Flexibility and adaptability required in asset performance improvement projects

We know from our experience at Ivara that each organization is unique and has priorities and challenges that differ from those faced by others. Some organizations already have an established business process for reliability and have aligned their organization to effectively support it. They simply require a focused implementation to optimize asset condition data management to realize rapid performance improvements. Other organizations have centers of excellence that are not yet cohesively combined into an effective overall asset management system. Many organizations are experiencing significant financial and human resource constraints that limit their ability to take on the full scope of asset performance management implementation initially but are prepared to begin the effort now and build on it as conditions improve.

Flexibility and adaptability are essential to address unique situations. Sometimes a focus on formal work identification practices is required, followed by basic program implementation in EXP while others already have a well-defined maintenance program that simply needs to be automated and implemented within EXP. Some organizations have no formal business process defined and require a focus on organizational alignment in order to successfully transition to a proactive environment. Some have little useful equipment data to start with and therefore are not yet interested in analyzing data. Others have several years of meaningful data and are keenly interested in analyzing data and optimizing reliability and performance.

What is your priority?

August 28th, 2012      Implementation Success   1 Comment »

Process safety – when will it sink in?

 Prior to the Deepwater Horizon incident, a total of 15 safety awards had been given to BP / Transocean over a period of years. Obviously these did not accurately measure process safety nor did they help to control major accident hazards. 

However, there have been a few recent developments giving hope that things are starting to change…

First, a team of investigators presented 8 conclusions from the CSB’s investigation into the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The CSB concluded that a robust system of process safety indicators might have revealed many of these management system deficiencies before the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred.  Here is link to the full report: http://ehstoday.com/safety/csb-better-process-safety-management-system-might-have-revealed-deepwater-horizon-deficiencie?page=1  And good to see that regulators are taking action too –the American Petroleum Institute (API) establishing ‘Recommend Practice 754′ on safety performance indicators.

Ian Travers, Head of the Chemical Unit, Health and Safety Executive in the UK is helping to spread the word on process safety. The HSE published a case study on ScottishPower, a company that has come to grips with process safety. (here is a link to the case study: http://www.hse.gov.uk/comah/case-studies/case-study-scottish-power.pdf 

Ian recently addressed Ivara customers on the Process Safety at the Ivara Reliability Leadership Summit held in New Orleans in May 2012. Ian commented that the lasting outcome from the Summit was how much more similarity there is between industries then there are differences and the perceived differences that are used as barriers to the adoption of good practice. A lot of sharing of best practices occurred over the 3 day event and to continue the sharing, Ivara customers are now able to share reliability program content and collaborate via EXP Cloud.

Lastly, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which was formed 50 years ago to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world, very recently announced new Guidelines for Senior Leaders on Corporate Governance for Process Safety. Here is a link to these important new guidelines  http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/25/49865614.pdf

Good to see that CEOs and senior executives are being forced to understand risk and are starting to benchmark themselves against good practices. 

I think it is starting to sink in…

July 26th, 2012      Process Safety   3 Comments »

Difference between PEMAC and SMRP certifications

Many people ask about the differences between the certifications offered by the Canadian association, PEMAC, and the US-based SMRP. Both are valuable designations to achieve and both are different.

The Plant Engineering & Maintenance Association of Canada (PEMAC)  provides a Maintenance Management Professional Certificate. To achieve certification, you must pass a series of 8 courses leading to a Certificate and a recognized professional designation, MMP. The Courses are:

Module 1 – Introduction to an Integrated Maintenance Approach (new title Fall 2012) (15 hrs)
Module 2 – Production and Operations Management for the Maintenance Manager (30 hrs)
Module 3 – Human Resource Management for the Maintenance Manager (30 hrs)
Module 4 – Financial Management for the Maintenance Manager (30 hrs)
Module 5 – Developing and Implementing Maintenance Tactics (30 hrs)
Module 6 – Maintenance Planning and Scheduling (30 hrs)
Module 7 – Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (30 hrs)
Module 8 – Capstone – Confirmation of Learning Objectives and an in depth action learning work-related project (30 hrs)

The courses can be taken at various colleges across Canada. Here is a link to the PEMAC website for details: http://www.pemac.org/certification

The Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) provides opportunity to become a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP).  It’s a credentialing program for certifying the knowledge, skills and experience of M&R professionals. It’s not committing textbooks to memory nor are you required to take specific courses. Instead, it’s a thorough examination of individual expertise measured against a universal standard. You take the CMRP exam when you feel you have enough experience and training in the 5 subject areas addressed by the SMRP Body of Knowledge:

1.0 Business and Management
2.0 Manufacturing Process Reliability
3.0 Equipment Reliability
4.0 Organization and Leadership
5.0 Work Management

Exam sittings are offered regularily at various locations across North America. The exam is 2.5 hours in length. The SMRP Ontario is holding an exam sitting on October 3 in conjunction with its AGM meeting at the Ivara office in Burlington. The exam can also be taken online, but my recommendation is to write it on paper at one of the exam sittings since this allows you to go back and review your work as you’d like.

Here is a link to the certification guide: http://www.smrp.org/files/SMRPCO%20Candidate%20Guide%20for%20Certification%20Recertification%204_11_2012.pdf

Whether it is the MMP or the CMRP designation you are going for, both carry a ton of credibility in the field. Good luck!

July 25th, 2012      Training and learning   Leave a Comment »

In managing our assets, we cannot become complacent.

James Reason developed the “Swiss cheese model” illustrating how major accidents and catastrophic system failures actually uncover multiple, smaller failures leading up to an actual hazard. In the model, each slice of cheese represents a safety barrier for a particular hazard and that no single barrier is foolproof, each having ”holes”.  When the holes align, which thankfully doesn’t happen often, catastrophic failures occur, typically resulting in serious consequences.

Failure prevention can only come with discipline to process, in doing our own little part in the process, and in not becoming complacent in anything we do, because our little part is, in fact, integral to the process.  We need risk control systems for the plant, for the process and of course most importantly for the people that drive the process.

Managing risk is everyone’s job. We need to remind ourselves of this. Whether we recognize it or not, our decisions and actions have a direct bearing on the level of risk within the company. So we have to be active in managing these risks. We need to understand:

  • What is the range and nature of failures that I can effect?
  • How can I control the risk of asset failure?
  • How can things go wrong around me?
  • What are the likely consequenses of failure?

People are the weakest link in terms of process safety and asset management. So for our own good, we cannot become complacent in our actions to care for the assets that drive our business.  

 

July 13th, 2012      Industry Solutions - Process & Practices - Process Safety - Risk Management   1 Comment »

ARC view just published: Perfect storm brewing -manage change and risk with Ivara

Paula Hollywood, Reliability Industry Analyst at ARC Advisory Group recently met with Ivara CEO, Paul Marshall. They agreed that the perfect storm is brewing. With increased complexity and diversity of assets in the manufacturing process,  companies are seeking risk management solutions to limit their exposure. And with the growing shortage of skilled trades to operate and maintain assets, something needs to change.

Change is difficult but not impossible to achieve with enabling tools, focus on the business process and best practices in Maintenance and Reliability. Read the full ARC view: http://htl.li/1kz56C

 

June 21st, 2012      Industry Solutions - Risk Management - Strategy & Leadership   Leave a Comment »

Arc Advisory Group reviews Ivara Reliability Leadership Summit

The Journey to Operational Excellence Begins with Risk Management

Paula Hollywood, Industry Analyst at ARC Advisory Group, attended the 5th Ivara Reliability Leadership Summit held May 1 – 3, 2012 at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, where over 200 people shared their experiences, challenges and lessons learned on their continuing journey to operational and maintenance excellence. Paula attended keynote addresses by Jim Gowans, Debswana CEO, and Ian Travers, Health and Safety Executive, UK and several sessions from the three tracks that included customer case studies from Agrium, Shell, Barrick Gold, BHP Billiton, Pacific Gas & Electric, First Energy, Essar Steel Algoma, Exelon, ScottishPower, Debswana Mines, Epcor Utilities, and ArcelorMittal.

Here is a link to her report on the Journey to Operational Excellence…

http://www.arcweb.com/strategy-reports/2012-05-17/the-journey-to-operational-excellence-begins-with-risk-management.aspx

May 18th, 2012      Asset Integrity - Industry Solutions - Regulatory Compliance - Risk Management - Safety and Environmental   Leave a Comment »

Tips to Gain Cooperation between Operations and Maintenance

A few thoughts on trust, communication, and tools.

First and foremost, cooperation between Maintenance and Operations is built on trust. In order to build trust, start by assigning ownership of assets or asset areas. A collaborative reliability focus requires that Maintenance and Operations owns an asset so that major decisions can be made jointly and there is a real sense of empowerment. Trust can then be earned. Some of our customers have assigned a Maintenance Process Owner and an Operations Process Owner for each major asset.

Secondly, a central asset health dashboard can be the best communication tool they’ve ever had. It can be instrumental in solidifying trust between Operations and Maintenance as well as ensuring optimal performance and reliability. If your program ensures that the health of the asset is being constantly monitored, then Operations understands that releasing equipment to maintenance to perform proactive work or inspections will help eliminate unexpected failure. Operations works with maintenance to determine when maintenance work should be done and that when they release asset they will get it back up and running in a timely fashion.

Lastly, if the majority of the maintenance work is currently unplanned, there will be a major cultural shift necessary for operations and maintenance to cooperate. Senior management must be sold on the benefits of asset performance management, predictive and preventive maintenance. Without top management support, the probability of making any significant progress in changing the culture is very near zero. Providing the proper tools and training to support new proactive processes and practices will to help facilitate a change.

 

April 13th, 2012      Implementation Success   1 Comment »

If there is no silver bullet for improving reliability, what should I do?

Knowing the right maintenance to do at the right time to avoid the consequences of failure –is no easy task. You might believe that the longer your company has been around the more effective your maintenance program. Unfortunately this is not always true. For the most part companies are doing too much maintenance too early, or too little too late, all of which have cost consequences to the organization. It definitely is not from a lack of trying. But trying to improve reliability and asset performance without the right business process focus, alignment of practices and enabling tools can make matters worse.

Interestingly the required information and knowhow typically already exists in your company but is so scattered throughout the organization that it leads to inconsistency. Someone tries something new with success, but the unfortunate part of taking a silver bullet approach to improvement is that it tends to become very short lived, eventually becoming the flavor of the month. Experience has shown that a strategic and comprehensive approach to physical asset management is the best way to improve equipment reliability.

For ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor, this meant changing from a reactive maintenance culture to a proactive culture at a 45 year old facility. The World Class Equipment Reliability Team has independence. Without the independence from the reactive, the team would never overcome the reactive organization. The team focuses on all areas of the business process (plan, improve, control, assess). Key changes were:

  • Identify on-condition and scheduled tasks through RCM and MTA/FMEA analyses. Management supported this process. It yielded better documentation and we were able to template many MTAs
  • Validate and implement on-condition inspection tasks (routes)
  • Perform inspections (write work orders for equipment issues; provide feedback for analysis and route validation)
  • Interface with Operations on day-to-day issues
  • Plan and schedule proactive work generated from inspections as well as daily generated work from Operations

To read the complete case study on how ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor does reliability the right way and achieves cost savings of over $2 million dollars annually, click here.

April 3rd, 2012      Implementation Success - Industry Solutions - Process & Practices - Strategy & Leadership   1 Comment »

Game Changer –Asset Integrity and Risk Management additions to Ivara EXP Enterprise

In the history of the company, I think that Ivara will look at it’s latest release of its software as a significant milestone, adding Asset Integrity and Risk Management capabilities to it’s fully featured Asset Performance Management software solution.

EXP 6.1 delivers a complete platform for Integrity, Process, Corrosion and Inspection Engineers to work together to ensure the safety and integrity of pressure assets such as piping and vessels. The software is based on the American Petroleum Institute recommended practice, API 580 for Risk-Based Inspections, to conduct consistent and structured risk analyses as well as develop inspection programs aligned with risk.

EXP 6.1 provides a integrated RBI program for corrosion monitoring loops and corrosion circuits ensuring the safety and integrity of assets such as pipeworks, vessels and process systems primarily in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. The module includes a plant asset register, risk based assessment and prioritization of failure modes, inspection planning and work package definition, inspection results storage/tracking/analysis, Integrity Operating Window parameters and excursion tracking as well as inspection interval updating, system audit, and a quality improvement process.

Sophisticated risk analysis tools evaluate probability of failure, as well as economic, health and safety, and environmental consequences of failure using direct assignment, simple, or detailed questionnaires. Ivara’s methodology is flexible in providing qualitative and semi-quantitative evaluations for determining the risk assessment.  Risk results are used along with the confidence assessment and inspection factor to calculate the next inspection date; and corrosion rate calculates estimated remaining life.  Risk analysis results are used to identify the type and frequency of the next asset integrity activity required.

This added functionality shows the robust nature of the Ivara EXP Enterprise software platform and the innovative capabilities of its designers. Key to success was developing the software with the support and guidance of customers, in particular, a large multi-national oil and gas leader.The software will help companies in the Oil, Gas & PetroChemical industries to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements. Ivara customers can at a glance provide required proof for regulators that their production assets are safe to operate.

Ivara is presenting an Asset Reliability and Integrity Strategy web workshop on this topic on Feb. 16 at 11 am. Register here to attend. https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/571224793

January 10th, 2012      Asset Integrity - Industry Solutions   Leave a Comment »

Domtar Espanola wins Uptime Award for Best Asset Health Management Program

Domtar Expanola wins Uptime award for Best Asset Health Management Program

Leaders in the maintenance reliability community met to honor fellow maintenance reliability professionals for their outstanding achievements and to celebrate individual excellence at the Uptime® Magazine Best Maintenance Reliability Program Awards at the International Maintenance Conference held Dec. 5 – 8, 2011.

Ivara customer, Domtar Espanola won Best Asset Health Management Program.

I wanted to highlight one of their leaders, Kim Hunt. Kim spoke in several sessions at the IMC conference and I was so impressed with her passion for establishing a reliability culture. Kim is the Reliability Manager at Domtar’s Pulp and Paper Mill in Espanola, Ontario. She specializes in lubrication, planning, predictive tools, CMMS implementation and the development and implementation of the Ivara EXP condition based asset management program (referred at Domtar as “RDM” – Reliability Driven Maintenance). Kim believes that leadership, commitment, teamwork and persistence are key to Domtar successfully weathering the challenging market conditions.

Congratulations to the team at Domtar.

Link to Uptime Magazine Q&A with the winners… http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/reliabilityweb/uptime_20121201/#/62

December 14th, 2011      Condition Based Maintenance - Implementation Success - Process & Practices - Strategy & Leadership   1 Comment »

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