This methodology could help guide your operations to the top.

Using Functional
Analysis For Improved
Troubleshooting
JULY 2005 www.pump-zone.com PUMPS & SYSTEMS 22
T
he troubleshooting guide created by the Failure Modes
and Effects Analysis (FMEA) portion of Reliability
Centered Maintenance (RCM) activities is a valuable
side benefit of the process. Just how important can these guides
be in building higher levels of equipment availability, and how
do you turn the FMEA into such a tool? Moreover, how can
smaller facilities accomplish the functional analysis necessary to
create troubleshooting guides of their own?
T
he troubleshooting guide created by the Failure Modes
and Effects Analysis (FMEA) portion of Reliability
Centered Maintenance (RCM) activities is a valuable
side benefit of the process. Just how important can these guides
be in building higher levels of equipment availability, and how
do you turn the FMEA into such a tool? Moreover, how can
smaller facilities accomplish the functional analysis necessary to
create troubleshooting guides of their own?
Using Functional
Analysis For Improved
Troubleshooting
By Bill Keeter, ARMS Reliability Engineers USA, INC.
Seeking higher levels of equipment availability?
July05PUMPS&SYSp22-28 6/22/05 3:49 PM Page 22
Availability,
Reliability,
Maintainability
As shown in the following
equation, availability is a func-
tion of reliability and maintain-
ability. Two common measures
used for reliability and maintain-
ability are Mean Time Between
Failures (MTBF) and Mean
Time to Repair (MTTR).
There are three levels of
equipment availability (see
Figure 1). Intrinsic availability
describes the availability built
into the equipment. It assumes
that parts and resources are
immediately available in the
event of a failureand that there
is no scheduled maintenance
downtime. Achievable availabili-
ty describes the availability of the
equipment when scheduled
maintenance and facility design
are considered. Operational
availability describes the level of
availability seen every day in the
facility. It takes into account all
the inefficiencies that exist in
day-to-day activities.
Top-level decisions impact-
ing all three types of availability,
as shown in Table 1 (on the next
page), are made throughout the
life of the facility.
Importance of
Troubleshooting
Guides
The presence of trouble-
shooting guides has a major
impact on equipment availabili-
ty. The absence of such guides
means you may be relying on the
memories of craft personnel to
PUMPS & SYSTEMS www.pump-zone.com JULY 2005 23
Figure 1. The three levels of availability
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Availability = MTBF
MTBF + MTTR
July05PUMPS&SYSp22-28 6/22/05 3:49 PM Page 23
JULY 2005 www.pump-zone.com PUMPS & SYSTEMS 24
Table 1. Top Level Decision Factors for Reliability and Maintainability
Figure 2.
A functional
plant hierarchy
July05PUMPS&SYSp22-28 6/22/05 4:57 PM Page 24
JULY 2005 www.pump-zone.com PUMPS & SYSTEMS 26
Figure 5.
Pump failure modes
About ARMS Reliability Engineers
Since opening its first office in Melbourne, Australia,10 years ago, ARMS Reliability Engineers has
been dedicated to helping businesses align their asset management strategies to their business goals by
using proven Reliability Engineering Methods and powerful simulation software. Today, from offices in
the U.S. and Canada, as well as Australia, ARMS provides support for Reliability Centered Maintenance,
Availability Simulation and Modeling and Rapid Reliability Assessment. The companys staff of experi-
enced engineers comes from a wide variety of industries, including mining, petroleum, chemicals and
continuous process manufacturing.
For more information, you can visit ARMS on the web at www.armsus.com or
www.reliability.com.au. Or, depending on your location and needs, call one of the following numbers:
USA (888) 673-8360
Canada (250) 753-2426
Australia +61 (3525) 553 57
July05PUMPS&SYSp22-28 6/22/05 3:52 PM Page 26
provide the most effective means
of fault-finding when a system
has failed. The problem with this
situation is twofold. People dont
have infinite memoriesand
craft personnel are often con-
fronted with failures in equip-
ment on which they have worked
infrequently.
Creating a Basic
Troubleshooting
Guide
A facility can be broken
down into a functional hierarchy
like the one shown in Figure 2.
Each item of equipment in the
facility has a function that can be
lost due to failures in its compo-
nents. The purpose of the func-
tional analysis is to determine the
failure modes or failed parts that
have created the loss of function.
The Functional
Analysis
If we think about equipment
failures in terms of lost function,
it quickly becomes apparent that
a functional analysis of the
equipment will yield a good basic
troubleshooting guide for use by
craft personnel. Functional anal-
ysis considers the structure, func-
tions, functional failures and fail-
ure modes of the equipment. The
functions of a pump might look
something like what is shown in
Figure 3.
For each function there is
one or more functional failures
that describe the loss of the items
intended functions. A list of
functional failures may be like
the ones shown in Figure 4.
For each functional failure
there will be one or more failure
modes, like those in Figure 5,
that are represented by failed
components or operating errors,
such as putting valves in the
wrong position.
The pump failure modes are
the basis for the creation of the
troubleshooting guide. The func-
tional structure can be put into a
PUMPS & SYSTEMS www.pump-zone.com JULY 2005 25
Figure 3.
Pump functions
Figure 4.
Functional failures
July05PUMPS&SYSp22-28 6/22/05 4:57 PM Page 25
spreadsheet like the one in
Table 2, so that field personnel
can filter on functional failure to
determine potential failure
modes or causes for the loss of
function. The result might be
something like Table 3.
Who Should Do the
Analysis?
Functional analysis of equip-
ment for the purpose of creating
troubleshooting guides can be
accomplished by a small team of
electrical and mechanical craft
personnel with just a minimal
amount of training and some
spreadsheet software. Failure
Modes and Effects Analysis for
the purpose of performing Reli-
ability Centered Maintenance
requires a team made up of
maintenance craft, operators, a
member of either maintenance
or operating supervision, and a
trained facilitator to ensure that
the chosen maintenance tasks
PUMPS & SYSTEMS www.pump-zone.com JULY 2005 27
Table 2. Unfiltered Failure Modes
Table 3. Failure Modes Filtered on Low Flow
Troubleshooting
guides will
save time
and generate
higher
availability
July05PUMPS&SYSp22-28 6/22/05 3:52 PM Page 27
prevent functional failures. RCM
requires a significant amount of
documentation and is best done
using sophisticated software that
will allow project information to
be stored in a single resource.
Conclusion
Troubleshooting guides will
save time and generate higher
availability. They can be created
either as a side benefit of the
RCM process, or as the result of
a simple functional analysis de-
pending on the resources avail-
able to the facility. P&S
Bill Keeter, CMRP, is
President of ARMS Reliability
Engineers, USA, Inc., based in
Titusville, FL. During his 20 years
as a maintenance professional, he
has successfully implemented
maintenance improvement pro-
grams in a variety of operations.
His experience includes mainte-
nance leadership positions in the
US Military, the nuclear industry,
chemicals, paper converting and
plastic film manufacturing. He
also has provided training and
reliability consulting services to
process, mining and defense indus-
tries in the U.S., Europe and the
Middle East, and has developed
competency maps for Reliability,
Availability, and Maintainability
Engineering in the petroleum
industry. Keeter holds a B.S. in
Business Administration from
Coker College, as well as a B.S. in
Electrical Engineering from the
University of South Carolina. He
is a Certified Maintenance and
Reliability Professional. E-mail
him directly at bkeeter@-
armsus.com
JULY 2005 www.pump-zone.com PUMPS & SYSTEMS 28
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