Blankets Are For Children Not Work Orders

Do you use and excessive amount of blanket work orders in your CMMS or eAM? Have you defined excessive? Do you have rules as to what can be on a blanket work order? Let's take a few minutes to talk about what blankets are and why you don't want too many in your eAM. Blanket work orders can contain or become a slush fund of hours and materials spend that leads to very poor asset management decisions. Why you say? Many organizations create them so that they can enter their maintenance time or order parts very quickly in the eAM. Capturing your time of course, is very good, but if it is not charged to a specific work order with an associated asset or piece of equipment then it does not provide much information on failure rates, recurrences, or historical cost. One reason we have an eAM is to be able to see labor and parts consumption by asset or piece of equipment so that we can then make good business decisions when it comes to replacement and refurbishment. If the cost to inspect a line or to repair a breakdown is going to a blanket work order then likely it is not being charged to an asset. Over the years, I have seen blanket work orders written at the area or line level with hundreds of hours of labor and hundreds of random parts assigned to them. None of that spend is hitting the asset history and none of those parts are associated with the equipment bill of materials.
There are times when a blanket work order makes sense. A few examples would be for tracking training hours for a team of techs or for tracking time used for operations support or even tracking morning meeting time. In these cases, we are not losing historical data and in fact are tracking a meaningful metric with the blanket work order.
The best way I have seen to limit the creation of blanket work orders is to ask yourself these two questions before you create one: 

• Does this need to be charged to the asset for historical cost reporting? 
• Would we want to know how often this reoccurs at the asset level? 

If yes, then create the specific individual work order tied to the specific asset or piece of equipment. So its not that all blankets are bad but their is a good and bad way to use them. Are you using them where they add value or where they obscure the very data we need to make good decisions?

Five questions you have to answer before your next change initiative.

We all are part of change initiatives and interestingly the majority of them fail to deliver the results expected or projected. When we look back at the ones that failed to deliver, we find many that were destined to fail from the beginning because of the way the change was unveiled and communicated to the affected individuals. Below are five question that are crucial to answer upfront, repeatedly, and through multiple medias. I will demonstrate the questions using a hypothetical Enterprise Asset Management System (EAM) or Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) implementation as the example and share a few elements that satisfy a portion of the questions.  
1. Why are we doing this? 
 Example: Tell them about the transparency the new EAM provides.  You might also share the fact that it is connected with all of the other management systems from procurement and human resources and it allows the business to be better managed by tearing down the walls between these departments. In the end it will make the business more efficient and will help us to surpass our competitors. 
2. What does this look like?
Example: Show them the master project plan for the EAM roll out with the dates and areas of focus. Allow them to drill down into the plan so they can see the details where it is of interest. This will help with the next question. 
3. How will it affect me? or What's in it for me?
Example: Show them how the new system will change their current role. Hopefully you can show them areas where the new system is easier and better for them. This can be done with the work flow process maps or the RASI or RACI documents that were created during the blueprinting phase of the EAM implementation.  If RASI or RACI is a new acronym check out this post here.
4. What do you expect from me?
Example: This is where you can take them through specifically the "R's" or Responsibilities relating to their role. These are shown in the RASI documents. These responsibilities are what is required for the process to work effectively and it shows what you need for them to do specifically to meet the needs of the change.
5. What can I expect from you?
Example: This is where you might share the "R's" that you own and what you will also provide from an "A" or accountability standpoint.
These examples only begin to scratch the surface of the information that you need to provide but should give you some context for each question. Please take the time to plan out how you are going to communicate each of these points out to all the different groups that will be affected by the change.
 If you have other questions that we should consider please add them in the comments below. 

What I Learned from a Pharmaceutical Facility in Pennsylvania

This is a continuation of the "What I learned" series. 

Pharmaceuticals manufacturing is a very interesting business. For many years excess maintenance cost and maintenance down time has not been an area of prominent concern for many of these manufactures. But, with the need for additional capacity, the expiration of various block buster patents, and the rise of contract manufacturing their world is changing.
This facility was looking to be ahead of the curve and ensure they were ready for the changing environment. They wanted to be in charge of their destiny and not have it dictated to them.
The site showed me that there are many ways to succeed with reliability implementation and it can be called many different things.
This site used the energy behind the implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and more specifically the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) module as the framework for their reliability improvement efforts. As they implemented modules and sections they improved the processes and data that was required to be able to reach a new level of maintenance efficiency. This sounds like a logical choice but more often than not sites get over whelmed by this level of change all at once. Then the EAM implementation becomes simply a reimplementation of old practices, bad data, and ugly procedures in a shiny new software tool. It is a bit like adding a jet engine to a 1964 AMC Pacer. It sounds cool but it just does not end that well.
This site challenged the past standards and decided the old way was not good enough. They built a clear plan with managed subproject to prevent overloading of the organization.
They realized that the regulatory and product safety administrations were not there to put you out of business. Instead,  they are there to ensure you do what you said you were going to do. This site removed nonvalue added Preventive Maintenance (PM) task and refined procedures that once drove unreliability. They did all of this without increasing risk for the company or the customer. In fact, as they improved reliability with tools like Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in the later part of their ERP implementation they were able to provide more stable equipment and process which leads to a more quality product. Thanks to my time with this organization I know that when building a strategy for maintenance improvement it is very important to take a long hard look at the current state of the site, the culture, and the history of major initiatives and then prescribe an improvement plan that is specific to that site and it's culture.  As a consultant or a leader this means you can not always do it the same way you did your last project. You have to be constantly pushing the boundaries, matching the needs and using the culture to help them reach the goals they have set. This may change the title of your maintenance improvement initiative to a lean or Six Sigma project or it may be a part of an EAM or ERP implementation but in the end you use the site’s successful tools and momentum to drive the results that you need.

Top 5 Maintenance and Reliability Acronyms for 2011

As the year comes to a close you begin to see a lot of list. These list cover the top X "somethings" of 2011. They are beginning to show up on the TV, the radio, and the web. In fact, on the way in to the office I heard part of the top 40 pop songs of 2011. With all of these list flying around I could not help but think about the top topics for maintenance and reliability in 2011. I have looked back over conference proceedings, discussion group post, website and blog traffic and have put together a top five acronyms list with a bit of commentary on each.

5. PdM
Predictive Maintenance is one of the maintenance and reliability tools that sites are using more and more in the place of their time based preventive task. This year, as the cost of the technology continue decreasing, more folks are adopting the technologies and wanting to talk about them. I think the key point with PdM is that your work execution process has to be strong or these technologies will just identify a lot more work that you can not get through your planning and scheduling system to execution before it runs to failure.


4. CMMS/EAM
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems/ Enterprise Asset Management Systems continue to be a big discussion point for many folks as they struggle to get the value and return on investment from these systems. Many folks continue to see the CMMS as the solution instead of the tool that enables good processes to be successful.

3. RCA
Root Cause Analysis has been very popular on this blog this year but I must admit it could be because of my focus on it as a great tool to eliminate reoccurring failures and process losses. I think the one point I would share is this: RCA doesn't have to be complicated but it requires a great deal of follow to get good results.

2. BPR
Business Process Re-engineering is a topic we see and hear most discussed around EAM implementations and LEAN projects. This tool and the process that are associated with it can remove a substantial amount of waste from your work flow. The key element for success is not that different from RCA it requires tremendous follow up and a regiment that includes the change management methodologies and our number one topic for 2011... KPIs.

1. KPI
 Key Performance Indicators or metrics as they are sometimes called have been an intense area of focus this year. They generate lots of interest as sites try to figure out where they are and how they compare to others. The one suggestion I would provide for this topic is the following: Don't compare what you dont understand. Take the time to note how the metrics are calculated and how your methodology differs from others you may be comparing with. Too often I see dissimilar metrics compared and poor discisions made based on the conclusions. If you can standardise on metrics using documents like the SMRP Metrics Compendium that is avalible through SMRP.org then you can remove some of the frustration around metrics and KPIs.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention one topic that does not have an acronym yet but was a major topic of interest in 2011.  That topic was the skills crisis or the departure of the baby boomer generation from the work force. Many of the acronyms above are crutial to capturing this departing knowledge and allowing for its use in the future. The key is to start now.
Reliability Now!

Thank you to all of you who have followed this blog this year and I wish you a Happy New Year

Don’t Start Up In a Bad Way: Five Ways to Limit the Creation of a Reactive Culture in New Facility Startup.

New facilities by nature can be reactive. Reactive behavior when it comes to reliability and maintenance is expensive. Our goal should be to be proactive in identifying risk and mitigating or eliminating it before we have to react. When you bring a new plant online there are many things that can drive the culture to be reactive. I have listed a few below:

•          Poor start up planning and procedures
•          The presence of excessive amounts of infant mortality type failure modes
•          Equipment delivery delays
•          Stocking of incorrect spare parts
•          EPC contractor ineffectiveness
•          EPC contract language that does not insure correct function of the assets
•          No existing culture in the new facility while there is an influx of new employees from different cultures including other highly reactive companies.

With all of these reasons as well as others, it is no wonder that green field sites find themselves working to overcome a reactive culture, low production rates, and high cost. In order to limit the creation of this situation I have listed five way to turn the tide in favor of a proactive culture.

1. Start early creating the business processes which will help to create the new culture. When you on board new associates being able to show them how work will be done and train them in the use of proactive tools is critical. This will allow them to change their existing paradigms where required and give you a head start on the culture that is required for maximum return on investment.
2. Build the business processes based off of the best facilities in the world not just the best facilities in your division or company. Reach out with your early hire team and benchmark with an eye on being the best in the world within the constraints of your facilities business case.
3. Create failure mode based maintenance strategies using the equipment vendors, EPC, associates as they are brought onboard, the operating context specific to your facility, and tools like RAM, RCM, and FMEA. If this step is done correctly then it will reduce spare parts stocking levels, equipment failures, and poor procedures which will increase early production and profitability.
4. Budget for new associates to visit sister plants if they exist. The goal here is to ensure that they can have open dialogue with others who live with the assets on a daily basis. They should be looking to get hands on training, learn common problems, identify changes that have been made since start-up of the assets as well as other tidbits that will facilitate their site producing record tonnage the first year.
5. Fully populate your EAM or CMMS from the start with all of the assets, spare parts, drawings, and failure codes as provided by the vendors per your contractual request.

I hope these five items offer some help on new plant or new asset start up and if you would like to learn more about the elements of a good start up then reach out to me via email and I will provide you with a look at our R5 launch methodology for new facilities.

Are You Paving Cow Paths With Your EAM Implementation?

If you have ever spent any time walking around a cow pasture you may be familiar with three things about it that remind me of the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems implementations. First, the paths the cows choose to follow are convoluted and entrenched in the history of the herd much like many EAM and the business processes they support. Secondly, there are many traps to step in along the way to a full implementation. Lastly two out of three cow pastures stink, a statistic that holds true for EAM implementations as well.
Lets explore this cow path analogy a bit more. Your organization, over time, using the past EAM or Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) has created both formal and informal processes for getting a work order or work request from one place to another. These paths have dead ends and lots of wasted steps from one part of the process to another. They are not necessarily logical but they have historically gotten the results we have become accustom to. To say it simply they got us from the field to the barn and back again. The focus was on getting it done not getting it done at the level of efficiency that is required to be competitive today.
The problems comes in when many people began to implement  their new EAM system and they choose just to automate the old processes without first taking a hard look at the effectiveness of those processes. This is equivalent to paving the old cow paths. They are faster to travel on but at the end of the day they are so crooked and illogical that you do not get the step change in performance you or your boss expected from the investment.
Two keys to avoiding this loss in potential performance is completing true current and target (also known as "as is and to be") process mapping where you leverage what you already do right while eliminating the dead ends, traps, and non value added activities. Leveraging what you do right will help tremendously with your change effort and your sustainability. The second thing that will help is not relying just on your EAM vendor or internal IT department for help with the best practices process part. If you do then you can expect the best practices in software use and not best practices in maintenance and reliability. Reach out to others who are doing it right in your industry and outside of it, use the many books that exist on the topic or bring in any one of the many consulting organizations that focus in this area. If you take this step you can ensure that the new processes that you put in place not only work with the software but also drive the reliability of your facility to its full potential at the lowest overall cost.
In the end, do not miss a huge opportunity to make a step change in reliability performance just because you chose or are lead down the less painful and newly paved cow paths.

Heinz Bloch Failure Codes as a Simple Start to Failure Coding

I get quite a few request for these simple failure codes for use in Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAMS) and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) so I thought I would post them up for easy retrieval.

Remember failure codes are only as good as the understanding the user has of each code, so make sure to create training for your team and test for understanding prior to implementation.

If you use these examples as a failure coding system then please understand this is a first step and as your organization matures with failure reporting you may chose to go to a more in-depth  failure code structure that is based off of the Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA) that you complete. This will provide a new level of detail for reliability engineers and maintenance engineers to use in there quest to investigate,eliminate, and mitigate failures.

These definitions are drawn from the Heinz Bloch Machinery Failure Analysis and Troubleshooting book third edition. We have taken them and added examples. They can be a good first step on the way to Failure Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action System (FRACAS) within your EAM or  CMMS.

Faulty Design (FD)
Faulty design is when the equipment is not adequate for the intended service. Generally this results in conditions (i.e. temperature, force, pressure, vibration, etc.) which were not expected from the design and exceed the equipment capabilities.

“In excess of 95 percent of fluid handling problems were either designed in or the result of a process change that did not account for its effects on all equipment.” Charles M. Boyles, Editor, Pumping Technology Magazine


Material Defects (MatD)
A material defect is a flaw in the material itself, such as a casting defect, or a non-uniform material (i.e. metal, elastomer, etc.) which results in a material property (i.e. strength, hardness, elasticity, chemical resistance, etc.) different than those expected.

The material defect category should not be used when the wrong material is used in a particular service. This would be the result of a faulty design if the material was designed to be used or a fabrication error if the correct material was called for, but not used.

Fabrication or Processing Errors (FPE)
A fabrication / processing error indicates that the equipment and / or parts are not made correctly (as designed) during initial fabrication or are improperly re-conditioned during a repair. These errors can be identified by verifying whether the components adhere to the original design (i.e. proper dimensions, fits and clearances, proper material, correct component balance, etc.).


Assembly or Installation Defects (AID)
An assembly / installation defect generally means that the equipment and/or parts may have been made correctly, but were not put together or installed correctly. This would include the assembly or repair of the equipment as well as field installation, which may result from improper or inadequate procedures or techniques. Assembly problems may include items such as improper bearing installation / handling procedures, incorrect orientation of grease shields, improper torque sequences, etc. Field installation problems may include items such as shaft misalignment, inadequate grouting, piping strain, etc.


Off-design or Unintended Service Conditions (USC)
An off-design / unintended service condition usually means that the design was adequate for the original service, but changes to the service have now made the design inadequate for the new service conditions. This can occur when changes have been made intentionally to the operating (service) conditions creating an unintended effect on the equipment (condition the equipment was not designed for). Examples may include a throughput change that causes cavitation or a temperature change that affects a material strength.

This failure category can occur when plant capacity is increased without a sufficient review of the effect on equipment. “We have found that a large percentage, 27%, of chronic machine and system problems is the direct result of operating production systems outside their acceptable design range.” - Keith Mobley, President, Integrated Systems, Inc

Examples: Equipment damage due to external acts such as lightning and other acts of nature as well as damage due to mobile equipment operator carelessness and intentional management changes to the SOPs.


Maintenance Deficiencies (MD)
A maintenance deficiency indicates that the equipment is not maintained correctly after it is designed and installed. This may include not replenishing / changing lubricants, not changing filters when they plug, allowing contamination to go untended (i.e. water or dirt in oil), or using inadequate procedures to perform such tasks (i.e. not removing the drain plug when re-greasing bearings).

The maintenance deficiency category would not normally be used to classify a problem that results from an improper repair. That type of defect would normally be the result of either a fabrication / processing error or an assembly / installation defect.



Improper Operation (IO)
As the name implies, improper operation results when the equipment is not operated correctly. This usually occurs with unintended changes to the equipment operating conditions. Examples would include such things as running a pump dry, deadheading a pump for prolonged periods of time, operating in a critical frequency for prolonged periods, as well as improper operating procedures (i.e. not venting a seal chamber to remove gas prior to commissioning).

Improper operation is often associated with upset conditions in the system or transient type conditions such as start-up and shutdown.

Examples: Incorrect or poorly written SOPs