04 Asset Information

Asset intensive companies continue to rapidly advance their thinking regarding Enterprise Asset Management – including through the influence of connected assets and remote condition monitoring. These advancements, among others, have shifted focus from reactive to predictive maintenance practices based on real time failure data. Yet, despite the direct impact that spare part availability has on timely maintenance and Asset Health, the approach to spare part management has often lagged in asset heavy industries. The disconnect between asset decisions and supporting spare parts (MRO) inventory through the Asset Management Lifecycle contributes to stock outs, obsolescence, and unplanned downtime. The objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of the MRO Lifecycle as a complementary framework to the lifecycle management of assets. And to explore how actions and decisions made at each stage of the MRO Lifecycle correlates and contributes to more robust decisions throughout the Asset Management Lifecycle. The session will also introduce how software solutions are helping uncover and drive improvements in MRO Inventory Management to enhance the quality of Asset Management decisions, encompassing spare parts and the role that availability plays in improving overall Asset Health. Drawing from more than 20 years of industry experience and leveraging examples across sectors such as food & beverage, automotive and mining, Xtivity will share approaches, solutions and results from global industry.

The Northwest Territories has 33 geographically dispersed communities, many of which are not grid connected for community power supply. The majority are powered by small, local diesel plants with others supplied by three hydro systems which generate the majority of the total power produced annually by the Northwest Territories Power Corporation (NTPC). This paper will describe how the condition of these assets is assessed and monitored, the process used and how the results form part of the annual capital planning and implementation process. Asset management at NTPC is divided into Thermal, Hydro and Transmission and Distribution; the focus of this paper will be primarily on thermal and hydro asset health inspections. On an annual basis, one third of the assets are inspected in person by the relevant asset manager and a small team of subject matter experts. The process by which these inspections are conducted will be outlined, including what information is gathered, and what we look for when carrying out the inspections. The asset condition information for various component parts is entered into one spreadsheet for each asset. The paper will describe how an asset health index for that asset is assigned. The condition of the asset determines what further action or inspections are required and the criteria used will be discussed. The presentation will also outline how the results from the inspections are used as part of a project prioritization process for capital planning. Current reporting practices on individual asset health indices and for each power plant will be described. In discussing this topic, NTPC sees an opportunity to receive feedback from others and to promote discussion on best practice from other power utility companies.

To deliver value from our assets means organizations must manage cost, performance, and risk simultaneously. In practice, this is no easy task. Are there trade-offs? Sure, but seeking to balance breeds mediocrity. Can we optimize? Yes, the aim is to achieve higher service at a lower cost and acceptable risk. The magic CPR triangle provides a simple representation of a complex dynamic system that is constantly resolving itself to produce the results the organization deserves based on how well its assets are managed, or not. Join Paul Daoust as we challenge our perceptions of the fascinating relationship between cost, performance, and risk. Together we will apply the magic CPR triangle as a basis for crucial first principles thinking leading to more, better decisions, vastly improved business plans, and higher-value business outcomes from the same assets with fewer resources.

Le Panorama de la gestion d'actifs est une initiative du GFMAM axée sur son troisième objectif à long terme, à savoir, « faciliter l’échange et l’harmonisation des connaissances et des savoir-faire en matière de maintenance et de gestion d'actifs.

Let us look at an ordinary omnipresent part of Asset Management: bolting and fastening the machinery or structure. This single vital activity turns out to be remarkably neglected with undesirable consequences for reliability. Motion Amplification®, a new technology has the capacity to show machinery and structural movements, and so naturally brings out looseness or unnatural behaviors. Fastening errors seem to be one of the most prevalent occurrences and it is therefore important to look at what we can learn and how the technology can drive improvements and uses of best practices. A variety of problems are shown, such as forgotten difficult to access bolts, rusted/corroded fasteners, improper tension, improper washers, bolt grade or size and custom modifications such as a bunch of small shims. Some of the issues can be attributed to design errors, some to lack of asset information provided, some to installation errors, lack of training and proper tools or a culture of installation and maintenance excellence. Sometimes and improvement push comes with the integration of more advanced tools, for example tools exist where the torque can be properly managed. This requires that many other items come into place, such as the missing information, correct parts, training and cultural to get the job done properly.

Most asset owning and operating organizations managing maintenance activities use a computer system – either a CMMS, or an EAM, or possibly a module in their ERP. Usually they want to sustain reliable performance of their assets to deliver high availability to their operations or production groups. These systems are often sold under the moniker, “solution”. Implied in that is the solution to some sort of a problem, one might imagine that it will deliver high reliability, or better maintenance practices, yet they don’t and can’t. Many have fallen victim to slick marketing, buzz words, and promises of functionality that are little more than dreams – vapourware. To get those practical business results you need to change what you are doing and how you are doing it, not how you are tracking it and managing the activities. Those systems do provide some help with data storage, reports, keeping organized and work flows, but they don’t help you define what work to do, nor how often, nor who should do it, they don’t do anything to ensure you actually do the work, and then record what you did with any accuracy. The result is often a system that is riddled with inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise unfit data that can actually make work for, and be misleading to the system’s users. Interestingly, after seeing hundreds of different instances of different systems in a large variety of organizations, there are some common problems. If you are a supplier of these systems, you can probably relax now. Very few of the problems m have anything at all to do with the software itself. This presentation will explore the reasons for those disappointments and some of the possible solutions.

The Asset Management Landscape is a tool to promote a common global approach to Asset Management.  It includes a number of conceptual models, a list of 39 Asset Management Subjects and Principles and a framework for describing best practices, maturity and standards. Two important purposes for the GFMAM Asset Management Landscape are to provide:the structure for building a body of knowledge for certification schemes and qualifications in asset management,the structure (and potentially the criteria) for assessing an organization.

We’re currently rolling out an Asset Integrity Management System (AIMS) across our terminal network, which consists of nine terminals across Canada and the U.S. We’re publishing 27 new standards as part of this initiative that cover a variety of topics such as risk assessment, inspection planning, recordkeeping, data management, and relevant codes, standards, and regulations. This presentation will focus on the training and rollout of this program and will highlight some of the lessons learned. Some of the challenges include providing training to a group that spans a large geographical area, having a wide variety of stakeholders who require different levels of knowledge about the program (operations, project management, document control, contractors, management), and ensuring training is effective and leads to a smooth adoption of the changes that come with the new standards. Some of the topics we’ll cover include using the ADKAR model of change management to evaluate how effective your training will be; awareness of the need to change; desire to support and participate in the change; knowledge of how to change; ability to implement required skills and behaviours; reinforcement to sustain the change; tailoring presentations to specific groups; creating short and long versions of modules—building blocks for presentations; tailoring presentations to each group based on required knowledge; having a one-hour “crash course” presentation to give a quick overview to certain groups (upper management, those not directly impacted by standards); giving several opportunities for questions to ensure any potential issues are identified early (standard review, training, pre-publishing); and some tips on encouraging engagement: examples and exercises (real world), visual aids (flowcharts, photos, graphics over text), handouts (quick reference guide, poster, contact sheet, acronym list), and summaries (standard review sheets, single-page overviews).

Around the turn of the 21st century, municipalities began using the term asset management (AM) to refer to a broad range of processes that span the continuum, from managing short-term asset maintenance to long-term asset investment planning. Over the last two decades, AM has been accepted as an umbrella term that refers to the processes that work together to answer the following: When, why, and how should we spend money on infrastructure assets to ensure they meet evolving societal expectations? But the traditional approaches to developing AM processes—extremely granular asset inventories, age-based spending need forecast models, complex level of service metrics—have frustrated organizations, cost them millions, and not practically helped to answer this fundamental question. In recent years, a number of AM champions have developed a consumer-based approach to realize value from assets in the achievement of societal objectives. Clear processes create an asset expenditure to asset performance relationship that helps set overall spending levels and enables a living management system that’s used to develop dynamic prioritized short-term spending plans. This approach enables organizations to engage with their customers/clients to balance asset performance (level of service) expectations with financial affordability. This Asset Stewardship Quality Management System resets the AM paradigm by bringing clarity to what AM processes should do and how enablers (data, people, technology) can help. The tangible impacts resulting from the new AM paradigm include a reduction in the granularity of asset registers, improved accuracy of measuring asset performance and tracking asset spending, and confident spending need forecasts to ensure infrastructure systems can effectively underwrite desired societal progress. These tangible impacts are realized through addressing all three enablers: improving data management and data collection activities, providing a training program to staff, and leveraging innovations in hardware and software technologies.

In a long career implementing and improving SAP SCM business processes in Oil & Gas, Pipelines, Utilities and Transportation companies, the number one consistently observed problem is poorly identified MRO material masters. Material master identity consists of the item descriptions, the manufacturer and manufacturer part number fields and classification data that support material identification. This presentation is meant to raise the profile of the topic without going into detailed solutions. It is aimed at a general level to all practitioners that make use of maintenance or SCM business processes that use materials. The presentation is software agnostic. These challenges are found in shops running SAP, Oracle, JDE, Maximo…Topics: • Introduction (discussion applies to asset intensive industry and the MRO materials records used in their supporting business processes)  • Generalized view of the current state and how we arrived here. • Structured identification taxonomy – standards and why coherence in the structure is important. • Material master lifecycles are often not considered- beginning, middle, end. • Conclusions: This is not an insolvable problem or one that necessarily demands another $$$ system implementation. It exists only because it has been invisible  Originally Presented at AB Chapter Online Symposium (Part 1 of 7)  05/28/2020  as "The Story of My Journey With MRO Material Master Identities."  Presented MainTrain 2020  09/15/2020