8.1 Materials Management

We are in unprecedented times. Covid-19 wreaked havoc on supply chains; decreased production during times of increased demand. Labor shortages, chip shortages, long lead items turning into “maybe next year, if you’re lucky” items. The Russia Ukraine war added further stress to supply chains through sanctions, port closures, fuel shortages and much more. What once was reliable is now unreliable. So how can companies overcome an unreliable supply chain to maintain their reliability? There are several ways to mitigate unreliability; scenario planning, supplier management, and technology. There is no one size fits all and what may work for one company will not necessarily work for another. Scenario planning involves reviewing every potential situation that could occur, then working through to see how the company would be impacted. Ultimately this results in mitigation plans for each scenario. These can then be reviewed and implemented. Proper Supplier Management includes ensuring all suppliers have their scorecards reviewed on a regular basis. Their information updated and kept current. It can also include reviewing which suppliers can become substitutes for others in the event one is not able to provide the required product in time. Technology is important as it links all the information together. Algorithms can be created to let management know that certain parts are low, equipment is wearing out sooner, it also collects information on suppliers for the scorecards. Overall technology is the glue that binds and provides real time information updates. This presentation will review how to best use technology to help mitigate reliability and supply chain issues.

Reliability and Maintenance (R&M) teams at manufacturing facilities employ different maintenance strategies on their physical assets to achieve the desired reliability and maximize the availability of the assets. Most of the production downtime in manufacturing facilities is because of unexpected (or) random failures of equipment and the associated reactive maintenance work. One of the factors that affects the total time to fix failed equipment is spare parts availability. The increasing complexity to minimize production downtime with aging assets demands problem-specific decision models. In this study, a multi-criteria decision model is proposed to assist the R&M stakeholders at manufacturing facilities in making decisions on stocking the right parts. The proposed model will help facilities to stock the spare parts required to maintain the system with-in acceptable and manageable risk. Two case studies from a pulp mill will be presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed decision model. The first case study deals with “Pulp Machine Process Area” with historical data on equipment failures and spare parts usage while the second one focuses on a newly commissioned plant without failure information. The proposed decision model helped to identify the right parts to stock and minimized the risk and inventory costs in both cases.

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.

The presentation will show the 21 specific harms to business that arise from ad hoc, weak, and unstructured spare parts (MRO materials) identities. The focus will be on the 6 specific harms to the maintenance. 1. Confusing material searches in WO planning 2. Extra validations used in WO planning 3. Work scheduling delays when planned parts are out of stock but are available under a different number in the warehouse 4. Job schedule interruptions from mis-identified materials 5. Production loss from wrong parts issued to a job (bigger impact than just work schedule impact) 6. Work to return wrong materials to the warehouse from a job The presentation will cover what the identifying elements of an MRO material or item record are. The necessary elements to solve the MRO material identity problem will be discussed. Useful MRO identities are structured based on rationalized noun classes. Applying the taxonomy to an MRO catalogue makes items comparable in a way that was not possible before. This allows for the removal of duplicates, assignment of items to equipment / functional locations and then removal of clutter items. Finally, the beauty of life in the Maintenance Department with a rational effective MRO material catalogue will be revealed!

Sharing a recent mandate with a mining client where we assessed the maturity of maintenance management. The webinar will also cover the findings and our actions for improvement.Approach   1. After dozens of interviews from trades to maintenance manager, from operators to supervisors, we started to gather an understanding of the situation.   2. Then, a thorough analysis was performed on work order history, PM percentage vs total available work hours, schedule compliance and production KPIs to help pinpoint several recurring issues.   3. The analysis was concluded with on-site shadowing of supervisors and trades. We selected key dates to execute day-in-the-life-of exercises (i.e., shutdown days) to assess the quality of shutdown management and observe the execution effectiveness. Actions in partnership Tool time is a powerful metric because it helps to expose the majority of the teams’ shortcomings: engagement of the team, respect of processes, communication between departments and productivity of all the maintenance members. After the assessment and analysis, we got to work:   1. Work management process   2. Maintenance tactics review     3. Maintenance execution   4. Spare parts analysis Results With a SWAT team approach, we reduced maintenance backlog by 20%, which allowed us to focus on high criticality assets. In less than 8 weeks, we started to see a reduction in major breakdowns of equipment. We started performing root cause analysis on each breakdown and defect elimination workshops to achieve better reliability. By reducing waste related to maintenance activities in planning & execution, the team managed to transfer the work hours toward preventive tasks. The actions got translated into an improved plant availability and higher engagement

In a long career implementing and improving SAP SCM business processes in Oil & Gas, Pipelines, Utilities and Transportation companies, the number one consistently observed problem is poorly identified MRO material masters. Material master identity consists of the item descriptions, the manufacturer and manufacturer part number fields and classification data that support material identification. This presentation is meant to raise the profile of the topic and the value lost by not addressing the problem without going into detailed solutions. It is aimed at a general level to all practitioners that make use of maintenance or SCM business processes that use materials.The presentation is software agnostic. These challenges are found in shops running SAP, Oracle, JDE, Maximo or any other business software. It is of value to all businesses that have MRO business processes in their value chain. The concepts presented are original thinking of the presenter and address a business problem that software vendors and business consultancies have given marginal attention to date. Hence, the MaintTrain audience will be introduced to value saving concepts. Topics: • Introduction (discussion applies to asset intensive industry and the MRO materials records used in their supporting business processes) 3 min • Generalized view of the current state and how we arrived here. 7 min • Structured identification taxonomy – standards and why coherence in the structure is important. 10 min • Material master lifecycles are often not considered- beginning, middle, end. 8 min • Conclusions: This is not an insolvable problem or one that necessarily demands another $$$ system implementation. It exists only because it has been invisible. 3 min • Questions? 14 min   Originally presented at MainTrian 2021

Asset intensive companies continue to rapidly advance their thinking regarding Enterprise Asset Management – including through the influence of connected assets and remote condition monitoring. These advancements, among others, have shifted focus from reactive to predictive maintenance practices based on real time failure data. Yet, despite the direct impact that spare part availability has on timely maintenance and Asset Health, the approach to spare part management has often lagged in asset heavy industries. The disconnect between asset decisions and supporting spare parts (MRO) inventory through the Asset Management Lifecycle contributes to stock outs, obsolescence, and unplanned downtime. The objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of the MRO Lifecycle as a complementary framework to the lifecycle management of assets. And to explore how actions and decisions made at each stage of the MRO Lifecycle correlates and contributes to more robust decisions throughout the Asset Management Lifecycle. The session will also introduce how software solutions are helping uncover and drive improvements in MRO Inventory Management to enhance the quality of Asset Management decisions, encompassing spare parts and the role that availability plays in improving overall Asset Health. Drawing from more than 20 years of industry experience and leveraging examples across sectors such as food & beverage, automotive and mining, Xtivity will share approaches, solutions and results from global industry.

Equipment Reliability has been a hot topic for years, yet many companies struggle to achieve this goal. This presentation is about maintenance fundamentals and how they affect equipment reliability. The maintenance department will always have lots of priorities on the plate, however in order to deliver equipment reliability there are some basics maintenance battles that must be won. These are not hard battles, they’re not even expensive, however they take some time and a great deal of commitment. These battles are key ingredients that can move the reliability needle in the right direction. The presentation looks at the critical battles all maintenance departments must win. Here are 6 of the simple but well-known categories that will examined during the presentation. 1. Spare Part Storage – Storeroom organization is often overlooked mostly because of the shear amount of work needed to create functional spare parts system. We will look at storeroom best practices and an organizational step by step approach to world class storerooms. 2. Area Improvement Boards – AIBs provided a comprehensive communication tool between operators and maintenance. In this discussion find out this tool can improve equipment reliability in a very simplistic format. 3. Lubrication Standards – Lubrication of the equipment is without a doubt one of the most critical issues of equipment reliability. The need for lubrication has been the single most enduring aspect of maintenance since the industrial revolution. In this critical battle we will look at best practices in lubrication storage and application. 4. Work Order Management - From the time a work order is created until it is populated and closed in a CMMS is a critical to getting work done and recorded. This section of the presentation will explain how to create a work order flow diagram where everyone knows their responsibility the work order flow process as will as best practices for planning and scheduling work orders. 5. Workshop Organization – Maintenance is a professional occupation however we don’t always look that way. See how 5s projects can create a professional looking and functional maintenance area and keep it that way. 6. Maintenance Cultural Change – Maintenance practices and technology are changing quickly. We must prepare and help our maintenance people adapt to changes in how we do things and get their buy in to improve reliability. It is not a complicated process and we will discuss how to help them make the transition.

Often organizations order recommended spare parts as part of a capital project. While well-intentioned, organizations often end up with many parts that are not needed, while not having enough of the right parts to support commissioning and operation. So, if organizations can’t rely strictly on recommended spare parts form the vendor, how should the required spare parts be identified? A reliability engineering analysis should be conducted to understand the specific failure modes that the asset will experience during it’s commissioning and during operation. The analysis should also identify the likelihood or frequency in which the failure will occur. This analysis can then be used to specify which parts should be purchased, at which quantities. There are a few different analysis tools that can be used to assist with the decision, such as a Failure Mode Effects Analysis or a Maintenance Task Analysis. A Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) is the process of reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify potential failure modes in a system and their causes and effects. Using this information, the analyst can recommend the specific parts to stock. A Maintenance Task Analysis (MTA) is the identification of the steps, spares, and materials, tools, support equipment, personnel skill levels, and facility issues that must be considered for a given repair task. Often is completed after the FMEA has been completed, but further refines the ability of the organization to plan for maintenance activities. Once the specific parts needed have been identified with one of the reliability analysis, there is another analysis required to determine the right level of parts to stock. Stocking parts cost money, not having parts costs money, so the analysis of the spare parts enables organizations to find the right balance. This presentation will walk the audience through the process of using the reliability engineering tools to identify the likely failures to evaluating stocking levels of spare parts. This will ensure that the organization can support the asset throughout its life at an optimized cost.Originally presented at MainTrain 2021

In 2010, a privately owned tissue-converting facility in New Brunswick (Irving Tissue) considered itself a well-oiled machine, being able to product 10 million cases of product annually—a huge leap forward from where it started in 1990, with 200,000 cases. The site was piloting a PMO on one of 12 production lines when a vision was pitched to the site leadership team: implementing PMO’s activities and principles on each production line would allow the site to streamline its efforts and result in increased production, with a higher product quality and fewer injuries. This pitch aligned with several of the company’s core values and allowed the leadership team to see there was still substantially more gains to be made at the facility that didn’t necessarily require capital investment, but simply changes to work processes. While this plan didn’t come to fruition, it aligned the leadership team to make reliability a focus rather than just production. This alignment paved the way for several reliability-centred improvement initiatives at the site. The cornerstone achievement of this shift toward reliability was the implementation of “Reliability Windows.” This regular cleaning (two to three times weekly), inspection, and PM task-oriented activity shared between the operations and maintenance groups helped move asset care to a joint effort, rather than just being the responsibility of the maintenance department. This initiative has been a major contributor to the site being able to produce 15 million cases in 2020 (about a 50% increase from 2010—without any additional production lines). This has been a huge advancement in ROA.                Originally presented at MainTrain September 09, 2020   Webcast  presented November 24, 2020