One major challenge at the operate and maintain phase of an asset is achieving and sustaining the forecasted availability and reliability as intended at the project delivery phase. Many problems arise—equipment failures, underperformance, high costs—that are caused by numerous issues. The resolution demands thorough understanding of the causes of the issues, which we usually attempt to achieve through RCA methodologies. I've experienced many repeated failures even when RCAs have been conducted, due, mainly, to most of the RCAs focusing attention on solutions to the problem outcomes with limited focus on the human and system causes that drive the outcomes. The Causal Learning Approach brings in the understanding of these other causes that ensure effective and sustainable solutions development. There are three levels of causes: the physical outcomes; the human causes; and the system causes. The Causal Learning Approach also focuses on causal reasoning instead of defensive and solution reasoning. This presentation will provide the understanding of these causes and the three key elements of this approach: discovery, learning, and solution generation.
Peter Idoko has more than 25 years of experience in maintenance and production engineering in the oil & gas industry, and more than 10 years of power generation and commercial management. He drove maintenance strategy development in projects, performance management, staff talent, and career development, and operational excellence in asset operations and maintenance. He has spent the last eight years developing and building the reliability organization, programs, capacity, capability, and strategies for driving reliability improvements in different organizations. In addition to embedding the standard reliability tools—RCAs, RCMs, FMEA—Peter established innovative technologies, tools, and processes like smart technology for real-time remote monitoring and diagnostics of critical equipment, and Causal Learning investigations, and structured threat management to improve production and equipment reliability and operational efficiency. He has played a global role in driving functional improvement projects in various areas of reliability. He was a Shell principal technical expert, reliability in maintenance, reliability & turnaround; and held the roles of manager, reliability engineering and asset solution; as well as manager, maintenance engineering and technical assurance. Peter recently relocated to Canada in 2018 and continued to apply these experiences through consulting. He has deepened his knowledge further in Lean Six Sigma certification and other performance improvement areas.
