4.5 Detective Maintenance

This article is to address the difference in conditional probability of failure patterns, and the impact on how best to maintain assets based upon those differences.

While a host of factors influence profitability, maximizing your plant’s production output potential is arguably one of the facility’s greatest opportunities. An Asset Management, Reliability and Maintenance Strategic Plan can guide continuous improvement that’s aligned with bottom-line performance expectations for managing assets and people. This presentation will provide a framework approach for establishing your strategic asset management & reliability plan and the associated business case. Delegates will gain a fundamental understanding of how to establish a baseline: "know where you are," define where you’re going, who needs to be involved, how to measure the program’s progress and results, and what elements are essential for success.

With all the talk about big data and the IIoT, many are asking how can we use this in maintenance? The IIoT enables us to put sensors in any location where we might want to collect and analyze equipment condition and performance data. There are companies that offer predictive maintenance services, and some companies do this for themselves, in-house. Typically, it’s the larger companies that can afford this, but democratization has meant this has become available to a much broader market. But there are hurdles to taking advantage of this sort of continuous monitoring program, even for your most critical equipment. One, it’s expensive, whether you do it in-house or outsource. And two, there are data bottlenecks. Condition monitoring data comes is huge volumes and it’s all time-sensitive. Even if you can afford it, you need a data handling network with a lot of capacity. In this workshop, we’ll present a viable technical solution to the data bottleneck problem — based on a solution already proven in financial securities markets — that opens up these possibilities in the realm of plant continuous condition monitoring.

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.

As I spend more and more time in and around maintenance, reliability and asset management professionals, and though my own experiences as both an end user and now a contractor, it has become more and more clear that there is a definitive gap in most maintenance and reliability plans....the electrical system. This is not to say that there is not maintenance being done, or that people are not recognizing that their electrical system is critical. But do you understand what you are doing? Do you understand why? Is what is being done correct? Is the budget that is set aside for electrical adequate or too much? How do you know? What are the best practices and where do you start? As discussed this is not a technical presentation but rather a look at a basic electrical system and where an end user can start in regards to assuring themselves that they are doing the right things. There are some new technologies that are in the market place that can assist in determining if there is a potential problem with parts of your system...this presentation is not about those. Alternatively it is about "the basics", learning to walk before you can run: Looking at the system as a whole and learning where most trouble areas are; Assisting end-users in looking at past test results and planning next steps; Determining what needs to be done based on predictive tests such as transformer oil samples or IR scans, and what can be pushed into next year’s budget; What cannot be skipped because, if it is, it may not only cause catastrophic plant failures but potential fatalities. In conclusion what this presentation will focus on is assisting Maintenance Management professionals to treat their electrical assets with the same care that they keep their mechanical assets. It is not overly technical and you do not have to be an electrical professional to understand or benefit.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. 

​Fully understanding the maintenance and reliability strengths and weaknesses within a facility can be a huge undertaking.  Traditionally, a study to understand reliability is performed by either calculating, tracking, and comparing key performance indicators, or through a qualitative approach, observing compliance with best practices of maintenance and reliability activities to determine perceived strengths and weaknesses. Both approaches have downsides.  In this session, participants will learn about a more effective and repeatable reliability assessment that includes a quantitative assessment using plant CMMS work history to develop trends, key performance indicators, and comparisons that will either validate or invalidate strengths and weaknesses as determined in a qualitative assessment with plant personnel.  See how the ability to reliably gather and assess historical CMMS data will depend on determining a set of requirements or data signatures which can be used to validate strengths and weaknesses.  Additionally, the quantitative cost information can be effectively used to justify projects, programs, and personnel required to improve maintenance and reliability activities. Learn how a reliability assessment can most efficiently and effectively be administered in this way; the use of a qualitative assessment to better focus a quantitative analysis provides the best combination of overall understanding from personnel with the accuracy and reliability of historical data. 

Vibration condition monitoring programs play an important role in an organization's rotating equipment reliability and maintenance strategy.  While organizations may be in different stages of establishing their program, there are some common things to implement in order to get the greatest benefit from any program.  This workshop focusses on starting your program off on the right foot.  The workshop will use case histories to outline reasonable expectations, current vibration technology, and specific vibration standards for various industries.In addition to starting off on the right foot the success of a vibration condition monitoring program will depend on maintaining momentum.  This workshop will finish by addressing areas within the participants program where they can focus on improving the long term reliability of their assets instead of simply finding failures.

The Sheerness Generating Station, a large power plant, has process and machine health data feeding into the DCS and plant historian database continuously from thousands of field sensing elements. This session is a case study of project at the plant that utilized ‘cloud’ technology to stream data about plant performance and initial equipment failures not yet notified by the Alarm Management System, to technical experts, who analyzed the information and communicated the findings back to the plant for further troubleshooting, validation and correction. The session will describe the data security and connectivity issues, the communication protocols and the benefits observed. If you are considering changes in the collection, analysis, and reporting of your own plant performance and equipment health, this session will be useful.