2.6 Asset Criticality Analysis

The City of Winnipeg faced challenges with the condition of their Return Activated Sludge (RAS) piping within the North End Sewage Treatment Plant. Non-destructive and destructive condition assessment techniques were used to determine that the critical process piping was life expired, and required replacement or rehabilitation to maintain process level of service until the plant is upgraded. Replacement of a RAS piping system is akin to major heart surgery on a sewage treatment plant. To manage the process risk, in situ structural renewal using an engineered Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) external wrap system to encapsulate the original carbon steel piping was chosen. Selection of the rehabilitation method reduced the schedule by two years compared to the replacement option and minimized operational risk, as process outages were reduced to a few short-term events. Offline testing of mock-ups and emphasis on environmental and quality control further managed the risks associated with CFRP installation. The project faced unique challenges due to the complex configuration of the RAS piping, which was located inside a congested plant gallery with surrounding equipment, piping, and electrical services in continuous operation. To effectively convey information during planning, design, tender, and construction, a digital 3D model was developed using laser scanning to capture the detailed configuration of the piping and surrounding physical constraints. The 3D model was embedded with data to define the rehabilitation scope, locations of existing pipe leaks requiring immediate repair, rework of pipe supports to accommodate the CFRP installation, and other aspects relevant to the work. This model was a highly effective tool used for collaborative review by all project team members throughout design and construction, leading to successful completion of the RAS piping rehabilitation.

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.

We’ve all heard time and time again the value that Planning and Scheduling brings to a Maintenance organization. But, is your organization fully realizing this value? If Planning and Scheduling is intended to be a “wrench time multiplier” of you Maintenance Technicians, have you looked at the “wrench time” of your Planners and Schedulers? What are the potential barriers preventing them from achieving the ultimate goals of their roles? Can one Maintenance Planner really bring the same effective value as 15-17 tradespersons in your organization? Likely not, and it isn’t the fault of your Planners and Schedulers. In this presentation we’ll review the planning and scheduling function, define what it really is, and more importantly what it is NOT. We’ll also take a close look at many of the “value vampires” common in Planning and Scheduling that detract from the intended value generation. We’ll compare what an ideal Day-in-the-life of a Maintenance Planner should be against the realities they so commonly face. The intent of this presentation is to help you understand Why Planning and Scheduling is likely less effective than it could be in your organization. More importantly, this will hopefully trigger changes that help the Planners and Schedulers in your teams do more of what they do best.

Asset Criticality is an important input to production system design, maintenance strategy definition and short term work execution management processes. The value the supporting FEMA exercises provide in determining these categorizations is well understood in the Reliability Community. Less common is the extension of this analytical rigor to the spare parts required to maintain equipment. Establishing and maintaining robust part criticality values can be an invaluable link between operations and the supporting supply chain, helping to set stocking strategies, inform alternative material management approaches and quickly flag when expediting is required. Despite the value, part criticality values (or Risk Priority Numbers) are rarely objectively derived and even less frequently maintained. This presentation is intended to: 1. Establish the link between asset health and spare part availability 2. Illustrate common item criticality practices 3. Provide an overview of a robust item criticality assessment approach 4. Highlight the benefits to be gained from an enhanced approach to item criticality determination.

This article will be discussing the issues and some causes of bad parts.

Maintenance of critical assets and life safety infrastructures is extremely important. Therefore, significant precautions and risk analysis should be given to the potential effects of human errors during preventive and corrective maintenance, including bypass requirements, deactivation of system, and the expected impact of the failure on the program operation. Unanticipated or unplanned downtime is costly, negatively impacts building operation, and often impacts an organization’s reputation and brand. For planned activities (preventive or corrective), it’s important to proactively document the scope of work and identify potential problems that could occur so that risks are managed and all stakeholders are aware of them. This presentation contains a real-life application that will provide the basis to improve the future of your maintenance organization and prevent future downtime. The permit-to-work process is a real-world best practice to help improve communications, manage risk in your organization, keep your critical infrastructure running, and minimize productivity loss or damage due to unplanned downtime. We’ll provide an overview of the permit-to-work procedure and its associated risk assessment and mitigation protocol. There are seven learning objectives: evaluating maintenance performance; reducing or eliminating human errors; improving stakeholders’ engagement; enhancing interdepartmental communications; focusing on culture change by leveraging risk management tools; enhancing critical equipment reliability by reducing potential downtime; building a staff-vendor-client relationship by implementing clear expectations; and protecting your critical assets and reputation by minimizing unplanned downtime.

How well is your MRO Stores system integrated with your maintenance requirements to ensure effective support of your organization’s maintenance efforts?Most of MRO stores efforts are to provide parts and materials to both Operations and Maintenance. For this article, the focus will be upon MRO stores support of Maintenance.

Reliability Centered Maintenance – Reengineered, provides an optimized approach to a well established and highly successful method used for determining failure management policies for physical assets. It makes the original method that was developed to enhance flight safety, far more useful in a broad range of industries where asset criticality ranges from high to low. RCM-R® is focused on the science of failures and what must be done to enable long term sustainably reliable operations. If used correctly, RCM-R® is the first step in delivering fewer breakdowns, more productive capacity, lower costs, safer operations and improved environmental performance. Maintenance has a huge impact on most businesses whether its presence is felt or not. RCM-R® ensures that the right work is done to guarantee there are as few nasty surprises as possible that can harm the business in any way. RCM-R® addresses the shortfalls of RCM that have inhibited its broad acceptance in industry. Little new work has been done in the field of RCM since the 1990’s, yet demand for such a method, better adapted to industrial applications is higher than ever and growing. Demographics and ever more complex systems are driving a need to be more efficient in our use of skilled maintenance resources while ensuring first time success – greater effectiveness is needed. RCM-R® was developed to leverage on RCM’s original success at delivering that effectiveness while addressing the concerns of the industrial market. RCM-R® addresses the RCM method and shortfalls in its application. It modifies the method to consider asset and even failure mode criticality so that rigor is applied only where it is truly needed. It removes (within reason) the sources of concern about RCM being overly rigorous and too labor intensive without compromising on its ability to deliver a tailored failure management program for physical assets sensitive to their operational context and application. RCM-R® also provides its practitioners with standard based guidance for determining meaningful failure modes and causes facilitating their analysis for optimum outcome. It places RCM into the Asset Management spectrum strengthening the original method by introducing International Standard based risk management methods for assessing failure risks formally. RCM-R® employs quantitative reliability methods tailoring evidence based decision making whenever historical failure data is available.

A criticality analysis is a systematic approach to evaluating potential risks, therefore consequences that can impact the business.  The criticality analysis has defined criteria that outlines the potential consequences so that they can be evaluated, categorised and prioritised.  Using the defined criteria for each major area of risk ensure all equipment is vaulted with emotion removed as much as possible.