02 Asset Management Decision Making

When entering a maintenance record into a CMMS, there's often a place where the operator can enter free-form comments. These comments may contain valuable information about the health of the equipment, any maintenance activities that were undertaken, and plans or recommendations for the future. The flexibility of the comments is attractive to operators, as a precise description of the observations can be recorded. However, using the comments information in data analysis usually requires some codifying of the comments, which is time-consuming and results in a loss of nuanced information. A machine learning approach to using comments data has been applied to predict the health of hydroelectric generating units. By embedding comments into a matrix to generate a "bag of words," and applying neural networks on the vocabulary, comments can be used to assess the current state of the asset and predict its next state. In this presentation, we'll discuss three machine learning algorithms in a way that's accessible and relevant to M&R practitioners: a classification method, a clustering method, and a neural network method. Each method will be partnered with direct applications to real-life maintenance problems, including lessons learned and potential uses in other contexts.

Learn to build a business case for improvements in Maintenance at your operations. You know your maintenance performance can improve, you know the problems you are faced with, you know some of what to do to correct it, you know it will take effort and some investment, and you need to prove it is worth investing in to your senior management / executive branch. To make the case, you need to show what it can save or earn for your business - where you will see the payoff and you need to estimate the cost of the investment. This is a hand's on workshop. Bring your maintenance performance metrics and be ready to work. You will be shown useful benchmarks that can be used and how to use them. Using those and the metrics from your current state you will show the potential benefit of making changes. After working out the potential benefits we will discuss tips for getting support and making your case an easy sell.

-Introduction a la gestion d’actifs véhiculaires-Processus intégré de la gestion d’un parc d’actifs véhiculaires-L’analyse du cycle de vie financier-Performance de l’actif-Questions et conclusions 

Asset-intensive industries have changed radically because of regulatory and technological changes. This has allowed many new investors to enter existing markets and forced established companies to consider new markets for growth. Simultaneously, new technology has levelled the playing field as high efficiency changes economies of scale and market dynamics. To manage their risks and uncertainties associated with new technology, while still focusing on improving profits, many asset owners look to outsourcing part of the physical asset management responsibility to specialized operations and maintenance companies. The owners gain advantages through the transfer of non-core activities to the supplier to reduce costs or to reduce risk. Whatever the rationale for outsourcing, the owner requires a method to evaluate outsourcing options to determine which is right for it, given its own internal capacity and strategy. The decision process must be capable of selecting the right type of service level based on a number of tangible and intangible strategic criteria. This type of multi-faceted decision necessitates process based on a sound theoretical foundation that can compare different options against the critical criteria of lifecycle costs, revenue influences, quality, health and safety, and other key drivers. In this workshop, we’ll look at a case study model using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) as a tool capable of evaluating this type of diverse multi-levelled decision. AHP is simple and straightforward, and uses an easy-to-understand hierarchical structure to sort criteria based on their relative importance.  

The structural configuration of an organizational design is the way work is divided and how it achieves co-ordination among its various work activities around the assets’ lifecycles. An organizational design structure resolves two basic tasks to get work done: dividing up the work into logical units, which enables performance management, and ensuring the work gets done by providing the co-ordination and control of work. In this webcast we’ll look at four models and discuss their advantages and disadvantages and present suitable information on typical roles and responsibilities that will be reflective of the selected model. The goal of asset management (AM) is to ensure that an organization’s staff is always working on the right activities at the right time, for the right reason, and for right cost. The AM governance model is intended to ensure there is effective collaboration and co-ordination to make this happen around all business processes. With the right AM governance model, overall AM program development can be expedited and new ways of working can be quickly integrated into the organization’s AM culture. We’ll provide the actual results from a number of case studies to demonstrate the value of designing and implementing the most appropriate AM governance model for your organization.

A Risk-Based Approach to Spares Management 

Most organisations 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 decisionmaking or rely on technology to guide the basis of decisions. However, in many cases these same organisations approach a gap in tactical deployment and the ability to draw a connection to the follow-up or pre-emptive actions required to derive value from assets. This presentation will review the processes for establishing a framework for alignment and priority setting, while looking at the techniques employed for resiliency and risk management using a technology agnostic approach. We will review potential data sources which can be leveraged for decision-making and which reflect the needs and current state of the business environment. Further, we will discuss the relationship and application to the decision-making process. An overview of the fundamental outcome of key performance indicators and visualized metrics will be demonstrated. Finally, we will investigate the influence on decision making and the level of data confidence.

Ross Markowski was part of the final phases of construction of a gas plant that was experiencing a change of ownership. Ross used the Capstone Project and the myriad changes happening at his site as an opportunity to think through the possibilities of a new organizational design and leadership model to achieve site-wide engagement in proactive maintenance for the upcoming commissioning and operation of the plant. Ross’s presentation summarizes the pros and cons of the existing and proposed organizational structures and touches on some of the challenges of implementation.Whether you are in oil/gas, manufacturing, forestry or another industry, you will find the lessons learned through Ross Markowski’s Capstone Project applicable to most situations where changes are occurring, work still needs to planned and executed and people are your most important resource in getting the work done.

“Sustainability through reliability” — presented at the 2015 MainTrain Conference — focused on the rapid growth of passenger flow at Toronto Pearson Airport and how, due to this growth, we were experiencing a high number of plumbing drainage failures. We carried out an RCA on our system and came up with changes in how we would prevent drainage failures. The changes we made dealt with our plumbing design standards; food and beverage tenant fats; oil and organics recovery system; lease agreements; and maintenance practices. However, that was only the starting point. In this presentation, we’ll discuss RCA conducted, the failures experienced, and the enhancements and improvements we made to make our system more reliable.

While a host of factors influence profitability, maximizing your plant’s production output potential is arguably one of the facility’s greatest opportunities. An Asset Management, Reliability and Maintenance Strategic Plan can guide continuous improvement that’s aligned with bottom-line performance expectations for managing assets and people. This presentation will provide a framework approach for establishing your strategic asset management & reliability plan and the associated business case. Delegates will gain a fundamental understanding of how to establish a baseline: "know where you are," define where you’re going, who needs to be involved, how to measure the program’s progress and results, and what elements are essential for success.