6.00 Risk and Review General

When a defect occurs in a physical asset, it’s often not immediately detectable by operators. In fact, in some cases the defects are not visible to the naked eye. However, from the moment a defect occurs until it is found, there is a risk that the defect will grow in severity, and possibly transition into a failure, resulting in reduced or halted production. At a municipal transit company, the Nondestructive Testing (NDT) team uses specialized equipment to inspect the train tracks and identify the location and severity of any defects. Due to the limited hours during which the team can perform their work, the whole subway system can only be tested once per year. Using their data on train tracks and found defects, we investigate efficient ways to use the NDT team’s fixed resources in order to improve the reliability of the train track system.

When we talk to the leadership about improvement projects the first response we often hear is “show me the money”. The business case is the tool used to communicate the approach, benefits, value created and justify project expenditure. The value is measured by Return on Investment (ROI). ROI is calculated by a cash flow model highlighting benefits and cash flows (positive and negative), and quantified as NPV, IRR, Breakeven, etc. However, based on past project returns, management often views these ROI projections as “risky business”. This is not an underserved reputation as, over the years, many maintenance, and asset management projects have failed to deliver the returns that were promised. This session will address how to build the business case, some of the common risks that impact ROI, and tools and techniques to identify and mitigate potential risks will be reviewed. Special emphasis will be given to enlisting senior management assistance in management ROI risk.

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.

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.

Sustainability is an important objective these days, and many organizations are working to develop and implement policies that consider the long-term impact of their operations. Given its focus on “whole-of-life”, Asset Management has an important role to play in efforts to continuously improve sustainability efforts

Organizations have a performance metric for productivity measured as cost per unit produced, or sometimes called unit cost or cost of service. In operations, we recognize we can affect the numerator with how well we manage our costs, and we can affect the denominator with how much we can produce. What is Super-Productivity? We define Super-Productivity as the sum of all the bad over the sum of all the good. As a leader, if you really want agency over all your organization’s activities and you desire operationally excellent results, then you must reflect all the opportunity costs your organization has been blind to in the measure of productivity. Is your organization courageous enough to see yourself in that light? Few are. Here’s what it takes. Join Paul Daoust as we challenge our perceptions on the fascinating relationship between cost, performance and risk. Together we will apply these concepts to asset-intensive organizations to enable more, better decisions, vastly improved business plans and higher value business outcomes from the same assets with fewer resources.

There will be a new normal in the aftermath of this global viral pandemic. Some of it will be out of our control and will happen to us. But some of it is within our control and presents an opportunity for significant improvement. Join us as we discuss the opportunities in asset management we can and should consider to make the best of our adversity to emerge renewed and improved.The article Paul wrote on Medium should be preread to set the stageAnd Now for Something Completely Different 

The asset hierarchy is often thought of as a way to organize assets so they’re easy to find in the CMMS. While a well-structured asset hierarchy does make work management easier, it’s much more than that. The asset hierarchy, when well conceived and utilized, will ensure the right reliability and costing data can be extracted from the CMMS. This enables more than just micro improvements in reliability involving a single asset; instead, it enables macro views of reliability and cost trends across the entire organization. Setting up an asset hierarchy to support these types of activities requires forethought and planning, but by following some guidelines, any organization can be set up for success. First, the asset hierarchy must have a standard that identifies how all assets will be categorized and described, and the specific data required for each asset class. This is vital, as not all assets warrant the collection of specific data, reducing the burden of the setting of the hierarchy. As assets are categorized, the failure code library can be developed and linked to the specific asset classes. This ensures only relevant failure codes are displayed for the assets, improving the adoption of failure data collection. With the asset hierarchy built and relevant failure data collected, trends can be established across asset classes, similar processes, etc. The trends enable reliability improvements to be implemented across larger swaths of assets, providing rapid improvements in reliability. This presentation will provide guidance in how to develop an effective asset hierarchy based on ISO 14224, how to implement the changes in the CMMS, and finally how to leverage the asset hierarchy to identify macro trends. Without a proper asset hierarchy, any organization will struggle to get meaningful and actionable data from their CMMS to drive reliability.

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

Airports are an important economic hub for a region. They help regional economies extend their reach and often create a localized cluster of companies around it, termed “airport cities.” Indeed, airports face many of the same challenges that municipalities do. They have a portfolio of diverse infrastructure that supports a variety of services to customers in a challenging, dynamic environment. There are many stakeholders who have an interest in service levels, and revenues are often less than what is required to meet expectations. Edmonton International Airport (EIA) has implemented an asset management program that began with the successful implementation of a computerized maintenance management system to better understand its cost of service. It has also recently established an asset management strategy that systematically employs risk, strategic goals, and service priority for investment decision-making. This presentation will provide a case study of EIA's progress to date as well as future steps.