6.01 Risk Assessment & Management

Through the introduction of online monitoring technologies in the field, including substation monitors capable of providing near-real-time data and readings on power transformers, switchgear and circuit breakers, along with line monitors for overhead conductor and monitors for underground cables, organizations now possess novel opportunities to integrate this data into their asset management frameworks such that decision-making can be enhanced. This presentation will examine recent efforts to develop Asset Performance Management (APM) frameworks, leveraging available near-real-time data that is being retrieved from online monitoring devices. This presentation will touch upon the emerging field of analytics that can be applied to this data, including machine learning techniques, in order to detect specific signatures within the data that can be correlated to specific failure modes. Robust APM frameworks are able to leverage this near-real-time data for the purposes of delivering dynamic health index results based upon the newest readings, as well as operational alerts that can detect possible failures that will occur in the next few weeks or months, providing organizations with enough time to take action. For complex substation assets, an APM solution can allow plant managers to manage and mitigate significant risks within their system. This presentation will also present the results from specific case studies, where near-real-time data from field sensors was successfully leveraged and integrated into an APM such that the organization was able to enhance their risk management and asset management decision-making approaches.

This paper describes strategic Asset Management at an Industry level. The illustrative case study reviews the Ontario Nuclear fleet of stations', life cycle planning and then applying simple risk analysis. The situation is illustrative, not to be taken as accurate in any aspect (eg costs, schedule etc). The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a practical example of how Asset Management can be applied at a strategic level, to support strategic planning over a multi-billion dollar, multi-decade program. The situation described is very loosely based on the OPG nuclear refurbishment program, but cannot be directly connected to it since all the information is proprietary and the numbers used are hugely different. The paper outline is expected to follow: • Background • Fleet Asset planning • Project Estimate process • Risk estimate process and review . • Conclusions The above is at a "bird's eye" view, but with enough details to understand the case study and how it pertains to a broader scope of applications. Learning: 1. Asset Management is a strong strategic tool when applied at Facility level. 2. Estimates, though rough at an early stage, can provide managerial information that is adequate for decision making. 3. Risk Management can be simple, but provides huge returns for management decision making.

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 

Often organisations are conflicted on where to direct capital and resources, given constant request and competing priorities requiring resources and money, many initiatives and maintenance activities are deferred or cancelled all together in order to meet the constraints of budget and available capability expectations. How do you know if the allocation of your money/capital and resources are being directed to the areas of greatest need and also delivering greatest value? How do you evaluate value? A deep dive into capital and resource allocation may uncover wasted effort where valuable resources have been allocated to initiatives and activities that are not as value add as some activity that has been deferred or cancelled. These decisions are often made with little or no consideration of the vast amount of information being held within the company’s CMMS. Every initiative and job can be justified but is it the best use of time and money? What data do you use to decide where best to allocate your valuable money and resources? I will share the principles behind real life examples of where failure data has been sorted to demonstrate both micro and macro impacts on a business bottom line, allowing for managers to make better decisions on resource allocation, and decisions that will deliver high value outcomes for the business. These decisions were made using information freely available, but largely ignored, within the CMMS. The information was sorted into failure modes/types and overall cost of unreliability and presented in the form of a pareto chart. When organised in this simple manner the data clearly identifies areas requiring attention that have significant impact on the business performance, and also leading to reduced wasted effort on jobs that are less important. This approach also removes some of the countless debate over the order of priority when people within the organisation feel they are competing for the limited resources up for grabs, instead allowing people to focus on what is best for the overall organisation and not just their patch.

Not knowing what you do not know can be very dangerous for an organization. With unfortunate events that led to injuries at competitor’s facilities, Skeena Bioenergy activated a safety review of all equipment using bowtie analysis and a risk matrix. Bowtie analysis identifies causes and preventative action to stop a defined event from occurring. Then, looks at loss prevention actions to prevent disastrous consequences that stem for the described event. The risk matrix is a chart that has frequency of occurrence on the vertical plain and the consequence of severity on the horizontal plane. When combined, gives a risk level number, colour coded, that identifies levels of acceptable and unacceptable risk. This application was successful in identifying that the design of the Cooler, one part of the process, does prevent fires and explosions. Further fire control measures identified will be added; 1. to improve containment of a fire so it remains in the Cooler and 2. to prevent a fire event from cascading into an explosion. These continuous improvements in the Cooler reduce the risk level to 3, Skeena Bioenergy’s acceptable level of risk. This abstract demonstrates the application and findings of applying bowtie analysis and a risk matrix to a piece of equipment, the basis of good risk management.

“In asset investment planning, research suggests the difference between best practice and what most organizations have is somewhere between 8–20% in value.” 

New technologies regularly enter the world of asset management (AM), often leveraging new inventions, which, in turn, are driven or supported by other advances such as computing power and big data handling. Such is the case for Motion Amplification, a new technology impacting crucial aspects of vibration analysis, machinery and structural troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and communications. This presentation will outline which areas of AM are impacted so we can have a road map facilitating the integration of the new tool into a global strategy and get an overall picture of the impacts it will have. We’ll also provide a brief technical introduction and some practical illustrations.Originally presented at MainTrain 2020

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.