this in a reasonable timeframe will become unmanageable very quickly.

Please email me your comments on this article, on asset management topics you would like to see in the future or any questions you may have.

Guest columnist Ron Doucet is a reliability professional with a long career of driving companies towards operational excellence. He is an Aladon trained RCM practitioner, frequent conference speaker, and currently holds a senior asset management position in the mining industry of North America.

Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries.

Since starting with the job board a few weeks ago it is literally bristling with opportunities for maintenance managers, reliability managers, maintenance superintendents and specialists of all kinds. If you haven't already had a look through our job board then please take the time to do so. (Your future could be posted there)

Of particular interest is a recent posting for an international job in Kazakhstan of all places.

Short description:

Implements, manages and maintains the Maintenance Management Strategy for the buildings managed on behalf of the client.

Responsible for evaluating, analyzing and validating the current maintenance management data in the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) for the account, using the Business Directed Maintenance principles developed by ESS.

Responsible for modifying and changing the frequency and maintenance requirements for the assets and equipment within CMMS based upon the evaluation with a stated goal of driving the organization to condition based (RCM/TPM).

Overall responsibility for equipment, systems and designated special projects at the client’s facilities.

Supervises a team of focused professionals that includes, but is not limited to, the project manager, FM operation manager, engineer & trades leads to resolve mechanical, electrical & other maintenance management issues.

Principle Duties

Ensures that all facilities are maintained in accordance with the approved budget and the customer’s requirements to fulfill O&M contractual obligations, including utilizing a predictive maintenance approach.

The salary is promoted as a six figure salary and the agency is a reputable firm from New York. I hope it is of interest to a lot of you out there.

Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries.

Stretching the budget is nothing new for maintenance and reliability implementations. Particularly those where an implementation of technology is part of the game plan. But it needn't be this way, there are a few simple (very simple) techniques and approaches that can make sure that the original budget stays intact while getting all of what was originally envisioned.

However, this is an approach that will need to be adopted from the very beginning of a project. That is, before you start to look for notifications of interest or price submissions.

1. Don't oversell or you will have to spend extra money trying to deliver the benefits you claimed

2. Don't make too many changes! This is not an attempt to make all of your processes electronic, nor is it an attempt to try to redesign the entire program to suit your company. Use what is there to its full before trying to make unnecessary changes.

3. Look online. Heard of Software as a Service yet? Seen some of the incredible things that companies are starting to do online?

Well, if not then you need to! Even at this early stage of the trend to online programs and products there is already an impressive array of technology available for companies to implement at a fraction of the cost of the old Enterprise architecture models.

4. DO NOT go for lowest price! Everybody wants to get more for less, it is at the heart of the capitalist system we work in. BUT, if you get the lowest cost vendor, or drive your implementation partner to deliver more than they originally budgeted for, then you are in trouble.

Either there will be a lot left out in the first place, of your implementation partner will be operating on such tight margins that they will try to do everything possible as quickly and as cheaply as possible. So how to save money, pay the right price!

5. Start a structured knowledge transfer program from day one! Or continue to pay until year 10! Easy calculation to make. Either you take the hit and take some short term pain in terms of resource usage, or you continue to pay real money to an external resource forever.

6. Be innovative in implementation! Be smart about how you spend your money. If you don't need the people on site then don't blow the budget getting them to site, if one of the plants is already advanced then dploy the resources and time elsewhere, look for flexibility at every turn. (This doesn't mean screwing more out of your implementation partner either by the way)

For example, ten years after the publication of the RCM standard there are still naysayers claiming that a full implementation of RCM takes too many resources and is too labor intensive. These comments are spurred on by either flat-out ignorance or commercial interests.

What they either do not understand, or are deliberately misleading their readers about, is that the RCM standard does not mandate the process or the way that you implement RCM! So instead of being smart and adjusting the implementation process they take the easier and less ethical route of streamlining the rigorous nature of the process.

In fact, when I was in the UK with AMT-SYBEX we needed a way to make rigorous RCM available to companies who did not have the technical resources to dedicate to full time reviews as in a team facilitated approach.

So I pioneered the RCM Analyst approach, a method still delivered by that company to this day with a lot of success. So instead of being smart and adjusting the implementation process they take the easier and less ethical route of streamlining the rigorous nature of the process.

7. Get a trusted adviser! The job of a consultant is short and sweet, to improve the clients condition. Full stop. it is not about lightening his checkbook, nor about increasing profit margins. A managerial consultant should be focused on making sure that your company gets where it needs to be going, and then deal with the commercial aspects second.

Find this person and get them to advise you continually!


Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries.

So you have finally started the project. The money is approved, the products and consultants have been located, the contract has been let and you are already part way through your awareness program.

Failure in reliability and asset management programs is often traceable to key decisions that were made either during the sales cycle or within the first days of implementation. So here are some tips that may help you to avoid some of the common pitfalls during this period and ensure your project continues with the same level of corporate enthusiasm that it had when it was pitched at senior management.

1. Make sure that mobilization time frames are agreed and understood

Get this right! Whatever you do make sure you get this one right! Empty seats scream non-commitment by the consultant - regardless of the true intention. Misaligned expectations about who will be on site when and what they will be doing will put everyone on the wrong foot right from the beginning!

2. For technology projects - make sure that everyone understands the full capabilities and limitations of the product.

I have seen so many EAM projects where the client, led by a consultant organization, charges straight into the process of defining the solution requirements, work processes and data flows.

Sometimes the consultants leading this exercise do not even understand the functional capabilities of the system they are designing processes for!! In fact, this line of thinking was in vogue at the turn of the century!
And the result? Processes do not align with functions, clients are now determined to implement the processes they have worked so hard to define, the system will need to be changed, the budget gets blown and the business relationship gets off on the wrong foot.

The Solution? Take a representative group from within the key users, and train them rigorously in the functionalities of the product. Make sure they understand what it can and cannot do and then get them to participate in defining the work processes and data flows.

The benefits? 9 times out of 10 the system will introduce them to new and different ways of doing things that they were not considering earlier, ,they start to work down the path with a full knowledge of what can be done and what will require a change, and at the same time they get to start developing an appreciation for the technological solution.

3. Formally agree the solution requirements for technology projects.

Amazing isn't it? 20 years into the technology revolution and Enterprise level projects still try to carry out implementations without this step. Just for the record there are three steps to defining solutions: (After detailed awareness training)

1. Define the Solution Requirements - determine what the business needs from the system and document this.
2. Define the Business Solution Design - determine how the system will be configured and implemented in order to meet with the requirements.
3. Define the User changes that are going to be needed in order to comply fully with the requirements.
   

If you start at step two then guess what? That's right, companies get solutions they didnt agree to, didn't sign off on, scope creeps, and either the consultant loses their shirt or the client gets sort changed.

4. DO NOT submit any change requests or contract variations

Unwritten rule of large projects: A change order or contract variation that is submitted within (X) days of start up means that either the guys buying the project made some significant mistakes, or it means that the consultants selling the project pulled the wool over somebodies eyes.

Whether this is true or not this is the way it will be seen by all. So if their are changes, get an agreement not to submit them within the first (whatever) days, and get an agreement on exactly how these will be managed to make sure everybody gets what they want. (E.g Clients gets solution, consultant retains their profit margin)

5. Never eat alone!

Again, no news here! Client companies buy people just as much as they buy products, sometimes more.

The project Director is actually the Chief Relationship Officer and it is his job during the initial period to establish a relationship with the clients operational management that will withstand some of the testing times that are to come on the project. If you think that there will not be any testing times then good luck to you, but conventional wisdom suggests there will be.

6. Promote Success!

The senior management always want results. regardless of time frames and regardless of what the original expectations were. Check out this article about the SAP implementation at fashion giant Burberry.

Give them something to work with. Make sure that the project has some elements to it that can be translated directly into quick wins, things that will get the positive attention of management and ensure they are still on board.

7. Manage risks and changes

Again, this is not news but it is so often done so wrong!

Get a risk register, get a record of all the changes, create a process for talking about these and dealing with them, and make sure that all risks are dealt with in a fashion that will ensure that the project and its outcomes are not damaged in any way.

Failure to do this will leave the client wondering why things are going wrong, why they weren't told that things were going wrong - and general doubts about your ability to set things right.

I hope these are of some use, definitely not the only issues to think of during the first one hundred days but a good and successful way to start.

Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries.

In my weekly Google and Blogger alerts this week came a press release about a the North Shore Hospital using an Australian SaaS system for the location and bar coding of all of its assets throughout 50 different buildings as part of a large scale upgrade that it is undertaking.

The product is called Loc8 and it has been developed for the facilities management market space by a company called Smartpath out of Sydney.

For years SaaS within asset maintenance has been the domain of established pioneers such as eMaint, WebWork and NetFacilities. All are good products with varying levels of functionality, and all use the recognizable web based interface.

So I did what any curious onlooker would do and I took up the offer of a 14 day trial period in order to get to know the product and to see if there is anything new under the sun. (Available from their site)

The first thing that hit me is the vastly different interface that they have developed. Although it is an online system it has the feel of a desktop system.

It was obvious that the guys at Smartpath had thought this one through and deliberately decided to do something different within the SaaS CMMS space. And personally, I think it worked out well for them.

Like all browser based systems it is easy to access but the speed it works at depends on your internet connection, so from outback Saudi Arabia the other day it was a bit slow, but here at home it is working just fine.

All the screens are very easy to navigate and the product as a whole is very intuitive. As you can see below it has the look and feel of other products built in Adobe such as Apple's ubiquitous iTunes program.

In terms of system functionality it has all of the basic components for help desk management within a facilities or property maintenance operation. The applications out side of this, based on what I have seen, would be limited but within this sphere they seem to have done a good job.

The intriguing thing about all of this, aside from the user interface, is that it shows that SaaS has grown out of the CRM space and is finally starting to penetrate into other areas of business activity. We recently reviewed a mobile technology solution on these pages also, and we will be looking at a number of others in the near future.

Loc8 is well worth having a look at if you are in the market for a help desk style application, the company also provides a range of additional services and the system is able to be delivered through mobile applications it seems. (I haven't road tested that part of it)

All in all, a great product and a good start for them in the FM area.

Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries.

Technology and physical asset management are two areas that go hand in hand. From mobile working solutions, to ERP systems, to niche reliability programs, we find almost every aspect of what we do is becoming more and more dependent on technological solutions.

Yet why is it then that often we feel as if we are treading water? Our companies spend a fortune, often in the millions, to implement the latest gadgets, gizmos and fads - but for some reason they don't make a difference?

I'm sure there are many reasons for this but one of the most dramatic is a failure to take into account the vital area of user adoption. Without making sure that users are entering AND using the system it is never going to do what we want it to do.

These are some widely applicable metrics that I have been using over the years. Note: They do not replace a comprehensive data scorecard for ongoing management, but they do give a good idea as to how effectively the implementation and take-up strategies have been.

All of these are monthly metrics, but they could also be generated with greater or lesser frequency depending on your specific requirements. Again, just some basic ideas designed to generate thought at your company. These measures are aimed at a standard CMMS style implementation.
The image above is the Eason Matrix. This shows the different levels of intervention required to get user adoption up to an effective level during the implementation of any corporate software.

It clearly shows that the difficulty in user adoption grows depending on the scale of the implementation program. A program focused on a big-bang style solution will often find itself fighting to get users to embrace the new technology. While a longer more managed implementation path will meet with less resistance and be more likely to result in effective implementation.

The selection of which method to use in adoption will depend on a range of variables, and the type of metrics and dashboards that can be used will also change along with this.

System Usage

Always the first point of call. If your users are not logging in then there is no way they are going to be good adopters of the technology. However, just because they are logged in does not mean that they are either, so I use a few additional measures.

• Users logged in week (Out of total users with access) - Weekly
• Users not logged in each week (Out of total users with access) - Weekly
• Number of work orders / requests generated (Out of total users with the ability to generate work orders or requests) - Weekly
• Routine Maintenance regimes added (Out of users authorized to add routine maintenance regimes) - Weekly (This is only useful at the beginning of an implementation)
• Open actions per role versus past period - Weekly (Good where there are authorization processes in place)
  

Data Quality

This is a vital element of any adoption framework and will assist to tell you whether the correct fields are filled out, and if they are filled out with the correct data.

• Data integrity of issued work orders / requests (All fields filled that are expected to be filled)
• Data quality of work orders (Fields filled out with incorrect data) This is an interesting metric because it assumes that there has been some forethought when implementing the CMMS. (See CMMS: A Time Saving Implementation, available on Amazon)
• Key non required fields filled out (measurement of the quality of data above the minimum requirements)
• Work order versus HR comparative reports (To make sure that the figures within the work orders match the figures from HR management)
  

Business Performance

If the implementation has been carried out for all the right reasons then the ultimate test of effectiveness will be the changes to performance.

For a CMMS there are many areas of this but the key one is on efficiency. So measures such as the following would be adequate:

• Schedule compliance
• Schedule confidence - Percentage of "planned" work orders within the finalized schedule.
  
• Delay reductions

There are of course many more and each implementation is different, but hopefully these provide at least some food for thought when you are looking to try and determine whether your newest technology investment is being used as you would like it to be.

Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries.

SAP has recently announced that it plans to purchase French business intelligence company Business Objects in a cash deal of slightly more than $6.8 billion dollars, a considerable premium reflecting the added value SAP see in this union.

This move comes shortly after Oracle announced its own foray into business intelligence space with the purchase of Hyperion and is SAP's largest acquisition to date.

At the close of trading on the 8th of October SAP had shed 5% over fears of the ERP giant moving away from the organic growth strategy that has served it so well to date. But these are interesting times...

This marks a high water mark in the ongoing and furious competition between these two players, and more specifically between Henning Kagermann, SAP's chief executive and Larry Ellison of Oracle, in what is shaping up as an ongoing struggle for outright dominace within the sector.

In the past twelve months we have seen the ongoing court battle over Espionage charges, the listing of Ellison's NetSuite and the drive by SAP to enter the Software-as-a-Service market with force. (Even though they have suggested doubts over the profitability of the model within the mid-size business space)

The Business Objects acquisition makes good sense on so many fronts. As a leading business intelligence solution globally this gives SAP inroads into revenue generation in additional markets, as well as giving it the capability to cross sell and integrate their product offerings for better end-to-end service.

A common complaint for many years from SAP users has been that it is great for putting stuff into, but not so great for getting it out of again.

SAP has stated that the two companies will continue to work as stand alone companies, with their own strategic goals and market focus. However, the disruptive effect on other players in the market will be large.

Other leading players like Cognos will be feeling the squeeze from both Oracle and SAP and may itself become in play for a company such as Infor. (A surprisingly large third player in this match up) More concerning for others within the ERP/EAM space is for players such as Mincom a significant player in asset-intensive industries, who have made a lot out of integration with the product.

These impacts alone are considerable, but over time there will be another possibly larger and more disruptive effect.

A swathe of companies have built business intelligence capabilities into their SAP - integrating products and services in an effort to gain leverage off the difficulties from getting information from SAP. These companies will now be looking down the barrel of shrinking revenues as the marketing and sales cycles for these two products converge. Also, watch for a dramatic increase in Business Objects capable consulting companies.

Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is a leading business blog for asset-intensive industries. (c) Lassiter Group 2007

Some of these are very specific to what we do in physical asset management, others are more general and applicable to other areas - but I am convinced that all of these are great ideas. (Entrepreneurs take notice!)

Feel free to add additional ideas if you think it would help.

1. A SMART CARD - Because I cannot keep on putting loyalty cards, credit cards, debit cards, store cards and ID cards into my already suffering wallet!

Why do we not have one card to rule them all? Business 2.0 (Great magazine by the way) had a recent article on this theme, but it still seems a long way off for me living out here in the Middle East.

2. A web based, on demand, suite of reliability software. So every organization can implement reliability, not just those who have millions of dollars to spend.

3. A web based benchmarking program. So that every company in the world can enter their data and see how they stack up against everybody else.

4. A Reliability Centered Maintenance system that incorporates HEART and Weibull Analysis at the right stages. So that analysts can perform RCM, integrate Human error analysis and integrate quantified analytical techniques where relevant.

5. A program, Enterprise model or SaaS, that can do all areas related to Asset Management. So that companies do not have to purchase an ERP, then bolt on an APM or try to weave the data between a dozen niche applications or so. (Inventory etcetera)

6. An IT manager who understands the complexity and severe consequences of physical asset management. (Okay, maybe this guy exists today - but he is hiding)

7. A consulting job board. Where companies can go direct to consulting resources without going through intermediaries such as agencies etcetera.

8. An agreed global standard on Asset Management and Asset Performance Management. Today there are many of these, recent adventures by the IAM in the UK have come up with a process heavy, results limited and bureaucratic tool. And nobody agrees that this is the tool for use.

Even when a water mark tool like the RCM standard was produced, every consultancy and publisher with a vested commercial interest came out against it. Even though this meant potentially raising the level of risk that companies experienced!

I have a heap more of these, but these are a good starting point. Please feel free to add any that you think are relevant.


Equipment, Maintenance and Technology is part of the Lassiter Group. (C) Lassiter 2007.