05 Maintenance & Reliability Engineering

“Sustainability through reliability” — presented at the 2015 MainTrain Conference — focused on the rapid growth of passenger flow at Toronto Pearson Airport and how, due to this growth, we were experiencing a high number of plumbing drainage failures. We carried out an RCA on our system and came up with changes in how we would prevent drainage failures. The changes we made dealt with our plumbing design standards; food and beverage tenant fats; oil and organics recovery system; lease agreements; and maintenance practices. However, that was only the starting point. In this presentation, we’ll discuss RCA conducted, the failures experienced, and the enhancements and improvements we made to make our system more reliable.

The tenets of reliability can be fun and messy. In this workshop, we’ll help you better understand these concepts and where the confusion creeps in. This session will be great for those studying for an exam or for those who want to geek out. You’ll leave with new knowledge, interesting facts, and explainable models that you can take back to your facility. We’ll look at turbo implementations; the criticality of criticality (both of them); the P-F interval; the funky failure curves of RCM; why root cause analysis is a lie; and why predictive tools can’t predict. Bring your own confusions and a willingness to participate in the dialogue as we break each of these down and toss out a few lies.

Asset condition management (ACM) teaches on-condition monitoring for any business with high-capital assets looking to harness machine learning to avoid unexpected failures and control rising equipment maintenance costs. Many businesses are already using continuous condition monitoring technologies like IoT-connected devices. However, beyond simple threshold alerts from condition sensors, extracting real value from the data generated by these sensors for true predictive monitoring requires expert analysis and interpretation. To generate actionable results from condition sensor data, these experts also apply knowledge about the asset’s operation. This limits the value that IoT-enabled ACM can provide to the business. By taking the next step and using advanced algorithms and machine learning to automatically extract real-time insights that drive action, we can now achieve the full potential of ACM. Modern, cognitive online ACM takes data from multiple and varied sources, combines it, and uses AI and machine learning techniques to anticipate equipment failure before it happens. Many reliability professionals recognize the potential of IoT, machine learning, and AI, and are trying to learn these technologies. However, the available training is complex and assumes learners have a background in data science and computer programming. This workshop will provide a beginners’ level understanding of terminology, basic concepts, and techniques to determine how and where you can apply AI in your facilities for meaningful ACM.

Electrical maintenance surveillance device (EMSD) technologies refer to condition-based monitoring technologies and equipment used every day to inspect electrical distribution assets. These surveillance and inspection systems determine the condition of the individual asset or system being inspected and include, but are not limited to, infrared thermography, airborne ultrasound, motor current analysis, partial discharge testing, corona cameras, and visual inspections. The implementation challenge is that the inspection and surveillance equipment used yield their most valuable results when inspecting electrical distribution equipment that’s operating under full load conditions. Doing so while working within the confines of CSA Z462 guidelines can be challenging when the equipment is both of danger to maintenance personnel and of value to the process they’re powering. The surveillance equipment implemented normally requires direct access or direct line of sight to the energized components inside the electrical system. This requires panels to be open, which is extremely dangerous. In this workshop, we’ll show you how EMSD technologies maintain the energized compartment’s closed and guarded condition, ensuring that personnel are not endangered. You’ll learn how the design allows the required test equipment to be used safely at any time, especially when equipment is under full load conditions. We’ll also present a case study from an Ontario beverage bottling facility, demonstrating how these devices can be easily retrofitted on existing electrical distribution equipment to become the nexus for an electrical infrastructure reliability program.

Uptime describes the combination of activities that deliver fewer breakdowns, improved productive capacity, lower costs, and better environmental performance. The bestselling second edition of Uptime has been used as a textbook on maintenance management in several postsecondary institutions and by many companies as the model framework for their maintenance management programs.Following in the tradition of its bestselling predecessors, Uptime: Strategies for Excellence in Maintenance Management, Third Edition explains how to deal with increasingly complex technologies, such as mobile and cloud computing, to support maintenance departments and set the stage for compliance with international standards for asset management.This updated edition reflects a far broader and deeper wealth of experience and knowledge. In addition, it restructures its previous model of excellence slightly to align what must be done more closely with how to do it.The book provides a strategy for developing and executing improvement plans that work well with the new values prevalent in today's workforce. It also explains how you can use seemingly competing improvement tools to complement and enhance each other.This edition also highlights action you can take to compensate for the gradual loss of skills in the current workforce as "baby boomers" retire. This is the Text Book for Module 1 of the MMP Program.    It is available through PEMAC, contact pd@pemac.org for information on ordering.

In this case study, presented at MainTrain 2017, highlights of an RCM analysis are reviewed including the unexpected outcome. The paper presents a powerful equation derived to calculate the number of inspections required to be performed within the interval between potential and functional failure. Sensitivity analyses are also performed to demonstrate how changes in certain data points affect the results of the analysis. The case study also demonstrates how the recommendation of the analysis was counter-intuitive to conventional thinking given a unique situation and highlights the importance of operational context. Developing an optimal maintenance strategy often requires a systematic approach that includes a Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis. To be successful, these analyses require involvement from many stakeholders and performing a number of pro-active actions to detect or prevent functional failure. Such actions can be unpopular at times and require a solid partnership between the reliability engineering function and Operations and Maintenance.In this case study, highlights of an RCM analysis are reviewed including the unexpected outcome. When there are no safety or environmental consequences, the decision of whether to do an inspection is based on a cost-benefit analysis. This presentation discusses a case study recently performed during a reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) analysis at Cameco’s Port Hope Conversion Facility. The RCM analysis evaluated the cost effectiveness of partially removing a calciner shell to perform a non-destructive examination (NDE) of the bottom of the shell. The RCM uses a specific equation derived to calculate the number of inspections required to be performed within the interval between potential and functional failure. The equation is generic and can be used for any situation.One purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate the identification of the interval between potential and functional failure and how the equation is used so the audience can replicate the analysis in their own situation. Sensitivity analyses are also performed to demonstrate how changes in certain data points affect the results of the analysis. The second purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how the recommendation of the analysis was counter-intuitive to conventional thinking given a unique situation and highlights the importance of operational context.  

Due largely to the release of ISO55000x:2014 family of standards, Asset Management is gaining worldwide acceptance as a valid business practice for asset-intensive organizations. The challenge that organizations now face is how to operationalize the principles and move it from “being understood in theory” to being “the way that we work”, to truly distill effective asset management practices and principles to the nooks and crannies of the organization. One key tenet of ISO55000x is the management of asset risk at all levels of asset interaction. On the other side, one area that has been struggling to understand asset management beyond maintenance management is the traditional Maintenance Department. This paper will capture the steps that Veolia North America is taking one of its Municipal Clients through to understand risk at the more granular levels and build risk resilience into its maintenance strategy.Yet for the average Maintenance Manager, the challenge of interpreting asset risk for the organization is still uncharted waters. There are several ways in which the traditional Maintenance Manager can understand the wide breadth of risks facing the asset, determine appropriate responses and communicate them to the appropriate stakeholders. In fact, one or more of these may already be in place in the organization but may not be seen as building risk resilience. This presentation will explore one methodology used by Veolia to develop an asset-centric, risk-based Maintenance Strategy at the City of Winnipeg’s, Waste Water Treatment Plants using a Maintenance Management Maturity Assessment.The City of Winnipeg’s Waste Water Department is at a very interesting juncture in its history, in that there are several major capital upgrades being undertaken, whilst the plants continue to run. The goal of the Maintenance Strategy is therefore two-fold. To maintain the existing levels of service at least whole life cost with risk balanced against the cost of meeting objectives, whilst ensuring that there is a plan to maximise maintenance for the future asset base to realise the benefit of the investment over the whole life of the assets. As a result, in 2016, in collaboration with its selected O&M improvement partner, Veolia North America, the City of Winnipeg’s Waste Water Treatment Plants, went on a path of discovery. Two significant tools of investigation were employed: 1. An Asset Management Maturity Assessment was conducted and 2. The City participated in the National Waste Water Benchmarking Initiative (NWWBI) Maintenance Task Force Survey implemented by AECOM. The Asset Management Maturity Assessment examined 8 fundamental areas of Maintenance Management and outlined positions of excellence that the City hoped to achieve both at the 1-year and 3-year mark from the date of assessment with 2017 being Year 1. The NWWBI Maintenance Task Force Survey examined 42 granular yet, over-lapping areas of Maintenance Management, with 18 of them reporting significant gaps for the City’s Waste Water Treatment Plants. The results of the two analyses were combined into eight (8) key Objectives and the underlying activities required to achieving them over the next three (3) years. These eight (8) Objectives are: 1. Implementation of Asset Condition Assessment Plan (ACAP) 2. Inventory Management Optimization Plan (IMOP) 3. Work Organization Improvement Plan (WOIP) 4. Implementation of Maintenance Quality Strategy (MQS) 5. Financial Capability Improvement Plan (FCIP) 6. Asset Registry Improvement Plan (ARIP) 7. Implementation of Document Management (DM) 8. Revision and Implementation of Asset Criticality Model (ACM)This presentation will examine the detailed plans for each objective, the inter-connectivity and alignment of the Objectives, the Road Map for the next 3 years, the processes for monitoring and continual improvement and the benefits of implementing this approach. Presented at MainTrain 2017 

Application of Lean Six Sigma methodology in the optimization of maintenance execution by using data and facts.    As always, equipment maintainability plays an important role in uptime. Besides the reduction of failure rates, the quick recovery from those failures or the successful execution of scheduled activities makes a considerable difference in availability indicators. The application of Lean tools and Six Sigma analysis contributes to the improvement of maintenance execution by applying the 5 steps of Lean Six Sigma methodology (Define, Measure, Analyze, Implement and Control) and using the tools associated with them. This presentation will discuss Lean Six Sigma theory, basic principles of the methodology and case studies showing the use of tools. Case 1 will illustrate the application of Lean Six Sigma in scheduled preventive maintenance for slurry pumps operating in the oil sands industry. Case 2 will examine how the use of Six Sigma analysis reduced the corrosion rate of tubes in a bank of 12 heat exchangers shell and tube type, which heat diluted bitumen upstream of a distillation tower. Both cases emphasize the importance of using data and facts to make decisions, including front end personnel, and the sustainment of implemented solutions. Presented at MainTrain 2017 

Effective maintenance plays a crucial role in today’s business. In order to manage costs, organizations attempt to get the most from their people and assets. Effective alignment between departments can dramatically improve asset reliability, reduce operation and maintenance costs and improve the effectiveness of the workforce.This presentation is intended to provide participants with the information and awareness they need to manage assets effectively. The need of cooperation between the operations and maintenance departments, as well as other departments such as supply chain will be discussed. Employees require more than high level principles; they must understand their role and how effective cooperation at all levels will provide value to the on-going operations, thereby allowing the business to remain profitable. Further, the presentation will examine the concept of Operational Excellence as the beginning of a transformation to a planned culture throughout the entire organization. Key to this topic is confirming who is in charge. Is the asset dictating how things should be done or are the people running it in charge?Asset management professionals often find themselves challenged by competing priorities in an effort to keep the system running. This session follows how maintenance tasks are initiated with work prioritization being a key element. Various roles will be discussed as well as the importance of scheduling and getting everyone on board with the schedule. Potential subtopics tailored to time restrictions: (1) Why do planned maintenance? (2) Cost of a break-in event, (3) Risk-based work selection, (4) Screening and approval of work, (5) Operators role in maintenance, (6) Operations, maintenance and supply chain departments’ role in scheduling, (7) Operations and maintenance coordination and roles, and (8) Managing the daily work list.  Presented at MainTrain 2017 

Electrical Maintenance Surveillance Technologies refers to condition based monitoring technology and equipment used every day to inspect electrical distribution assets. These surveillance and inspection systems determine the condition of the individual asset or system being inspected and include but are not limited to: infrared thermography, airborne ultrasound, motor current analysis, partial discharge testing, corona cameras and visual inspections. The implementation challenge is that the inspection and surveillance equipment utilized yield their most valuable results when inspecting electrical distribution equipment that is operating under full load conditions. This is also when they are both most dangerous to maintenance personnel and of the greatest value to the process they are powering. The surveillance equipment implemented normally requires direct access or direct line of sight to the energized components inside the electrical system.  This requires panels to be open which is an extremely dangerous condition. In many cases the posted Arc Fault Currents are too high and legal access is prohibited. This webcast will show how EDSD technologies maintain the energized compartment’s closed and guarded condition ensuring that personnel are not endangered. Participants will learn how the design allows the required test equipment to be used safely at any time, especially when equipment is under full load conditions which is when the inspection yields its greatest value.