Debunking Risk Resiliency by Implementing a Risk-Based Maintenance Strategy

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