Within our toolbox of best practices, the concept of Operational Readiness (OR) has been discussed, strategized, budgeted, and engaged, to prepare the asset(s) in transition from OEM to start-up, whether for the construction of a single asset such as a mine haul truck, or unique piece of manufacturing equipment, or for multiple assets within an infrastructure such as a hospital, or rail transit line to create the smoothest, "turn key" process for the newly acquired asset, prior to deployment into operations.
Through the many global industries, we have been blessed with a very holistic view of what Operational Readiness should look like. However, the process can be seen as a high level strategy, which fails to incorporate the depth and breadth required to ensure all steps of the plan will engage tactics which align with corporate vision and mission, supporting critical aspects of readiness; the tracking platform, communications, and follow up methods used to ensure we engage stakeholders as "partners" in our journey, rather than captives in a process to ensure the asset is truly "Operationally Ready", before we sign off with the asset owners.
As a result, tactics used are many time absence of an accurate tracking process to ensure the highest level of QA/QC. What better time to achieve this accuracy then at the inception of the new asset, just like we do when we welcome a new baby into our family. But can we honestly say we plan everything for our new addition? Definitely not. We can agree, that we are not all aligned in how or what we will feed our child when they turn 2 years old, rather we commit to the short term plan and move forward.
Why? Simply put, it takes a lot of effort to "sweat the small stuff", however the tactics used for Operational Readiness, it is critical we "sweat the small stuff" as we build a platform that will support the process, while focusing on reduction of the 7 + 1 types of waste, and by making the process simple and attractive to the ones responsible for getting the process steps completed in our journey.
An OR report study from Deloitte (2012) revealed that if a company can achieve OR process effectively, they would have an opportunity to reduce the risk of loosing 30% of their capital value. In addition, the severe detrimental impact on Capex and initial operational capacity, ongoing operations and maintenance costs over an asset’s lifecycle are typically 1 – 2% higher, year-on-year and for the entire life of the asset, where operational readiness was not sufficiently achieved at the outset. And then there is value add for safety and employee morale.
Everyone’s best intentions are traditionally met with the reality of how many small, yet critical alignment steps there are to truly set up the asset to be resilient and sustainable within the lifecycle and within the desired Asset Management Landscape within your organization.
Chaos usually rears its ugly head at a period after the asset has been commissioned and signed off with the asset owner. Normally the front end of design for reliability, need vs. want, master maintenance plans, parts and operations, maintenance and training strategies are set well. However, are they truly measured by the organization, in a way that supports the quality of work to manage QA/QC performance and excellence of each process step? Many stakeholders will have touch points in the process; either one time, or many times well past the commissioning stage, right to the end of asset life; retire, restore or renewal process, which is all part of the OR.
In this presentation for the Operational Readiness (OR) Global Approach to Asset Management Landscape & Best Practices, the information will address how Agnico Eagle Mining Ltd., has taken the opportunity within the Nunavut Division, Asset Management group to enhance the tracking performance and following up with every stakeholder to ensure the actual work is being performed, at the right time, for the right reasons and the completion of each of the hundreds of secondary and tertiary steps are properly aligning with the timing to bring the asset into operational state.
The presentation will discuss the practice and "out of the box" applications readily available using the Microsoft 365 suite of programs, such as SharePoint and the supporting applications available, without engaging in complex processes, spreadsheets or software tracking, workflow, and communication platforms. It is challenging to keep everything tracked and packaged in one system available to everyone when having to apply multiple CMMS, EAM, ERP, or other 3rd party application systems help to support the management of assets.
