Key foundational elements for a world class reliability program were established for BP’s largest (450,000 BPD) and most complex refinery in 8 months versus typical industry practice of 3 years.

Business Challenge

Previously, the BP Texas City site had experienced major setbacks in safety, regulatory compliance, operational performance, profit margins, availability, and even acts of God (hurricane). A new leadership team determined that re-establishing the basis for a world class maintenance and reliability program would be an important step to create and sustain improvement, while becoming compliant with regulatory and corporate objectives. Initial planning forecasted the activity to take over 3 years to complete. With increasing pressure on compliance, operational performance and margins, the leadership could not wait, and decided to significantly accelerate their efforts.

Solution

The client completed their due diligence and selected a consulting partner with a proven track record for developing sustainable reliability programs.

• BP rapidly deployed a team of over ninety highly trained consultants, engineering, IT and program management professionals equipped with project accelerators, proven enterprise level SAP compatible tools.

• BP Deployed the a leading edge tool to capture and standardize asset data, complete criticalities, and create PMs, 100% pre-aligned to the current SAP Configuration

• BP Deployed proven standards to help accelerate the project

• Strategy Sessions: (Asset, Asset Hierarchy, Criticality, FMEAs, PMs)

• Equipment Standard Library (class/subclass)

• FMEA Library and Smart PMs

• Established program office to manage overlapping activities across multi-vendor and client teams

Results

• Established the foundational elements for world class reliability for a 450,000 BPD complex refinery

• Transcended traditional timeframes for delivering such an effort and completed it in 8 months, and on budget

• Improved equipment inventory accuracy in SAP to 97% to align with industry benchmarks of 98%.

• Validated and standardized a list of 75,000 assets and aligned in a standard hierarchy within SAP and to ISO 14224 standards

• Developed equipment strategies to improve reliability of 99% of the equipment population

• Increased the maintenance coverage of critical equipment with maintenance strategies to 99%, aligned with industry benchmarks

• Corrected 1,700 drawing discrepancies while creating standard hierarchy within the Documentum system

• Zero lost time or OSHA Recordable injuries

Traditionally, neither Maintenance nor Operations are active part of an Equipment or Plant Design team.

For quite some time, this is being recognized as a serious shortcoming and is being corrected!

The extensive application of RCM to existing installations, has pointed to the advantage of seeking participation of maintenance experts on the design team, as early as possible. By doing so, not only reliability but also maintainability is greatly enhanced.

Addressing the benefits of predictive maintenance during the design stage, applying RCM philosophy, has proven to save money and headaches during start-up phases and during plant life, throughout.

Operator Asset Care involves using operations personnel to inspect production equipment, detect any existing or potential issues, and communicate them so that they can be corrected - before any loss of production or major equipment repair is required. Return on investment for these programs can be quick and significant. Operator Asset Care programs can be carried out using clipboards and spreadsheets, but rugged handheld computers have made the automation of these procedures faster, less expensive and more accurate than ever before.

The use of automation tools such as industrial handheld computers can help Operator Asset Care programs succeed in an SAP R/3 or ECC environment - the inspection and data recording procedures can mesh seamlessly with your existing SAP PM module. This presentation will include a review of the opportunities and challenges faced in three different industrial operations that have implemented operator asset care in conjunction with SAP R/3 or ECC.

The paper focuses on a process used to develop an optimized maintenance plan that reflects what maintenance should be performed, how often, resources requirements, spares inventory, skill requirements, risks or consequences of performing and not performing maintenance for a hydropower plant. Using a unique Reliability Centered Maintenance process, we developed a total maintenance picture, and we evaluated various maintenance concepts to arrive at an optimized maintenance plan.

The process breaks the maintenances down into the maintainable components and establishes a predicted failure model for each identified major failure cause. With the failure model, we tie all of the associated risks and consequences of running to failure and different maintenance strategies to the component. The risks and consequences included can cover a very wide spectrum of concerns such as safety, Key Performance Indicators, environmental risks, operational factors, financial risks, reliability, availability, and others. Then we associate all of the resources, material, equipment, costs, along with the task durations to the components for running the component to failure, performing a maintenance action, inspecting, or other associated activities. Once all of this information is associated to the component, we can begin the process of evaluating all of the options and alternatives. The optimum maintenance plan is determined using simulation tools within the software to predict the future outcomes of the alternatives and select the alternative that optimizes our business requirements. Then the component’s individual maintenance plan is tied to all of the other components in the system and plant to show their role in the overall hydropower plant. This includes the impacts on availability, capacity, available resources, overall spares inventory, and costs. Once the plant relationships are established, we see the overall plant’s maintenance strategy picture, and then we can adjust the various components and use the software simulation tools to optimize the maintenance for the whole plant.

Once the process is completed, we have recommendations for projected labor, spare parts inventory, equipment, budget estimates, reliability and availability estimates, and other information for our overall plant maintenance plan. This unique RCM process allows for a "living model" of this asset which is continuously validated and improved.

As we are starting the second decade of this century, there are literally scores of books, article, and white papers warning companies of the impending skills shortage. As the “Baby-Boomer” generation retires, it is estimated that there will be 10 Million more jobs than workers by the year 2010. World-wide, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OEDC) estimates the number may grow as high as 65 million. Can SAP-EAM be utilized to capture the knowledge that resides with the retiring “Baby-Boomers” and then develop technical training programs?

This presentation focuses on a methodology that can be used to capture the information necessary to complete a job “Duty – Task – Needs” analysis using SAP-EAM. The presentation will then show how this information can be used to develop a technical training program that is customized to a specific company or plant. The presentation will conclude with detailed information on utilizing available resources to build a training program that will help insure your company’s survival in the coming skills shortage.

While many companies find it difficult to plan, schedule, perform and implement a single RCM analysis, Cargill’s Oilseeds Business Unit in Europe is taking on a much larger challenge, performing several RCM analyses each year and implementing the results at each Oilseeds facility in Europe.

Cargill’s Paul De Ruijter and Walter Nijsen have for years understood the impact performing RCM analyses could have on improving the reliability of critical assets, the challenge for Cargill was to develop a way to perform the analyses in a way that each facility understood the importance of the effort and manage the implementation of hundreds of RCM tasks at each facility.

In this paper and presentation, Cargill’s Walter Nijsen and Doug Plucknette of Allied Reliability will show how Cargill and Allied worked to:

• Select Critical Assets as candidates for RCM analysis
   
• Use cross functional teams to perform the RCM analyses

• Develop a plan to implement the resulting RCM tasks

• Track and Report implementation results at each facility

This presentation will provide clear guidance how to deploy the RCM recommendations at a plant or business unit level. The Cargill / Allied approach can be used in any facility / organization, the audience will go home with a clear understanding and tools to be able to execute in their daily life.

In this presentation we will discuss the issues they faced, the capabilities of SAP, and how they were able to create a paperless calibration solution that was fully compliant. The rule-based electronic signatures that were utilized, provided a completely audit trail of changes and instituted an automated change control process that has reduced cost and improved compliance. The SAP calibration solution met management expectations and delivered better ROI results than initially forecasted.

Mac Smith initially developed several important RCM Lessons Learned in Chapter 9 of his book "RCM - Gateway To World Class Maintenance". Since then, on more recent projects, he has extracted a collection of feedback from team members that participated in Classical RCM projects. The candid feedback from participants includes a view of "What works - and what does not work”. This feedback has been expanded with the work of his co-author, Joe Saba, to include the use of the software that supports the Classical RCM experience. This valuable feedback has produced improvements in the process as well as the software.

SAP PM is a powerful IT system designed to manage the day-to-day operations of plant maintenance. With a bevy of rich features and capability for integration into other plant systems, it can significantly improve plant efficiency and effectiveness.

But, as uncovered in a recent survey of over 800 plant managers, maintenance managers and reliability engineers, there seems to be a “configuration” time-period for implementing SAP PM. What additional data points to is that satisfaction with the product, during the initial implementation and use, is low.

But there is a silver lining. Even as SAP PM users express dissatisfaction early on in their use of the software, increased usage and customization generally lead to higher levels of satisfaction. Whether it’s employing consultants to modify the way SAP PM works (to meet specific plant need), utilizing third-party technologies to fill-the-gap for misunderstood/missing features, or long-term training, satisfaction improves the more that the plant identifies how to capitalize on the flexibility of SAP PM to work with existing systems and familiar processes.

Attend this presentation for a detailed summary of the largest independent comparative benchmarking study of SAP PM ever performed.

How many 10 year olds who, when asked at school “What would you like to be when you grow up?” replied “A Maintenance Manager”. A safe bet is that the answer is none. How many 10 year olds would have any idea what a maintenance manager is or how many 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds…. you get the picture? When you think about it, there is no real reason, or way that those not directly involved in Maintenance management, could understand what it is. When was the Last time you saw that a super hero’s alter-ego was a Maintenance Manager, or what was the title of the last romantic movie you took your significant other to see where the romantic white knight came in the guise of an Asset Reliability Professional? I’m looking forward to a new television series entitled “Miami (or New York) RCM” where teams of investigators rush out and carry out vibration analysis. The team gets together to examine infra-red footage and I just can’t wait for the close –up of the oil analysis slide under the microscope.

Am I dreaming? – I think so. So the questions become

1) Who are the people that become Maintenance Managers?

2) How does it happen?

3) What is it exactly that they do?

In this paper we will look at typical answers to these questions and then take an alternative view to answering question 3 and see how it impacts the other questions.

The interactive panel discussion will begin with familiarize the group with the concept of Reliability-Centered Maintenance Mindset (RCM²) as a methodology to focus attention on the maintenance developer.

2. RCM²

During the first 10 minutes of the panel discussions I will show a summary version of my presentation from last year to give the group a sense of my thoughts in developing RCM². We will then proceed with my “real life” experiences in selecting maintenance developers and then go around the panel to get any thoughts or situations that they have experienced in their RCM programs.

3. Panel Activity

I am going to develop an interactive panel exercise which will highlight the RCM² philosophy (which will fulfill Learning Point 3).

Learning Point 1: The Mindset of the Maintenance Developer

Learning Point 2: Traits to look for when selecting developers

Learning Point 3: Performing maintenance evaluation once the tasks are developed.

• Leadership
• Structure
• Discipline

*If you’ve got these 3, you’re really a lot closer to success than many of the companies that don’t!

Everybody knows that, when it comes to RCM, there is nothing more important than getting your effort off to a good start with a quick win! Wins deliver the proof necessary to gain lasting support throughout your business and the resources required to deliver world class results. Getting off to a good start requires planning and many who set out to perform a RCM Analysis don’t know there are eight (8) Up-Front Tasks that you should take to smooth the way for greater success.  Attend this Chill Out session to find out more/

Relax and have a beer while discussing some of the biggest obstacles to moving up the ladder and some of the biggest opportunities that’ll get you promoted. Listen and learn or share your thoughts.

When one considers how many other business improvement processes have come and gone during this time, it is only because the RCM process has consistently delivered exceptional results to those that have used it that this process continues to survive, grow and even thrive in today’s competitive market place.

Unfortunately not all processes purported to be RCM are in fact RCM. This fact was recognized long ago and drove the effort to produce RCM standard SAE JA1011- “Evaluation Criteria for Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) Processes”.

This paper shall present the argument for conducting full RCM analysis based on the authors 15 plus years of RCM experience both as the US Navy’s Submarine Directorate RCM Program Manager, and as a private industry consultant mentoring with renowned Classical™ RCM pioneer Anthony “Mac” Smith. During this period the author has executed RCM by most means possible and has seen what works and what does not. Moreover the author has seen firsthand the unsatisfactory results obtained through so-called “stream lined” RCM processes. JA1011 defines 7 steps that must be accomplished in analyzing a system by RCM. Omitting any step affects the quality and outcome of the analysis. For RCM to be done correctly all SEVEN steps must at least be thought of. And if you are thinking about all seven steps it makes no sense to not document them.

The author shall describe the necessity of the full RCM process to “get it right”.

Most people think of Excel as only an application for creating spreadsheets, but it's an excellent tool for capturing each element of a complete root cause analysis. By changing the way details are documented, a facilitator can improve the entire investigation process. The drawing tools are simple, flexible and Excel is probably already on your computer. Learn to take advantage of Excel's capabilities to change the way you investigate and prevent problems within your company.

The Cause Mapping Template in Microsoft Excel document both problems and processes clearly and quickly. The Cause Mapping template is available for Excel 2003 and Excel 2007. There are several different worksheets within the Cause Mapping template that organize each element of the root cause analysis. This presentation includes summary pages for the 16 best tips using the drawing tool in Excel 2003 and Excel 2007.

With a successful implementation, SAP EAM can meet the unique maintenance and reliability needs of any customer. This presentation will focus on implementation roadmaps ranging from a big bang project to a tiered approach for those new or already running SAP EAM.

Have you ever heard the saying don’t try this at home – we are trained professionals.

Well what about don’t try this at work. Is your company under pressure to reduce risks and costs. Do you need to increase productivity, improve quality and reduce time to market. Will changing your maintenance strategy deliver those needs. What will you change in your maintenance strategy to meet those needs. Is RCM the answer. Wouldn’t it be great if someone was prepared to talk about how they successfully implemented RCM companywide for all their assets. Would you like answers to ?

• Where did you start from, did you already have a planned maintenance program?
• Why did you decide RCM was the answer for you?
• How did you develop the business case ?
• How did you kick off the RCM implementation ?
• Were there lots of people involved ?
• What were their roles and responsibilities ?
• How did you go about developing the RCM models ?
• What drives your maintenance budget and is it zero based ?
• How did you arrive at your RCM maintenance plans, was that easy ?
• How did you transfer those RCM maintenance plans into your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, was that easy ?
• Did you have time constraints ?
• Did you encounter problems ?
• Does your system deliver useful information and how is it used ?
• What further developments are you involved in ?
• And if you had to do it again what would you change ?

In a copresentation with their client KT will discuss the challenges and journey that the client undertook in an effort to improve the effectiveness of right first time root cause analysis and create a more involved proactive culture for plant and process problem identification, analysis and prevention.

This paper will discuss how Arnold AFB /ATA capital project managers are involved in working with the operators and maintainers to build reliability and maintainability in new or modified assets to optimize life cycle costs.

Experience gathered by a dozen of RCM Practitioners over almost two decades of RCM installations for diverse branches of industry on hundreds of sites in 20 countries of America and Europe, have shown that the most challenging step is the actual IMPLEMENTATION of the RCM conclusions.

The tasks defined by the RCM analysis, must be fully and thoroughly performed. The requisites and the steps to achieve this, which in turn is the purpose of the whole exercise, must be clearly understood, planned and controlled.

As links in a “chain of events”, if any one single link of such chain is weak, unreliable or not built in, the whole effort is doomed to fail.

Which are these unavoidable links which will assure the sought results ?

While the crises seen in late 2008 and early 2009 has been averted, the current business climate has reduced consumer demand and this is driving companies to continue focusing on cost reduction to improve profitability.

This downturn also means that operating risk profiles may have changed, which makes the maintenance budget a primary target for cost reduction. To optimize both risk and cost, the interrelationships between reliability, maintenance and operations must be considered. It is well know and accepted that reliability and maintenance are inextricable woven together and the fate of each group is tied to the success of the other. Further, operations personnel work with the equipment on a daily basis and their operating knowledge can provide key information to identify and prevent processes and conditions that lead to equipment damage. Using this knowledge in a failure based, FMEA driven maintenance strategy will yield more cost effective risk reduction tasks and linking the operators into the work management system will provide a more effective method of work identification.

This presentation discusses how to create and leverage sustainable, operator interactive, failure driven maintenance strategies as a method to achieve these goals.

RCM is a very powerful tool for selecting optimal maintenance tasks based on the functional needs and criticality of each asset. However as the tasks are being selected, considerations of Run-To-Fail (RTF) options often come up. In addition, as actual Preventive Maintenance and Condition Based Maintenance tasks are considered, spare parts concerns and strategy often play a factor in that consideration.

This paper will discuss how RTF decisions and task types influence the spare parts strategy. Other considerations such as “Lead Time-To-Repair,” outage costs, outage criticality, and selection of in-house vs. vendor supplied spares also come into play and are discussed in this paper.

In addition, spare parts prioritization due to budget limitations often dictate what the spare parts inventory allowance is. The strategy of weighing outage costs, criticality, spare parts availability and other cost considerations is discussed.

How could an aging workforce benefit from modern technologies and an increased focus on usability and user experience?

The 78 million US baby-boomers are starting to retire and the group of 48 million generation X:ers and the tech savvy generation Y following them is too small to replace the baby boomers. On top of this the younger work force has completely different work expectations and demands which complicate the picture – creating a management challenge and even the risk of a workforce vacuum. As part of these issues we also need to address that tacit knowledge is mobile – knowledge that only resides within the heads of company personnel walks right out of the door every night.

How can we capture the knowledge of the baby-boomers and how can we become more efficient in the way we work? How can we address these issues with modern IT technology?

In the last couple of years a quantum leap has been taken in IT when it comes to how we search, navigate, collaborate, personalize or mash-up our applications. Much of this has been driven via social internet platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Delicious, open source coding, etc but as the efficiency of the tools have proven their case, they are now slowly starting to impact also the tools and work processes we use professionally like CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management Software) or EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) systems. On top of these trends is an increased focus on usability and user efficiency. This actually enables an aging workforce to compete greatly with the younger iPod generation also from an application perspective.

This paper and presentation discusses how fear of success can cripple reliability initiatives at the individual and the corporate level. Are we currently being as objective as we should be when we remain immersed in the day to day crisis management? Are we scared of success? Some simple tools such as Johari Windows and force field analysis will be introduced that can be used to help identify roadblocks and develop strategies that can give us a different perspective moving forward.

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