At the municipal wastewater plant and pumping stations I work with, there is a high level of redundancy and that is affecting the maintenance choices. I am currently completing a criticality assessment of in-plant equipment that will help prioritize what are the important pieces of equipment to maintain (no time to do proper RCM since I believe a manager's annual bonus is riding on my "completion" of the project before end of year).

I think the biggest issue we face is change management. There are a couple of younger guys who are interested in the new technologies available, but the majority of the older staff (supported by the supervisors) would rather do things the old way. They *like* to take equipment apart, sometimes for no reason other than because "they felt something was wrong with it". This is despite a backlog of PMs that need to be completed. I keep using the analogy that doctors don't perform open heart surgery to check if your heart is beating, so why do that with equipment? But I can only repeat that so many times until it falls on deaf ears.

I think good lines of communication and definition of responsibilities is crucial to effective maintenance of any type, but I'm not sure we have that here. Part of the problem is that our Maintenance management group does not functionally fall under the plant organizational structure and has no power to enforce maintenance procedures. We have to leave that to the Supervisors, who may or may not follow our suggestions.

Our biggest success is getting the staff to perform laser alignment on rotating equipment prior to return to service. Our oil analysis is half-decent as the maintenance staff will change or filter the oil when the outsourced report calls says it has degraded, but the staff still goes ahead and replaces the oil on calendar-based PMs (we're working on removing those from SAP, but we're swamped with competing priorities). However, they do not trust the results of our contracted vibration analyst and actually withheld information on a repair because they wanted to see if the analyst would notice (he did, and was puzzled that the vibration levels went down although apparently nothing was done). We have an IR camera and spent money on training, but the electrical department has no formal PdM tasks created in SAP and they remained mired in the same old rut of fighting fires and resonding to CM task notifications.

I am hopeful that some of the supervisors are coming around, but I think it's going to take an infusion of new blood to change some of the practices around here, especially as almost half the staff will be eligible to retire in the next 10 years (with a loss of experience that we don't have plans to record). Perhaps management's hiring freeze (imposed by the mayor and council) will be lifted by that time.

Sorry for the rambling post, and I don't know if that answers your question, but it outlines some of the issues that we face that are preventing us from becoming best-in-class for maintenance.

Not necessiarly the place to vent frustration but: it'll do. You have to earn what you are seeking and should within three years (less than 3 yrs?).

In that environment, here's what I've found. Document everything you do and attach $$igns to it! Keep a running tab and do a large formal report of 'cost justification' at the end of the year or budget year. It must prove itself via the ROI else it's words that fall on deaf ear or you'll hear, "that's a good idea and we should do it", but, it'll never happen without the $$ign. Or, that's my take.

Accent on alignment rather than 'laser alignment' or you sound like a salesman. Provide training. In water plants I've found if you go for CEU's by the state then those personnel need 18 annually to keep their certification. My alignment course is worth 6 or any Tech School can usually award 2 for your semniars locally.

Keep up the good fight initial B - you'll get there with persistence and believing in what youre doing.
Even the companies with "Best in Class" maintenance are struggling to maintain it - don't be fooled. Consistency is the key!

Mike.

Initial B.,
If I may suggest a few tips to assist you:
1. When items have installed spares, run them duty/standby. Strategy for duty eqpt. is run-to-failure. Strategy for standby is to test-start every month or two, and run it for at least 6 hours on full load before switching on the duty item again.
2. Use condition monitoring as the primary determinant of work for all machinery.
3. There will be a few items that need time-based maintenance - Gas Turbines, items with wearing parts such as brakes or fatiguing parts such as springs for example. These exceptions can be picked out by discussion with the 'oldies'.
4. The oldies may not be luddites; they may just be afraid of change, afraid of the technology or of possible loss of jobs. Convert just one or two of them, by one-to-one training/mentoring and special attention. Once you win them over, they will be your Billy Grahams.

There are other tips one can use, but I think it is best to limit these and get on with the job in hand.

I agree your opinion below. I am consultant provide some consulting service for power grid company. I have worked for more 4 years and I found few company in power grid company depend on condition based maintenance. I think there are some reasons. The first reason, I think, monitor condition is very difficult, especially
transmission line and some other electric equipment. The second reason is to management problem, because failure is not to allow, people have to execute plan maintenance. I think that there are no fit skill worker is a reason.
I hope I can help those company to improve their maintenance management.

quote:

Originally posted by Terrence O'Hanlon:
Working with John Schultz of Allied Reliability over the years - he has revealed that best in class companies maintenance spend include 35% Condition monitoring/Predictive maintenance with 15% of your corrective work resulting from the inspection/detection results.

That is 50% of your maintenance spend on condition directed maintenance.

I have found very few companies at this level and wonder if anyone can add some wisdom to this discussion.

We have been documenting PdM and Condition monitoring results for over 25 years and still today many companies are still operating "pretend" PdM programs where 5%-10% of maintenance is aimed at condition directed task.

What is the hold up?

Terry O

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