Emerson Process Management - CSI

DoctorKnow Application Paper

Title: The Business of Reliability Based Maintenance Source/ Willian H. Closser Jr. Author: Product: General Technology: Vibration Classification: THE BUSINESS OF RELIABILITY BASED MAINTENANCE OR HOW TO IMPROVE THE CORPORATE BOTTOM LINE THROUGH SMARTER MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT ABSTRACT This paper examines the integrated approach to preventative, predictive and proactive maintenance and the optimization of these three maintenance practices to form the Reliability Based MaintenanceTM philosophy. It discusses the importance of the financial and maintenance performance indicators to ensure that the recognition of the success of the RBMTM philosophy is realized. As the issue of corporate downsizing and the threat to implementing the RBMTM philosophy is examined, some approaches to ensuring the continued implementation and success of the strategy are presented. I. INTRODUCTION In today's business environment most process and manufacturing corporations have undergone "ReEngineering or Right Sizing" in order to make their business functions more efficient. ( In less politically correct terms, reductions in staff or downsizing to increase the corporation's bottom line.) However you say it, or however you look at it, companies are asking employees to provide the same level of production with the same or better quality products with fewer employees. The implementation of the Reliability' Based MaintenanceTM (RBMTM) philosophy can help a corporation to ensure that the most economical approach to maintenance is being performed on the plant equipment while maintaining or improving the quality of the company's product. For those companies that have chosen not to undergo Re-Engineering or Right Sizing, the RBM philosophy can make the production process more efficient. For the same number of employees and the same level of capital equipment, companies can increase the quantity and quality of their products, while lowering their overall maintenance costs. The result, a healthier corporate bottom line, providing for the survival of the corporation and the jobs that it provides. II. CURRENT MAINTENANCE PRACTICES Today more than 51% of industry maintenance man-hours are spent on correcting equipment failures, with less than 18% of those hours being spent on determining when equipment will fail
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(Deloitte & Touche). Modern industry in general still views maintenance as a "necessary evil" instead of an opportunity to excel and out perform their competition. With industry in a highly reactive mode, resources are always being dedicated to the crises at hand. Little or no effort goes into planning what work needs to be performed, so instead of the "staff running the plant, the plant ends up running the staff" (usually ragged). PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE The first approach that most plant staffs will take when they realize that they need to get control of their maintenance is to implement a Preventative Maintenance program. These programs are based on conducting time directed inspections and rebuilds on plant equipment. The ability to gain control over the plant and to begin planning and scheduling maintenance is tremendous for those plants that have been in a Run To Failure (RTF) or reactionary maintenance mode. Planning of Maintenance budgets becomes easier and more accurate. The frequency of catastrophic failures is decreased and the overall reliability of plant equipment is improved. The drawbacks to a strictly time directed maintenance program are, more often than not, an excessive amount of maintenance is being performed in order to ensure equipment reliability. The preventative maintenance tasks are normally based on vendor recommendations which, most often are there to limit the vendors liability exposure and have little to do with the specific plant operating configuration. In a recent survey, one pump rebuild shop indicated that as many as 60% of the pumps they received for overhaul had nothing wrong with them, and similar statements have also been made by motor repair shops. Even with the excessive maintenance activities that are in place under a preventative maintenance program, unexpected failures still occur in plant equipment causing lost production time and excessive scraped product or product that needs to be re-worked. Preventative Maintenance is a good starting point but there is more that can be done. PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE Predictive Maintenance (PdM) or condition directed maintenance, technologies provide a wide wealth of information about the condition of operating equipment. A good PdM program can provide that information with little or no interruption in the normal process operation. Technologies such as Infrared Thermography, Tribology, Vibration Analysis, and others generate information which allows the plant staff to predict when equipment failures will occur and to schedule the required equipment maintenance. This approach to maintenance directs work to be performed only when the equipment condition dictates that the activities are necessary, eliminating the excessive maintenance that is so often part of Preventative Maintenance programs. The drawbacks to a strictly condition based maintenance program is that it does not strive to eliminate repetitive failures. It also produces large amounts of data that must be reduced into useable information so that maintenance can be appropriately scheduled. PROACTIVE MAINTENANCE Proactive Maintenance or Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) seeks to determine why equipment failures are occurring and what can be done to eliminate those failures. Proactive Maintenance has

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Emerson Process Management - CSI

only recently started to come into its' own. This, in part, is due to the high quality predictive technology tools that are now available which can help to pinpoint the forcing functions of failures. When the root cause of a repetitive failure has been identified, it can be eliminated. The techniques range from simply performing precision alignment or balancing on rotating equipment to changing repair part specifications or the redesign of the plant equipment. III. RELIABILITY BASED MAINTENANCETM Reliability Based MaintenanceTM is the integration and economic optimization of the three afore mentioned maintenance techniques. The advantages to the Reliability Based MaintenanceTM (RBMTM) philosophy are grounded in the economic optimization of the three maintenance techniques. This process is as follows: 1) Identify and rank equipment and systems which have the greatest impact on production capability based on their contribution to throughput; 2) Using predictive technologies combined with historical information, identify dominate deterioration and failure modes, cause of deterioration, and the effects of deterioration; 3) Using performance measurements, determine which deterioration/failure modes have the greatest effect on the production capability, equipment reliability, and product quality; 4) Take corrective measures to eliminate the cause of the deterioration/failure by; a) employing proactive techniques to identify design or procedural problems; b) identifying and implementing appropriate predictive technologies; and c) working with planning and operations to implement only required PM tasks and routine maintenance; 5) Using information derived from steps 2 &3, define purchase specifications, installation and commissioning procedures, rebuild certification tests, and precision balance, alignment, and lubrication tolerances.

A key requirement in this process is a thorough knowledge of maintenance costs. The cost of lost production time, the cost of equipment spare parts, the cost of labor, the cost of redesign, the rate of equipment failures, and the time required for repairs are economic factors which must be known to adequately implement the decision logic associated with the RBMTM philosophy. IV. PERFORMANCE INDICATORS MAINTENANCE INDICATORS Two general classifications of performance indicators need to be utilized in monitoring the progress of the implementation of the RBMTM philosophy; Maintenance Indicators and Financial Indicators. The following are some of the Maintenance Indicators that could be tracked and their target values:

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Emerson Process Management - CSI

1. Percentage of Equipment Covered by PdM - 100% 2. Emergency Work - <10% 3. Corrective Work - <30% 4. Backlog of All Open Work Orders - 4 - 6 Crew Weeks 5. Schedule Compliance - >90% 6. Percent Overtime - <5% 7. Utilized Capacity Effectiveness

It is important to calculate and track these and other maintenance indicators in a consistent manner so that improvements in maintenance performance can be realized. It is also important that these indicators be shared with all plant personnel and not be kept to the supervision and management ranks. Most often when performance goals and measures are known by the plant personnel and they are apprised of their progress, there is a faster rate of improvement and a higher rate of success in achieving the performance goals. FINANCIAL The Financial Indicators are the true measure upon which the success of the RBMTM philosophy will be measured. No corporation knowingly embarks on a course of action that reduces their profits, so the RBMTM philosophy must be able to demonstrate that it is profitable for the company. The following are some of the Financial Indicators that can be calculated and tracked: 1. Maintenance Cost per Unit of Production 2. Percent of Availability 3. Percent of Line Utilization 4. Cost Effectiveness 5. Maintenance Margin 6. Spare Turns 7. Spares as a Percentage of Plant Replacement

As with the maintenance indicators, the financial indicators need to be calculated and tracked in a consistent manner so that meaningful comparisons can be made over time. The issues of shifting overhead expenses in and out of the maintenance budget, as is done in some plants, will lead to inconclusive trends and will result in misinterpretation of the success of the RBMTM philosophy. Also, like the maintenance indicators, the financial indicators should be explained to and shared with the plant personnel so that everyone understands their contribution to the success of the company. V. CUTTING BACK The implementing of the RBMTM philosophy should be viewed as insurance against catastrophic unknown failures. Avoiding cut backs in the programs that implement the RBMTM philosophy should not be difficult if you are able to demonstrate the success of the philosophy. Here are two ways which can help prevent the urge by senior management to make significant cuts or do way
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Emerson Process Management - CSI

with the implementing programs. The first step is to demonstrate cost avoidance. When the RBMTM philosophy implementing programs have matured, the level of reactive maintenance will have dramatically decreased and the overall performance and reliability of equipment will have increased. Many new managers that may come into the plant will not have the history of how these successes in maintenance were achieved and will want to cut program budgets. To avoid this, a good history of before and after the establishment of the implementing program needs to be maintained so that a clear financial picture of the reduction in the overall costs of maintenance can be demonstrated. If financial indicators were not in place prior to implementing the RBMTM philosophy, then go back and pull the financial numbers and calculate as many of the indicators as possible. Tie the Financial Indicator to the Maintenance Indicator by time so that the improvement in the Financial Indicator can be seen to be the direct result of the improvement in the Maintenance Indicators, and that the improvement in the Maintenance indicator is the direct result of the implementing programs of the RBMTM philosophy. By doing this, the avoided maintenance cost should become clear and the temptation to cut the programs should be reduced, if not eliminated. The second approach is the Direct Cost approach. It may be more difficult to determine, but, if you can get an agreement on the numbers used in your calculations, it is a more straight forward presentation. This approach also assumes that you have optimized all of your implementing programs. It is possible to determine for every reduction in the implementing programs the exact cost increase in the maintenance budget over the long term. The long term is stressed here because the immediate results will be a reduction in maintenance costs due to the reduced time and effort spent on the implementing programs. However, as machine performance begins to degrade and unknown failures begin to recur the cost of maintenance will begin to increase as the plant goes back into a reactionary maintenance mode. Plant profits will also fall as a result of decreased equipment availability and capacity, higher scrap and rework, and lower quality product. To calculate the Direct Costs, equipment failure history will need to be known along with the cost of rework and scrap, the cost of lost production time, the cost of expediting fees and/or increased inventory, and the difference in' damage repairs due to catastrophic failure vs. pre-failure repairs. Vl. CONCLUSION The implementation of the RBMTM philosophy can be an investment in the future of a company. To ensure that investment is realized, track its' performance as you would your own investments. When you monitor the financial performance of the RBMTM philosophy, the gains will be obvious and the temptations to disinvest will be minimal. All contents copyright 1998 - 2006, Computational Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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