02 Asset Management Decision Making

Asset management (AM) is a far-ranging topic and can be very confusing or overwhelming to anyone who is now embarking on a program or trying to take their existing program up a notch. The biggest impact in AM is on the planning side of the AM Framework. Essentially, if you plan well, then you can execute the right activities (capital project, operations, and maintenance tasks) well. Conversely, which is the case with many organizations, there is poor planning but with efficient execution of the work and attendant sub-optimal performance. Excellence in AM requires effective planning in three areas: Growth and Rationalization, Renewal & Replacement, and Operations & Maintenance. This presentation will provide best-in-class concepts for developing these three areas and the return on investment in effective planning, and will be supported by real-life examples.   Originally presented at MainTrain 2020

This article is to address the difference in conditional probability of failure patterns, and the impact on how best to maintain assets based upon those differences.

How well is your MRO Stores system integrated with your maintenance requirements to ensure effective support of your organization’s maintenance efforts?Most of MRO stores efforts are to provide parts and materials to both Operations and Maintenance. For this article, the focus will be upon MRO stores support of Maintenance.

In our isolated world of maintenance and asset management, we often struggle to make a solid case for improvements we know will be of value to our organizations. Our managers and executives often don’t “get it,” and our best arguments just don’t hit the mark. Communicating what we know to be true is our responsibility; we cannot expect our audience to understand our knowledge domain as we do. We need to send clear, unambiguous messages that will be understood by the listener. This presentation will focus on ways to communicate the value that arises with good maintenance, and operational and asset management practices, throughout the lifecycle of physical assets. “Value” is often misinterpreted to mean “low cost,” especially in the accounting community. To them, value comes from minimizing any and all costs. Operations managers often interpret “value” as the ability to deliver more and avoid any downtime on any machine involved in production. To them, denying downtime for maintenance is a good thing to do. Maintainers tend to interpret value to mean fewer failures. Yet the avoidance of all failures may actually expend needless resources where there’s no need. Engineers often think of value deriving from the delivery of projects on time and on budget—even better if delivered earlier or at lower-than-estimated costs. Spending less upfront, however, can lead to high operating and maintenance costs for years to come. To an extent, they’re all correct, but they’re all missing the true meaning. We’ll speak to value, what it is, how our organizations can ensure it’s delivered, and how we can make a case to our managers and executives so they’ll understand. This presentation is based on Paying Your Way (2020), which will be used as a text for all participants, summarizing several case studies.    Originally presented at MainTrain 2020, September 15, 2020.   Webcast presented January 12, 2021

As the influence of the asset management approach continues to expand within Nova Scotia Power, we need a structured approach to ensure we continue to seek opportunities to optimize maintenance strategies. In a new installation, techniques such as failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) and reliability centred maintenance (RCM) can be used to develop an optimized maintenance strategy from the start, in a top-down approach. However, the vast majority of Nova Scotia Power’s equipment was in place long before the asset management office—and, therefore, the asset management approach—existed. The result of that is a collection of value-added, but developed after-the-fact maintenance strategies. Each maintenance strategy has components of operator surveillance (rounds), testing, predictive pattern recognition (also known as advanced pattern recognition, APR), predictive maintenance (condition-based monitoring and risk-based inspections), online monitoring, and preventative maintenance. While efforts had been made to “baseline” the equipment processes when maintenance strategies were developed (i.e., “clean out” existing activities), the organic growth of the approach and the distributed nature of assets and personnel have made this difficult to maintain. Therefore, we needed an approach to optimize existing maintenance strategies, without recreating them. Nova Scotia Power has therefore undertaken an effort known as maintenance strategy optimization, and has made this activity a core accountability for the asset management team, which recognizes the need to seek continuous improvement (vs. a one-time exercise). With a focus on digitization wherever appropriate, Nova Scotia Power has asked a number of questions to streamline, standardize, and optimize its maintenance strategies. Is there opportunity to reduce PM frequency? Is there opportunity to collect more information such that we can strengthen our APR models? Can our in-house standards be revalidated to sustainably reduce operating and maintenance costs? Nova Scotia Power is answering yes to these questions, and more, and pursuing opportunities to optimize its maintenance strategies—from the bottom up! 

Many asset-owning organizations engaging in enterprise digital transformations aren’t realizing the expected value. Follow the money and you’ll see asset-owning organizations spending tens of millions (sometimes hundreds of millions) of dollars and the only clear winners are the solution providers and supporting management consultants. Why? Some approaches can lead their organizations further away from achieving their business goals. Ambitious digital strategies are great, but success is best achieved through technology and first-principles practices and decision-making. Paul Daoust will explore a digital transformation strategy that combines technology with asset management and operational excellence practices into an integrated operational management framework that works.

One of the main developments in ISO 55000 is the expansion of the meaning of "asset" to include assets that are not plant and equipment assets (e.g., human, knowledge, or reputation assets). This aspect seems to be understated somewhat in explaining what's new in ISO 55000. To better understand the expanded asset concept in ISO 55000, this presentation will explain the "three axes model of assets"; demonstrate its application by contrasting two cases (plant and equipment in a nuclear plant vs. human assets in a nuclear plant); and explore knowledge assets in a professional trade organization (e.g., PEMAC). We'll suggest how professional trade organizations (like PEMAC) might manage their knowledge assets, which actually include both content (knowledge) and trainers (human). The results are twofold: an enhanced awareness of non-traditional assets in ISO 55000 and a basic proposed plan for a knowledge-based professional organization to manage its assets in keeping with ISO 55000.

"Who’s on first. What's on second. And I don’t know's on third!" For some, these three simple sentences, which begin with questioning words but don't end with question marks, will appear puzzling. To others, this nostalgic phrase will trigger a grin as they're reminded of the famous 1938 radio play by Abbott and Costello. Regardless of your reaction, these sentences represent a strikingly large gap in asset management, maintenance management, project management, program management, and other domains that leave practitioners feeling confused and infuriated. Who is the real sponsor of the work? What, exactly, is the sponsor supposed to do? And, do we know if the sponsor is the same as the asset manager? Guidance surrounding the role of a sponsor is rather dismal and unstructured while the amount of literature on roles such as maintenance planners, schedulers, reliability professionals, and project managers is overwhelming. Why does such a vacuum exist? This session will provide a framework for the duties of a sponsor and guidance to asset and maintenance practitioners on recognizing a good sponsor or surviving a bad one. We'll demonstrate why the sponsor is not only important for success, but also essential; how the sponsor can best support asset management and maintenance management professionals through asset lifecycles; and the skills and behaviours sponsors should exhibit to ensure the "right" work is being sanctioned.

Companies are continually faced with competing priorities and limited resources, and, as a result, it's critical to drive value from the business decisions they make. With more focus on asset management principles, these decisions must be justified through demonstrated and quantified value to the business. With complex systems of equipment, such as a pipeline, determining the value of a project or proposed improvement can often be difficult to estimate—especially when considering an asset's lifespan. In such cases, a more systematic, data-driven approach may be required to predict value. RAM models are one such tool that can be used to achieve this. In this case study, we'll look at how RAM models have been developed and used at Enbridge Pipelines to identify and quantify the risks to throughput volume. The models include key equipment and operational events, along with specific throughput impacts and simulated long-range demand forecasts in order to prioritize the risks and focus resources toward capturing the best opportunities. When specific improvement opportunities (e.g., additional equipment sparing) are identified, alternate cases of the model can be created and the results compared to the base case to support decisions and justify projects. We'll explore some of the challenges we encountered during development and highlight examples of how this tool is being used to quantify value, as well as the approach taken to disseminate the information within the organization.

Many organizations have implemented processes and tools to collect data to facilitate informed decision-making. Often, they will seek out best practices and measures to assist in decision-making or rely on technology to guide their basis. In many cases, however, these same organizations approach a gap in tactical deployment and in the ability to draw a connection to the follow-up or pre-emptive actions required to derive value from assets. We'll review the processes for establishing a framework for alignment and priority setting while looking at the techniques used for resiliency and risk management using a technology-agnostic approach. We'll review potential data sources that can be leveraged for decision-making and can reflect the needs and current state of the business environment. Additionally, we'll discuss the relationship and application to the decision-making process.