5.02 Asset Management Leadership

In this session, we will look at the professional development pathways available from institutions and educational bodies from around the world. Special guest Dave Daines will look in detail at the professional development pathways the WPiAM can offer individuals and organizations, both now and in the future, through the GCS. Susan Lubell will discuss PEMAC’s approach to certifications, how they align to the GCS, and the many benefits to our PEMAC members as individuals and the organizations that employ them of hiring certified asset management, maintenance, and reliability professionals. Specific content will focus on MMP, CAMP, CSAM, CPAM, CTAM, and CAMA, as well as career development, transportability, transferability, and rigorous process for evaluation.

Within the mining industry, the library of KPIs has not kept up with data that has become increasingly available through digitization, therefore leading to an overuse of lagging performance indicators. Additionally, due to the fact that strategic corporate goals are oftentimes built on the basis of soft or perceptual measures from stakeholders, which are subjective in nature, organizations struggle with the process of linking strategic level goals to KPIs on the shop floor. Therefore, creating a communication gap between technical teams and senior management. As a consequence, maintenance leaders have a difficult time demonstrating the added value that maintenance activities create with an organization, leading to challenges in securing the resources required for things such as continuous improvement projects. Considering that the implementation of a robust KPI framework is an alignment of three key areas: people, process, and technology, the first portion of this presentation will be investigating a holistic approach to developing maintenance KPIs that are integrated into corporate strategic goals. Therefore, outlining the steps required for organizational leaders to begin standardizing data gathering procedures and creating a trustworthy system that can be leveraged for decision making. Aside from the previously discussed administrative challenges associated with data gathering within organizations, it must also be highlighted that KPIs are collected on a monthly or quarterly basis, meaning that training sets for forecasting models are extremely limited. Therefore, in order to address the reliance on lagging performance indicators within maintenance departments, a variety of time series models capable of achieving high accuracy on small datasets will be discussed along with direct business applications. Through achieving these goals, the intended outcome is to create a more contemporary data driven methodology for selecting organizational KPIs, as well as directly demonstrating the added value that the various business units create within the organization.

Asset Managers understand that the best way to achieve success with their strategy is to have executive sponsor support. Unfortunately, many Asset Managers are frustrated because they cannot get senior leadership to pay attention to the importance of the company's assets. Asset management goals and objectives should align with corporate strategies, but often, there is a disconnect. Some of the gaps are: •    Corporate strategy vs. asset management strategy; do you have a line of sight?•    What Asset Managers say vs. what executives hear; are you speaking the same language? •    Operations production targets vs. asset lifecycle value; do these conflict?•    Executive education; can you help senior leaders who don't know the difference between their assets and their asses?•    Executive decisions; are you in the loop on this secret process? •    Corporate performance vs. asset management measures; do your KPIs align?•    Managing up; are you providing executives solutions or problems?Understanding what executives are thinking and how they make decisions is crucial to an Asset Manager's success. Ron Bettin has spent many years guiding operational and project success by bridging the gap between executives and asset management. This presentation explores why executives often don't appear to care about critical assets and what Asset Managers can do about it 

Within our toolbox of best practices, the concept of Operational Readiness (OR) has been discussed, strategized, budgeted, and engaged, to prepare the asset(s) in transition from OEM to start-up, whether for the construction of a single asset such as a mine haul truck, or unique piece of manufacturing equipment, or for multiple assets within an infrastructure such as a hospital, or rail transit line to create the smoothest, "turn key" process for the newly acquired asset, prior to deployment into operations.Through the many global industries, we have been blessed with a very holistic view of what Operational Readiness should look like. However, the process can be seen as a high level strategy, which fails to incorporate the depth and breadth required to ensure all steps of the plan will engage tactics which align with corporate vision and mission, supporting critical aspects of readiness; the tracking platform, communications, and follow up methods used to ensure we engage stakeholders as "partners" in our journey, rather than captives in a process to ensure the asset is truly "Operationally Ready", before we sign off with the asset owners.As a result, tactics used are many time absence of an accurate tracking process to ensure the highest level of QA/QC. What better time to achieve this accuracy then at the inception of the new asset, just like we do when we welcome a new baby into our family. But can we honestly say we plan everything for our new addition? Definitely not.  We can agree, that we are not all aligned in how or what we will feed our child when they turn 2 years old, rather we commit to the short term plan and move forward.Why? Simply put, it takes a lot of effort to "sweat the small stuff", however the tactics used for Operational Readiness, it is critical we "sweat the small stuff" as we build a platform that will support the process, while focusing on reduction of the 7 + 1 types of waste, and by making the process simple and attractive to the ones responsible for getting the process steps completed in our journey.An OR report study from Deloitte (2012) revealed that if a company can achieve OR process effectively, they would have an opportunity to reduce the risk of loosing 30% of their capital value. In addition, the severe detrimental impact on Capex and initial operational capacity, ongoing operations and maintenance costs over an asset’s lifecycle are typically 1 – 2% higher, year-on-year and for the entire life of the asset, where operational readiness was not sufficiently achieved at the outset.  And then there is value add for safety and employee morale.Everyone’s best intentions are traditionally met with the reality of how many small, yet critical alignment steps there are to truly set up the asset to be resilient and sustainable within the lifecycle and within the desired Asset Management Landscape within your organization.Chaos usually rears its ugly head at a period after the asset has been commissioned and signed off with the asset owner. Normally the front end of design for reliability, need vs. want, master maintenance plans, parts and operations, maintenance and training strategies are set well.  However, are they truly measured by the organization, in a way that supports the quality of work to manage QA/QC performance and excellence of each process step?  Many stakeholders will have touch points in the process; either one time, or many times well past the commissioning stage, right to the end of asset life; retire, restore or renewal process, which is all part of the OR.  In this presentation for the Operational Readiness (OR) Global Approach to Asset Management Landscape & Best Practices, the information will address how Agnico Eagle Mining Ltd., has taken the opportunity within the Nunavut Division,  Asset Management group to enhance the tracking performance and following up with every stakeholder to ensure the actual work is being performed, at the right time, for the right reasons and the completion of each of the hundreds of secondary and tertiary steps are properly aligning with the timing to bring the asset into operational state.The presentation will discuss the practice and "out of the box" applications readily available using the Microsoft 365 suite of programs, such as SharePoint and the supporting applications available, without engaging in complex processes, spreadsheets or software tracking, workflow, and communication platforms.  It is challenging to keep everything tracked and packaged in one system available to everyone when having to apply multiple CMMS, EAM, ERP, or other 3rd party application systems help to support the management of assets. 

MainTrain 2021 Panel DiscussionModerator: Susan LubellAuthor of "Root Cause Analysis Made Simple", Susan specializes in asset management and reliability strategy, cost effective lean maintenance programs and operational excellence. She brings over 25 years of practical experience to drive asset management, maintenance and operational business improvement opportunities. Susan currently serves as National President for PEMAC Asset Management Association of Canada, Chair of the World Partners in Asset Management (WPiAM), and teaches for both the Maintenance Management Professional (MMP) and Certified Asset Management Professional (CAMP) programs. Panelists:John Hardwick, Executive Director, Sydney, Roads and Martime Services NSWRepresenting: AMC - Asset Management Council, AustraliaWith extensive Executive Management and Board experience and a background over the past 30 years in asset management within the electricity and transport industries. A passionate leader of organisational improvement in asset and operational risk management, and has implemented world class asset management strategies implementing effective asset management strategies and systems to manage risk and provide value for customers and communities.John is co-author of Living Asset Management.John has a desire to make a difference and explore new ways of solving wicked problems. John is the past Chair of multiple not for profit organisations the World Partners in Asset Management, Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management and the Asset Management Council.João Lafraia, President, Fábrica Carioca de Catalisadores S.A.Representing:  ABRAMAN - Associação Brasileira de Manutenção e Gestão de Ativos, BrazilOÃO RICARDO B. LAFRAIA is MSc by the Cranfi eld Institute of Techonology, in England. MBA by the Pontificia Catholic University/State of Paraná. He taught in the graduation and post graduation about Quality Assurance, Reliability and Organization in the Federal University of Paraná and FGV Rio. He is author and co-author of the books of Reliability Handbook, Mantenability and Availability and Strategic Management and Reliability, Creating the Habit of the Excellence. Author of several articles and lectures about Excellence in Management of Reliability and Health, Environment and Security.Lafraia has acted as General-Manager in 5 Refineries around Brazil. He also headed the Operational Excellence Department for all refineries at Petrobras Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Executive Director for the FCCSA Chemical Company. He served as board member for 4 chemical companies. At present moment, he has the position of General-Manager in the Exploration and Production Santos Basin Business Unit and Chairman of the Deliberative Council of ABRAMAN.Johannes Coetzee, Managing Director, Machine Assessment & Reliability Technology (Martech)Representing:  SAAMA - The Southern African Asset Management Association, South AfricaJohannes Coetzee is the MD of Martec and Chairman of the Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management (GFMAM), the umbrella body for professional associations in the field of maintenance and assets management across the world. He is the past-president of the Southern African Asset Management Association (SAAMA) and also serves on the Advisory Board of the Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Johannes is an Industrial Engineer, holds an MBA and has been in the field of asset management for more than two decades. Naoki Takesue, Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc.Representing:  JAAM - Japan Association of Asset Management, JapanMr. Naoki Takesue is a Professional Engineer and has more than 30 years experience in the field of construction management and asset management for public and private sectors.  In MRI, he is engaged in research and consulting works for developing government policies of infrastructure management.  Also, as a director of JAAM, he is  actively involved in the introduction of ISO55000s into Japan.  

Maple Leaf Foods has embarked on a journey to be the most sustainable protein company on earth with a mandate to relentlessly eliminate waste and improve efficiency. As the World’s First Major Carbon Neutral Food Company, the company is undergoing a cultural, operational, and digital transformation in various functions including Asset Management, Reliability, and Maintenance. The keynotes provide insights into how Strategic and Behaviour-Based Asset Management enables Environmental Sustainability to raise the good in food at Maple Leaf Foods.

Asset management is about good decision making in a structural, systematic and strategic way. It helps you make logical, rational, evidence-based decisions that target your limited resources and prioritize your infrastructure investments. It is the planning tool that helps you organize the future you want for your community. It makes good business sense, and no reasonable person would disagree. This is so obvious that it is boring. This begs the questions: • What could possibly get in the way of evidence-based decision making? • Why do we ignore the things we should not ignore? • Why do we not attend to the things we should attend to? This session will illuminate the condition assessments of a different kind and explore the antidote to asset management apathy.

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world, the foundations of business operations shifted instantly. With ripple effects continuing today, organizations continue to strive to adapt to the changing landscape. In these times, the principles and practices of asset management are more critical than ever and can be a framework for embedding resiliency. This presentation will delve into the relationship between asset management principles and three focus areas impacted by COVID, while sharing real life examples from water and wastewater operations. First, we will explore how facility lockdowns and supply chain disruptions impacted equipment repair parts availability. We will dive into how facilities with strong critical spare parts management techniques weathered these disruptions with less panic and time spent chasing parts. And, how techniques such as predictive maintenance programs and planning scheduling better accommodated longer lead times before equipment intervention was required. Second, we will discuss what happens when only a few individuals own the asset management program and they are suddenly absent for health or family support obligations for an extended period. We will interconnect how building a strong ownership of asset management across disciplines and embedding processes and procedures ensures a lasting culture of asset management. Finally, lockdowns and travel bans forced our team to explore new methods for deploying technical support without onsite visits. Innovative approaches from virtually facilitated risk review workshops to augmented reality condition assessments have been developed and implemented over the past year. With advancements in technology, as the accumulation of data grows there has been a concentrated effort to leverage this data toward making data-justified decisions. Over the past year there has also been an increasing emphasis to leverage these analyses to bring decision teams to agreement as managers and client interact virtually. With an interdependent global economy it is only a matter of time until the next disruption hits, and implementing the core principles of asset management can enhance the resiliency of your organization.

Do those that manage the performance, understand the measures?

This presentation will describe Nova Scotia Power Inc.’s (NSPI’s) Asset Management journey – comparing the progression for our Power Production division, with that current in play in support of our Transmission, Distribution and Delivery (T&D) division. NSPI has deployed a fully-integrated, technology-enabled Asset Management approach for its Power Production fleet of assets. The journey to undertake that development was staged, with key components of the asset management approach integrated in a step-wise fashion, each building up on the other. Carefully designed visuals were used to communicate and gain asset owner (plant management and field-level) support for the initiative, and resources from the organization migrated to the centralized asset management team over time, providing centralized, fleet-level support vs. plant-level support. Over approximately 8 years, the “Asset Management Office” team grew from 3 to 10, including dedicated operational technology resources, technical subject matter experts focused on generation assets and performance, and field level support resources. Major programs were deployed such as condition-based monitoring, predictive analytics and digital Operator rounds. There was room for trial-and-error, and continuous improvement with significant field engagement. A very bottom-up approach. In 2017, the Asset Management team’s mandate expanded to include NSPI’s T&D assets. The mandate included an organizational change, which gave the Enterprise Asset Management (TEAM) division (which includes Asset Management, but also Capital Management and Planning) elevated status via Sr. Director leadership. Some resources from the T&D division of the organization changed their reporting point to the AM team “en masse”. An EAM Integration Management position was created to have consistent leadership over the integration of the asset management approach across T&D, including integration into existing Asset Performance Management systems and framework, ensuring alignment with, and building on successful work completed for Power Production. The expectation for successful transition at a higher level, with minimal bumps along the way, was very different. A very top-down approach. Each approach has its highs (“…the best of times..”, and lows (“…the worst of times…”). But while different, there are common learnings and lessons that can be applied. Each approach can be effective – and in fact has been effective for NS Power. Perhaps you are starting small…. Or perhaps you are starting big… or somewhere in between. In any case, our Tale of Two Deployments will share with you NSPI’s experiences, and share of the benefits and challenges of each.Originally presented at MainTrain 2021