4.02 Asset Information Standards

According to GFMAM Landscape, the performance of asset-intensive organizations is dependent on the quality and availability of asset data and information. So why does research indicate that 70% of plant operators report 33% to 50% of their asset and process safety information is either missing, incomplete, inconsistent, or outdated? Common complaints from maintenance planners, reliability engineers, facility engineering, process safety and compliance managers include the following: “We can’t find it,” “It’s not complete,” and “We don’t trust it.” As a result, personnel continually make safety, engineering, financial, capital, maintenance, and operational decisions without full access to complete, consistent, and up-to-date information. Such decisions are suboptimal and can cause significant loss. We call this value leakage. Have you ever wondered how much value leakage is costing your organization? Why do the underlying causes of value leakage persist, and what can you do about it? In this presentation, we examine the root causes of value leakage—from incomplete project information handover, to a lack of standards and processes. We then explore a successful framework to improve AIM, including building the business case and return on investment (ROI). Attendees of this presentation will learn how to identify value leakage and the underlying causes; how to calculate the ROI (qualitative and quantitative) of improving asset information management to reduce value leakage; and quick wins and long-term strategies for improving asset information management.

Digitalization for sustainable operations. This presentation will discuss digitalization for sustainability, discuss the hype cycle for AI/ML lead initiatives, and provide a road map for real-world actions. Actions must include a bottom-up approach to delivering sustainable value and return on investment for a tactical realization of your organization’s ESG sustainability goals. A case study will show how a digitalized reliability initiative improved asset availability by 25% and reduced flaring by more than 80% over the past five years.

Are we converting our data to decisions? What is the state of digital adoption in asset management? What has changed since the onset of Covid? What has stayed the same? Using the DIKW Pyramid as our guide, combined with the experience and insights of our panelists; we will explore best practices in data-informed decision-making. Are we now in a much different place on our digital adoption journey?  

Applying agile data governance and leveraging 21 century tools and methods to create an ecosystem that supports the success of asset data management strategies. This approach addresses challenges in resourcing for developing strong governance that considers strategic, tactical and operational needs while providing a unique approach to data gathering, quality and quantity of data at a program level.

Reliability and Maintenance (R&M) teams at manufacturing facilities employ different maintenance strategies on their physical assets to achieve the desired reliability and maximize the availability of the assets. Most of the production downtime in manufacturing facilities is because of unexpected (or) random failures of equipment and the associated reactive maintenance work. One of the factors that affects the total time to fix failed equipment is spare parts availability. The increasing complexity to minimize production downtime with aging assets demands problem-specific decision models. In this study, a multi-criteria decision model is proposed to assist the R&M stakeholders at manufacturing facilities in making decisions on stocking the right parts. The proposed model will help facilities to stock the spare parts required to maintain the system with-in acceptable and manageable risk. Two case studies from a pulp mill will be presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed decision model. The first case study deals with “Pulp Machine Process Area” with historical data on equipment failures and spare parts usage while the second one focuses on a newly commissioned plant without failure information. The proposed decision model helped to identify the right parts to stock and minimized the risk and inventory costs in both cases.

An Asset Health Index or AHI refers to analysis performed using various asset data to determine the state or condition of the asset. AHI can be used to better assess asset condition, used and useful life, progression toward potential failure, and failure probability. Further, using AHI can also enable the development of optimized maintenance and replacement strategies for assets using a set of objective criteria to assess the true health of the asset. However, entities vary widely in whether they develop Asset Health Indexes (AHIs) for their key assets. For those that do, there are marked differences in the level of rigour and sophistication employed in developing and applying AHIs for effective asset management decision-making. AHI calculations involve identifying and collecting data which may include a review of core asset attributes such as manufacturer, inspection data including field observations, destructive and/or non-destructive test data, maintenance data including historical records, operational records, and asset failure/refurbishment data. In other words, some are core inventory data, some work records, and some inspections or tests. This presentation will go through how to make the best use of asset SMEs and how you can start to develop useful AHIs from what you already know/have. Technically, the process begins with identifying the most critical assets and determining which can best benefit from AHI formulation development. The next steps are used to develop proposed condition factors (CF) and weighting factors (WF) that provide insight into the condition of the assets. Finally, CFs and WFs are used to develop a mathematical algorithm or formulas for the Health Index. We will also discuss how AHI can be used to develop asset management and maintenance strategies – the whole point of the data and analysis in the first place.

The presentation will show the 21 specific harms to business that arise from ad hoc, weak, and unstructured spare parts (MRO materials) identities. The focus will be on the 6 specific harms to the maintenance. 1. Confusing material searches in WO planning 2. Extra validations used in WO planning 3. Work scheduling delays when planned parts are out of stock but are available under a different number in the warehouse 4. Job schedule interruptions from mis-identified materials 5. Production loss from wrong parts issued to a job (bigger impact than just work schedule impact) 6. Work to return wrong materials to the warehouse from a job The presentation will cover what the identifying elements of an MRO material or item record are. The necessary elements to solve the MRO material identity problem will be discussed. Useful MRO identities are structured based on rationalized noun classes. Applying the taxonomy to an MRO catalogue makes items comparable in a way that was not possible before. This allows for the removal of duplicates, assignment of items to equipment / functional locations and then removal of clutter items. Finally, the beauty of life in the Maintenance Department with a rational effective MRO material catalogue will be revealed!

The successful use of the technologies associated to Building Information Management (BIM) depends on the interest and levels of investment that owners are willing to put into their projects. According to U.S. and Australian studies, the costs of poor information management in construction for each of these countries are nearly 15 billion U.S. $. The largest losses (almost two-thirds) were found among property owners. The implementation of BIM technologies for facility management focuses mostly on the technological aspect and often neglects the change management required to migrate from traditional approaches to asset management processes. BIM leverages the generation and use of digital representations of buildings and infrastructures in design, construction, and operations. The cost, efficiency and communications benefits that accrue from fostering single source of truth integrated data sets throughout infrastructure project lifecycles are forcing engineering firms, construction companies and public policy offices to rethink their processes and actions. The biggest potential opportunity for leveraging BIM processes following design and construction is for Facilities and Assets Management. Potential benefits include higher quality overall results, improved data preservation and transfer between life-cycle actors, effective predictive maintenance and energy efficiency. Leveraging the benefits of BIM technologies is easier said than done. There are few generally recognized best practices and many outstanding questions. How can we better plan the integration of BIM and FM into future projects? How can we integrate BIM into the management of existing infrastructure and real estate inventories? What best practices can we learn from existing global trends? This presentation offers some insights on how to transition towards BIM-enabled facility management. Success on this digitization path requires strong leadership from owners and operators, from project inception to operations phase. It investigates the transfer process of information technologies in place as well as changes in the business culture and organizational structure through case studies. Ultimately, a robust process to seamlessly create and transfer data across a facility lifecycle lays the ground for leveraging advanced Construction 4.0 technologies to further optimize the operations and improve the occupancy conditions for facility users.

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.

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.