1.02 Asset Mgmt Strategy & Objectives

Thriving instead of surviving: how a little bit of redundancy is helping companies to thrive in tumultuous times. Changing the strategy and planning around “trimming the fat” or “make it lean” is going to take some time, but the change is required. The events of the past four years have proved that “lean and mean” is more akin to clinging on by the fingernails or being left behind. Proper asset management strategies depend on being able to access parts in a timely manner so that preventative maintenance can be performed as scheduled. Keeping a spare or critical spare on hand acts as a buffer when a supplier is unable to deliver on time, or a shipment is stuck waiting in a port. It may appear to be a “waste of money,” as this piece of inventory is now hitting the bottom line and is not yet needed; however, what is the cost of not having it? Or the cost of having to outsource it last minute? Moreover, how are the supplier relationships? This presentation will explain how redundancy can help save money and time through changing how businesses operate and view their bottom line. Attendees will learn how to review and calculate the cost of a stockout and compare it to holding a spare or critical spare; hear how to set or adjust inventory review policies; and discover that having multiple supplier options will help operations continue even in times of change and emergency.

The keynote will look at engagement in the topic of Asset Management with leaders within Manitoba Hydro, describe how at Manitoba Hydro we are continuing and expanding the conversation on Asset Management, and some feedback received on Manitoba Hydro’s Asset Management. It will also touch on an Asset Management system approach.

Within the mining industry, the library of KPIs has not kept up with data that has become increasingly available through digitization, therefore leading to an overuse of lagging performance indicators. Additionally, due to the fact that strategic corporate goals are oftentimes built on the basis of soft or perceptual measures from stakeholders, which are subjective in nature, organizations struggle with the process of linking strategic level goals to KPIs on the shop floor. Therefore, creating a communication gap between technical teams and senior management. As a consequence, maintenance leaders have a difficult time demonstrating the added value that maintenance activities create with an organization, leading to challenges in securing the resources required for things such as continuous improvement projects. Considering that the implementation of a robust KPI framework is an alignment of three key areas: people, process, and technology, the first portion of this presentation will be investigating a holistic approach to developing maintenance KPIs that are integrated into corporate strategic goals. Therefore, outlining the steps required for organizational leaders to begin standardizing data gathering procedures and creating a trustworthy system that can be leveraged for decision making. Aside from the previously discussed administrative challenges associated with data gathering within organizations, it must also be highlighted that KPIs are collected on a monthly or quarterly basis, meaning that training sets for forecasting models are extremely limited. Therefore, in order to address the reliance on lagging performance indicators within maintenance departments, a variety of time series models capable of achieving high accuracy on small datasets will be discussed along with direct business applications. Through achieving these goals, the intended outcome is to create a more contemporary data driven methodology for selecting organizational KPIs, as well as directly demonstrating the added value that the various business units create within the organization.

Recent developments in AI, ML and related techniques see wide adoption in many industries. However, in the asset management area, such technical advances are still in their infancy, especially in the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) area. Part of the reason is that, contrary to production, MRO data has its unique characteristics (e.g. incompleteness, inconsistency and heterogeneous), and most organizations are still planning to introduce diagnostic sensors dedicated to maintenance and equipment reliability. We face both challenges and opportunities in advancing data-driven continuous improvements within the asset management world. This presentation shares the findings of our current research and development focus. Titled “How to use historical data to find opportunities to improve the effectiveness of equipment reliability programs, optimize MRO inventory operations, and enhance MRO workflow management processes”, we will first examine the characteristics of MRO data as their uniqueness to a specific company, plant or equipment and their commonality across all sectors. Then we evaluate the feasibility of applying AI/ML techniques with MRO history for better operational efficiencies. We need to understand what data is related to human knowledge, human interaction and process, and what data is associated with the actual condition of the asset, and if there are patterns and models that can be learned. Last, we will demonstrate that AI/ML can find equipment agnostic models and patterns which help continuously improve MRO operations across different industries. Based on the findings, we will also show how AI/ML models learned from historical MRO data can be translated into prescribed actions for improvements in equipment reliability, MRO inventory and workflow operations for individual organizations.

Asset Managers understand that the best way to achieve success with their strategy is to have executive sponsor support. Unfortunately, many Asset Managers are frustrated because they cannot get senior leadership to pay attention to the importance of the company's assets. Asset management goals and objectives should align with corporate strategies, but often, there is a disconnect. Some of the gaps are: •    Corporate strategy vs. asset management strategy; do you have a line of sight?•    What Asset Managers say vs. what executives hear; are you speaking the same language? •    Operations production targets vs. asset lifecycle value; do these conflict?•    Executive education; can you help senior leaders who don't know the difference between their assets and their asses?•    Executive decisions; are you in the loop on this secret process? •    Corporate performance vs. asset management measures; do your KPIs align?•    Managing up; are you providing executives solutions or problems?Understanding what executives are thinking and how they make decisions is crucial to an Asset Manager's success. Ron Bettin has spent many years guiding operational and project success by bridging the gap between executives and asset management. This presentation explores why executives often don't appear to care about critical assets and what Asset Managers can do about it 

MainTrain 2021 Panel DiscussionModerator: Susan LubellAuthor of "Root Cause Analysis Made Simple", Susan specializes in asset management and reliability strategy, cost effective lean maintenance programs and operational excellence. She brings over 25 years of practical experience to drive asset management, maintenance and operational business improvement opportunities. Susan currently serves as National President for PEMAC Asset Management Association of Canada, Chair of the World Partners in Asset Management (WPiAM), and teaches for both the Maintenance Management Professional (MMP) and Certified Asset Management Professional (CAMP) programs. Panelists:John Hardwick, Executive Director, Sydney, Roads and Martime Services NSWRepresenting: AMC - Asset Management Council, AustraliaWith extensive Executive Management and Board experience and a background over the past 30 years in asset management within the electricity and transport industries. A passionate leader of organisational improvement in asset and operational risk management, and has implemented world class asset management strategies implementing effective asset management strategies and systems to manage risk and provide value for customers and communities.John is co-author of Living Asset Management.John has a desire to make a difference and explore new ways of solving wicked problems. John is the past Chair of multiple not for profit organisations the World Partners in Asset Management, Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management and the Asset Management Council.João Lafraia, President, Fábrica Carioca de Catalisadores S.A.Representing:  ABRAMAN - Associação Brasileira de Manutenção e Gestão de Ativos, BrazilOÃO RICARDO B. LAFRAIA is MSc by the Cranfi eld Institute of Techonology, in England. MBA by the Pontificia Catholic University/State of Paraná. He taught in the graduation and post graduation about Quality Assurance, Reliability and Organization in the Federal University of Paraná and FGV Rio. He is author and co-author of the books of Reliability Handbook, Mantenability and Availability and Strategic Management and Reliability, Creating the Habit of the Excellence. Author of several articles and lectures about Excellence in Management of Reliability and Health, Environment and Security.Lafraia has acted as General-Manager in 5 Refineries around Brazil. He also headed the Operational Excellence Department for all refineries at Petrobras Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Executive Director for the FCCSA Chemical Company. He served as board member for 4 chemical companies. At present moment, he has the position of General-Manager in the Exploration and Production Santos Basin Business Unit and Chairman of the Deliberative Council of ABRAMAN.Johannes Coetzee, Managing Director, Machine Assessment & Reliability Technology (Martech)Representing:  SAAMA - The Southern African Asset Management Association, South AfricaJohannes Coetzee is the MD of Martec and Chairman of the Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management (GFMAM), the umbrella body for professional associations in the field of maintenance and assets management across the world. He is the past-president of the Southern African Asset Management Association (SAAMA) and also serves on the Advisory Board of the Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Johannes is an Industrial Engineer, holds an MBA and has been in the field of asset management for more than two decades. Naoki Takesue, Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc.Representing:  JAAM - Japan Association of Asset Management, JapanMr. Naoki Takesue is a Professional Engineer and has more than 30 years experience in the field of construction management and asset management for public and private sectors.  In MRI, he is engaged in research and consulting works for developing government policies of infrastructure management.  Also, as a director of JAAM, he is  actively involved in the introduction of ISO55000s into Japan.  

Ian Flood, Asset Manager at Northwest Territories Power Corporation, is a recent graduate from PEMAC's Asset Management Professional program. His AMP Course 6 Capstone Project was nominated by his instructor, and selected as this year's AMP Capstone Award winning project. The AMP Capstone Award encourages and recognizes excellence in the Asset Management Professional (AMP) program final project, the Capstone. During this presentation, Ian will share more insights into himself, his organization, his award winning AMP capstone presentation and how his learnings in the AMP program have impacted his organization.

As maintenance and reliability professionals we often get caught in the detail of appropriate reliability techniques and can sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture and organizational goals.  This presentation will provide an indication of the place of reliability engineering in asset management and business planning.  We will also touch on some of the tools in the toolbox of reliability engineers and maintenance professionals such as asset modelling (deterioration and failure modelling), risk assessment, prioritization and inspection.  The presentation will indicate how these tools relate to business planning and when is appropriate to use during an asset lifecycle.  The presentation will show examples of application through case studies in treatment plants, infrastructure, and building facilities and highlight what we have found to be some of the key issues and challenges and how they can be overcome.  To conclude we will highlight some of the key lessons learned from application of these tools and approaches.

ESG targets and reporting are becoming increasingly important. Investors and governments around the world are pushing for transparency and ever more rigorous reporting on ESG indicators. It is likely that financial regulators in North America will make ESG reporting mandatory within the next 2 years.  Many components of ESG frameworks affect asset management, and conversely good asset management can help improve an organization’s ESG scores. Think of climate change, pollution, health & safety, risk management, water use and GHG emissions to name a few.  It is therefore crucial for asset managers to understand the current frenzy around ESG reporting. Yet the ESG ecosystem can be quite baffling: there is no single definition of what ESG stands for, or what is “in” or “out”, or what reporting standard to follow.This presentation will shed some light on who does what in the ESG ecosystem, what standards and reporting options are available, and how all this will increasingly affect the way organizations make strategic decisions. Asset management has a big role to play in this context. Many asset managers have been confronted with complex, multi-stakeholder decision-making frameworks for years and are quite adept at aligning various departments to a common set of objectives. The definition of “value” in asset management often already contains many metrics that are now part of ESG reporting. We will explore how robust value frameworks can help organizations reach better decisions and improve their ESG scores – with the guidance of their asset management team!

This presentation will describe Nova Scotia Power Inc.’s (NSPI’s) Asset Management journey – comparing the progression for our Power Production division, with that current in play in support of our Transmission, Distribution and Delivery (T&D) division. NSPI has deployed a fully-integrated, technology-enabled Asset Management approach for its Power Production fleet of assets. The journey to undertake that development was staged, with key components of the asset management approach integrated in a step-wise fashion, each building up on the other. Carefully designed visuals were used to communicate and gain asset owner (plant management and field-level) support for the initiative, and resources from the organization migrated to the centralized asset management team over time, providing centralized, fleet-level support vs. plant-level support. Over approximately 8 years, the “Asset Management Office” team grew from 3 to 10, including dedicated operational technology resources, technical subject matter experts focused on generation assets and performance, and field level support resources. Major programs were deployed such as condition-based monitoring, predictive analytics and digital Operator rounds. There was room for trial-and-error, and continuous improvement with significant field engagement. A very bottom-up approach. In 2017, the Asset Management team’s mandate expanded to include NSPI’s T&D assets. The mandate included an organizational change, which gave the Enterprise Asset Management (TEAM) division (which includes Asset Management, but also Capital Management and Planning) elevated status via Sr. Director leadership. Some resources from the T&D division of the organization changed their reporting point to the AM team “en masse”. An EAM Integration Management position was created to have consistent leadership over the integration of the asset management approach across T&D, including integration into existing Asset Performance Management systems and framework, ensuring alignment with, and building on successful work completed for Power Production. The expectation for successful transition at a higher level, with minimal bumps along the way, was very different. A very top-down approach. Each approach has its highs (“…the best of times..”, and lows (“…the worst of times…”). But while different, there are common learnings and lessons that can be applied. Each approach can be effective – and in fact has been effective for NS Power. Perhaps you are starting small…. Or perhaps you are starting big… or somewhere in between. In any case, our Tale of Two Deployments will share with you NSPI’s experiences, and share of the benefits and challenges of each.Originally presented at MainTrain 2021