2.4 Maint. Budget/Cost Control

Cameco Corp. has recently deployed approximately 1,500 wireless asset condition monitoring sensors across four of its operations. This presentation will explore all aspects of this project, from initial identification of business pain, all the way through to deployment and management of the system. Condition-based monitoring of rotating assets typically involves a route that is executed at a fixed interval to collect asset condition data. This data can include vibration, temperature, acoustic emissions, and others. This data is then downloaded into software and analyzed for faults and trends. This method has many shortcomings that can be solved with remote sensing technology. This presentation will take you through Cameco’s journey of identifying the limitations of traditional data collection and why an alternative was investigated. Some of the key topics will include problems and inefficiencies with the current system, methodology used to determine which sensor company to partner with, potential cost savings and benefits, deployment strategy and execution, and some screen captures of actual asset detections. Finally, we will conclude with lessons learned and benefits realized from deploying a sensor solution.

As maintainers, we know there is a lot of value in what we do. Without our work, plant, and equipment will soon stop and our companies will then go out of business. What we do impacts safety, health, revenues, costs, and company reputation. A dirty little truth about maintenance is that it is only we who work in it, that really know the value of what we do – or do we? We do know our value in qualitative terms, but can we quantify it? Most maintenance can be improved and we know it. We can do things more efficiently, and we can keep things running more reliably. We often know how to do that, but when we want to make those improvements there is no money for them. Why? Most business people know very little about what we do and how it impacts their business. They see maintenance as a repair shop. We fix what breaks. And they know little, or nothing, more. They may know that maintenance represents a significant cost, and they may even know that they can’t get away with cutting it too much. But they do not know the full value of what maintenance can deliver, nor what it takes to deliver it. If you want to make improvements you need a decision-maker, someone with executive-level authority, to back you up. To get that, you will need to explain what value you can deliver, and in terms they can understand. You will need to show them the savings that are possible from doing things more efficiently, and the added revenues that can arise from investment in defining the right work. You will also need to show them how their support is needed to bring operators and the supply chain into the team with you to make those changes happen so that benefits are fully realized. Quantifying value and being simple in how you say it matters.

We know that reliability has value to your business, but many of us with technical backgrounds struggle to present a good business case to decision-makers. We are very often held back by budget constraints and we are not in a position to make decisions involving financial risk-taking. Most of us don't have a business background, nor do we speak "finance". It is a whole different language than maintenance and reliability, yet we all want the same things for our business. This presentation will give you some ideas on what you will need to determine in order to show what reliability is worth, and how to present that to decision-makers.

Learn to build a business case for improvements in Maintenance at your operations. You know your maintenance performance can improve, you know the problems you are faced with, you know some of what to do to correct it, you know it will take effort and some investment, and you need to prove it is worth investing in to your senior management / executive branch. To make the case, you need to show what it can save or earn for your business - where you will see the payoff and you need to estimate the cost of the investment. This is a hand's on workshop. Bring your maintenance performance metrics and be ready to work. You will be shown useful benchmarks that can be used and how to use them. Using those and the metrics from your current state you will show the potential benefit of making changes. After working out the potential benefits we will discuss tips for getting support and making your case an easy sell.

-Introduction a la gestion d’actifs véhiculaires-Processus intégré de la gestion d’un parc d’actifs véhiculaires-L’analyse du cycle de vie financier-Performance de l’actif-Questions et conclusions 

Metrics, best practices, more than 40 key elements to implement, challenges, and opportunities all combine to make a successful implementation difficult. Where do you start, and how do you know how to work on what matters? Once you understand how it’s all related, you can focus on the vital few to leverage the maximum ROI. This presentation will clarify the importance of culture and employee engagement, along with other key plant floor performance indicators that will be clarified with data. We'll look at the current state of R&M; what’s working and what's not; survival skills for the next decade; impacts of connected technologies (edge computing, big data, machine learning, AI, 3D printing, augmented reality); the importance of getting your data ready for what's coming next; and relationships between R&M and safety, people engagement, quality, throughput/uptime, and cost.

In 2017, the LINK Automated People Mover (APM) at Toronto Pearson International Airport transported an average of 24,000 passengers per day — a 20% increase in passenger traffic from 2015, according to a 2017 report by the GTAA. To increase operational service levels, preventative maintenance optimization (PMO) initiatives were undertaken in 2015 and 2016 in co-ordination with the APM owner, manufacturer, and O&M service provider. The initiatives were designed to increase the overall day-to-day operational run-time of the LINK system while maintaining existing levels of safety and reliability. In this workshop, we’ll use the LINK APM system as a case study to discuss the requirements for successful PMO implementation, which include interorganizational communication and co-operation, RCM strategies, and due diligence as it relates to safety-related subsystems and processes. We’ll also offer a blueprint for similar optimization strategies.

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.

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 

Sustaining asset performance while managing quality of production with reduced production costs is like keeping your balance while walking on a high-wire. When the market sets the sales price and the shareholders sets the net profit expectations, the only choice left is decreasing production costs. Labor-cost appears to many managers as an easy target when cutting costs. On the contrary, investing in improving the labor qualifications can result in higher efficiency and by default lower costs. The market is pushing organizations who are looking for sustaining or improving profits in this direction, including the steel industry that also faces this challenge. How do organizations select optimum production levels, minimum manpower numbers in order to sustain their productivity and profitability while maintaining a flexibility in following the market demands? The short answer is "do more for less". However, it is not an easy task. The Target is to demonstrate this situation and the analysis that has been done at Rajhisteel, where  the results are promising so far. Planning to upgrade the QMS to ISO 9001:2015 will help the organization improve and shift the focus to sustainability and effectiveness.