5.3 Failure Analysis

Many maintenance & reliability staff are so busy fixing problems that they never get the chance to prevent them. In a reactive work environment, there is simply no time to spare. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) gives us an easy to implement approach to preventing failures that integrates with our current troubleshooting efforts and drives bottom line business improvement. We can make our workplaces safer by reducing the number of unexpected failures while improving our business performance through increasing our facility’s throughput and reducing the money spent on repairs – straight to the bottom line.This presentation will cover the steps to implementing a data-driven Root Cause Analysis (RCA) program and building the business case for change, suggest an approach to implementing root cause analysis thinking, establishing a work culture that is focused on failure prevention, quantifying the cost savings, integrating RCA with existing maintenance program approaches, and realizing the business value.

Reliability and maintenance teams in all manufacturing plants have a common goal; that is, to plan and execute initiatives that will help sustain the inherent reliability of the physical assets and increase the availability of the plant. Productivity and profitability of the manufacturing plant and overall organization are highly dependent on the reliability and availability of the plant. A thorough understanding of the importance of reliability has made the top management of major corporations invest in reliability and physical asset management. When the top management invests in reliability, they typically set the corporate strategy and directions for reliability through a road map for all the manufacturing plants that operate under the corporation. When the commitment or support from the top management is available for reliability initiatives, the onus is now on the individual manufacturing plant to develop a reliability plan that aligns with the corporate strategy and/or reliability road map and the current needs of the plant. The reliability and maintenance teams typically build all the strategic, tactical, and operational reliability plans that have initiatives that would make the biggest impact on continuous improvement in reliability and bring the desired benefits for the site. This presentation will explain the systems thinking approach, along with the seven golden rules and seven key factors, that will help reliability and maintenance teams to build an effective reliability plan. In addition, this presentation will also address the top three challenges in building a reliability plan and how to overcome those challenges through two case studies. The first case study is about developing a three-year reliability plan, and the second case study is about developing an annual reliability plan. Both the case studies will explain the application of the systems thinking approach, seven golden rules, seven key factors, and top three challenges that were dealt with and solved.

We all love to solution and check off that win for the team, but moving too quickly may result in introducing new problems or even amplifying previously smaller issues. The latter is common particularly in technology implementation where the hope is for efficiency improvement, but the results sometimes don’t meet the desired outcome. Although root cause analysis was informally practiced at the SMCDSB, the implementation of a formal program using a process approach to problem solve, define requirements, and solution has strengthened troubleshooting and preventing future problems. By taking a very focused stance on identifying the problem or need clearly and leveraging the Kepner-Tregoe Analytical Troubleshooting method, there is improved clarity, definition, and logic in how the analysis completed. I wish to share the journey of RCA program implementation for the SMCDSB with examples and successes we've achieved.

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.

The “Power Panel” is comprised of reliability and asset management professionals in the electricity industry and will speak to their experiences within the industry that can be applied to outside of an electricity utility. They will cover a roadmap to ISO55001:2014 certification, asset maintenance strategies and mitigation of risks for capital assets.  Moderator:Daniel Gent, Director of Analytics, Canadian Electricity AssociationDan leads CEA’s Reliability Programs, the only national industry program that leverages reliability data analytics on behalf of member and participating utilities. Dan is a Certified Business Analyst Professional with Certification in Business Data Analytics with over 10 years of experience in the electricity sector working in reliability and asset management, and over 15 years in the telecom industry working in business intelligence support. Rounding out his work at CEA, he also oversees several other committees from Technology to Data Strategy and Finance, Tax and Accounting.Panelists: Erin MacNeil, P.Eng, Asset Management Operations Manager, Nova Scotia PowerErin MacNeil is a Mechanical Engineer with experience in both the Utility and Alberta Oilsands industries.  As the Asset Management Operations Manager for Nova Scotia Power, Erin leads a team which designs and administers processes, programs and technologies which enable, sustain and optimize asset-centric maintenance strategies, and advance initiatives with respect to operations and maintenance excellence.  Erin has worked with NS Power's Asset Management Office for 8 years, and is a Professional Engineer (Mechanical) as well as having attained IAM Certification.  Nova Scotia Power’s AM team has been the recipient of a number of awards including a 2019 Game Changer Award (Connected Plant Conference), and a 2018 GE Digital Innovator Award.  Kyle Smith, Supervisor, Maintenance and Reliability, Hydro OttawaKyle Smith, P. Eng. oversees a team of engineers dedicated to keeping Hydro Ottawa’s distribution system assets functioning, reliable, and cost effective for customers. He leads the development and operation of routine maintenance and inspection programs, as well as processes and initiatives to improve system reliability. Prior to joining Hydro Ottawa in 2019, he gained experience in various technical roles with Nova Scotia Power, Inc. and held leadership positions with both the Canadian Electricity Association and Engineers Canada. Kyle holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mathematics from Dalhousie University.Ehsan Abbasi, Ph.D., P.Eng, SMIEEE, Senior Reliability Engineer, Lifecycle Maintenance Engineering, AltaLinkEhsan has been with AltaLink as Senior Reliability Engineer – Lifecycle Maintenance Engineering since 2015. He has been active in electrical power industry and academia for more than 12 years with experience on reliability assessment of power transmission and distribution networks, power assets lifecycle, reliability centered maintenance, risk based asset management, condition monitoring along with power system SCADA and IED management solutions. Ehsan received B.Sc. from Amirkabir University of Technology and M.Sc. in Energy Systems Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 2005 and 2007 respectively. He received M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer from University of Calgary, AB, Canada in 2010 and 2018 respectively. He joined IEEE in 2009 and is currently a Senior Member. He has been a committee member of CEA Transmission Consultative Committee on Outage Statistics (T-CCOS) since 2015.

When a defect occurs in a physical asset, it’s often not immediately detectable by operators. In fact, in some cases the defects are not visible to the naked eye. However, from the moment a defect occurs until it is found, there is a risk that the defect will grow in severity, and possibly transition into a failure, resulting in reduced or halted production. At a municipal transit company, the Nondestructive Testing (NDT) team uses specialized equipment to inspect the train tracks and identify the location and severity of any defects. Due to the limited hours during which the team can perform their work, the whole subway system can only be tested once per year. Using their data on train tracks and found defects, we investigate efficient ways to use the NDT team’s fixed resources in order to improve the reliability of the train track system.

The cost of an error depends on where you catch it. In DfR programs, the design phase is a good place to start.          Interview with ; Marie Getsug, PMP, CAMA, CMRP, CRL, CPIP | Jacobs | Program Manager            This article was originally published on MachineDesign.com.

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.

Picture yourself driving to work on a cold, dark, winter morning. It’s Monday. You pull into the parking lot and note with surprise that the plant is much quieter than it should be on a Monday morning. As you walk inside to your office, your growing apprehension turns into the sudden realization that something serious must have happened over the weekend…Whether you work in a manufacturing facility, a continuous production facility, a hospital or building infrastructure, the need to prevent failures from reoccurring is familiar. So how is this accomplished? By applying root cause analysis methodology. Root Cause Analysis Made Simple covers the four fundamental steps to RCA. Quantify the magnitude of the problem – Why? When? Perform the analysis using the appropriate technique – Who? How? Develop a list of options for solving the problem Document the results and implement recommended actions This book provides an overview of RCA. It is intended to support you in understanding the business impact of preventing reoccurring failures and provide some tried-and-true practical approaches to conducting a root cause analysis.