IMEC 2008

Speaker Line Up

The Five-Day RCA
Sam Badir, Equipment Maintenance and Reliability (EMR), Canada

This presentation will cover what it takes to conduct an effective RCA in five days including recognizing a problem and forming an effective team, investigating and analyzing, getting to the root cause(s), appropriate actions and control/follow-up. Don’t miss out on this very effective and powerful model for RCA.

Optimizing Preventive Replacement Intervals for Underground Mining Equipment
Keith Bowness, Xstrata Nickel, Canada

Work order data for scoop and truck components collected at Xstrata Nickel’s Craig Mine during the period January 2005 to April 2008 was analyzed to understand the failure behaviors of the components for the purpose of optimizing the preventive maintenance intervals. (The work order data set consists of about 70,000 rows of records that were extracted from the corporate database at Xstrata). Failure frequency, failure downtime, and cost for all the components were analyzed using the graphical tools of Pareto histograms and Jack-knife scatter plots in order to provide helpful information for smart determination of maintenance priorities for the purpose of maintenance scheduling. Reliability trend analysis was performed on the age (failure) data to check whether the failure of a component has a significant reliability trend (either growth or deterioration). For those components without an observed significant reliability trend, Weibull analysis was conducted to obtain the failure distributions. With the fitted failure distributions, the optimal preventive replacement intervals for the components were then determined to minimize the total cost. The presentation will provide a summary of the results of the investigation including feedback from each mechanical crew that was solicited to improve PMs.

Introduction to the NEMOSYS® E-Maintenance Platform
Pascal Bressy, DCNS, France

In the context of optimizing life cycle costs, our current Navy customers require improvement of warships instantaneous operational availability and reduction in crew size. The DCNS mode of achieving this is NEMOSYS®, an innovative concept of e-maintenance. NEMOSYS® is structured around a data-processing platform, characterized by nine services that are organized according to the pre, during, and post maintenance phases, through a collaborative maintenance approach between the warship and centre.

NEMOSYS® presents the warships' current health situation through an assessment, displaying warnings related to degradation and alarms characterizing failures in real time by a data-processing network related to the mechanical and electronic systems of the ship. NEMOSYS® has a diagnostic function that assesses all probable causes related to the displayed symptoms and then its prognosis function propagates the current situation in order to extrapolate the evolution of the issues at hand.

This intelligent and proactive maintenance approach, based on the treatment of the workflow of warnings and alarms, uses scientific algorithms to facilitate the maintenance decision making of the operator or external support. NEMOSYS® also allows transferring of this information to a CMMS tool, which can be useful in the dynamic management of maintenance tasks. It's e-knowledge function also facilitates the consultation of electronic documentation by using a powerful search engine and training course with e-learning modules. The capitalization function transforms data collection into knowledge management of the whole warshp fleet and suggests related solutions in order to optimize maintenance planning.

Asset Strategy Management: Optimizing Your Investment in Production Assets
Chris DeFalco, Meridium, Inc., U.S.

A strategy is a set of actions that are developed and managed as a plan to optimize the investment of assets for business benefits. Progressive companies are interested in using technology to compare their strategy options, review mitigating actions and their associated failure risks, and automate the implementation of strategies in various work management systems. They can then analyze their existing plans and validate current activities, as well as establish a baseline for improvement. This presentation will feature a case study of how one major U.S. chemical company uses Asset Strategy Management to comprehensively manage its strategies, risks and mitigation costs.

Value Driven Maintenance® - Finally Grip on Maintenance Performance
Guy Delahay, Mainnovation, Netherlands

If you think World Class Maintenance or Lean Maintenance is the answer, what is actually the question?

How to derive a maintenance strategy that is really adding value to your company’s business?
How to determine what core competencies have to be improved and how are they linked to the strategy and your KPIs?
How to achieve continuous improvement in Maintenance?

New trends, derived from World Class Manufacturing or Lean Manufacturing, surprisingly don’t give the full answers to these questions. Of course it sounds challenging to aim for the World Class Maintenance (WCM, or World Class Reliability, WCR) level, but this level has not yet been defined properly anywhere. Even a highly rewarded quantitative method like Six Sigma hasn’t brought breakthrough results in the Maintenance arena, mainly because maintenance data is too poor to apply these kind of statistical techniques. What about Lean Maintenance, which has been getting a lot of publicity lately due to some good results of Lean Manufacturing? Well, it must be all about eliminating waste, so distinguishing between value adding and non-value adding maintenance activities. But in contradiction to the detailed description in Lean Manufacturing of how to eliminate non-value adding production activities, in Lean Maintenance there is not yet a definition which aims to eliminate or not. But the answer indeed is in exploring the (added) value potential. Lately, the word ‘value’ has been misused in maintenance literatures. This shouldn’t be the case, because the value (potential) of maintenance has been clearly described in Value Driven Maintenance® (VDM).

VDM is the first, and so far, only methodology that shows a maintenance organization how to reveal its value potential, set clear and realistic improvement targets, give focus and embed continuous value creation (or continuous improvement) in the organization. It focuses on dynamic measuring of value creation opportunities, selection of the most appropriate steps/techniques to go after the potential instead of advocating one best technique for all situations. Being able to show the actual added value of maintenance in a business perspective has helped to put the topic of Maintenance on the agenda of the Board. But VDM is more than just a set of financial (Net Present Value) formulas or a new language to ‘impress’ the Board. It gives the modern Maintenance Manager a practical ‘Planning & Control’ framework (Plan – Do – Check – Act), the ability to prioritize between breakthrough measures and nice-to-have initiatives and an intuitive selection of relevant best (or just better) practices. Based on what has been achieved before in the same industry, based on validated benchmark information. Value Driven Maintenance® is a start to finish approach. It is a platform to collect, describe and exchange internal and external best practices. It delivers a full maintenance planning & control framework supported by modern tools like the EAM/CMMS VDM Control Panel. Welcome to the next generation in maintenance management.

Industrial Requirements of a Prognostics Platform
Marco Garetti, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

In today's competitive global marketplace, there is an intense pressure for manufacturing industries to continuously reduce and eliminate costly, unscheduled downtime and unexpected breakdowns. Moreover, fast growth of computer, communication and information technologies have changed the pattern of maintenance. New maintenance approaches, namely prognostics and e-maintenance, have emerged and are gradually replacing the traditional maintenance solutions. This presentation will discuss the industrial requirements for the design of an e-maintenance and prognostics platform. The research is carried out within the Intellimech Consortium, a new Italian initiative in the applied research field, which includes 25 industrial companies and aims at contributing and spreading out knowledge and managerial culture on maintenance engineering.

Incorporating Reliability Concepts on One of the Most Important Systems of the Paranal Observatory
Sergio Gonzalez, European Southern Observatory - La Silla Paranal Observatory, Chile

Since the start of operations of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Hydraulic Bearing System (HBS) has been affected by several types of failures. Most of these initial failures were fixed but some failures still remain in the operation of the HBS. The Maintenance Strategy applied on this system consists in the execution of maintenance job plans on the mechanical and electrical parts. Oil analysis, thermography, hydraulic test, etc., are some of the maintenance tasks carried out on this system. These job plans, combined with the support by the Engineering Department who performs specific hydraulic tests, have helped to reduce the quantity of functional failures detected in this system. However, several potential failures have been detected while in evolution, thus avoiding functional failures. In general terms, the HBS is composed of 36 hydrostatic bearing pads distributed along the altitude and azimuth axis. The system is fed by a central hydraulic unit equipped with a 1600 liters oil tank, screw pumps and filters. The entire system is controlled by a central PLC with numerous pressure and temperature sensors. In the following presentation we will analyze the HBS showing: " The evolution of the failures reported and failures modes. " The behavior of potential failures and events of functional failures. " Relation between potential vs. functional failures. " Equipments with the most potential failures that have been identified.

144 kV Wood Pole End of Life Study
Goran Ivkovic, ATCO Electric, Canada

As high-voltage transmission wood structures continue to age, there is an increasing need to allocate appropriate funding for pole maintenance and replacement. This study uses a statistical approach to analyze the replacement trends of common 144 kV wood pole types in ATCO Electric transmission system, in order to predict their effective length of life and allocate appropriate capital maintenance funds.

Industry-Guided Research: Recent Developments in Maintenance Optimization
Dr. Andrew Jardine, University of Toronto, Canada

This presentation will outline research directions resulting from close collaboration in North America and Europe within the industrial sectors of mining, utilities, military and process industries such as steel-making and pulp and paper.

The focus will be on new developments in the optimization of maintenance decisions in four key areas, namely: condition-based maintenance, capital/emergency spares, protective devices and maintenance scheduling.

Reliability and Its Application in the Printing Industry
Gregory Kott, Xerox, United States

While most people who use printing products are familiar with attributes such as image quality and the ability to handle a wide variety of media types, few people are familiar with the importance of system reliability to the success of printing products. This is true for expensive production systems, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as for desktop products at the $100 price point.

At Xerox, approximately 70% of our total revenue comes from post-sales service. The general industry model is to provide customers a guaranteed level of uptime for a fixed monthly fee. This model places system reliability as a critically important factor, one that can make or break a product, independent of other important attributes. This talk will give an overview of the xerographic printing process and also show how Xerox uses reliability in product design and development.

Business Applications for iPod Generations
Anders Lif, IFS World Operations, Sweden

If we could improve user productivity of all IT systems by 10%, it would have a dramatic influence on the bottom line. However the traditional focus when designing IT applications has been on adding technology and functionality rather that improving user productivity. In this session, we take a look at the next generation of IT applications and the impact of designing systems for optimized employee efficiency. Human Computer Interaction research, Rich Internet Applications, new information controls and visualization, Web 2.0, and seamless integration of free internet resources are all used when building business applications for the iPod generations. Why should we not use them to increase the usability and agility of our business applications?

Value and Risk-Based Asset Management
John Mitchell, U.S.

One of the primary challenges facing any asset management program is prioritizing opportunities to match resources - there are always more of the former than the latter! Rather than beginning an optimizing process from the bottom with one or more programs such as RCM, TPM, RCA, Work Management, etc., industry leaders are beginning to identify opportunities from the top based on statistical analysis and factors such as risk, lost production and increased business value. Programs, practice and technology are then selected to address and provide greatest results for specific improvement opportunities. This is far more effective when compared to selecting a program first and hoping value will be discovered somewhere along the implementing path. In addition to the well-known Pareto analysis, leaders are utilizing Weibull and comprehensive risk analyses to identify and prioritize improvement opportunities by value potential. Whether these or other methods are employed, accurate, accessible data and powerful analytical methods are a must. The concept of asset management as a top down, master process driven by statistical analyses of variations from performance and cost objectives may be somewhat unconventional. With that stated, centering an asset management program upon the localization and prioritization of opportunities for improvement by value potential offers major opportunities for increased effectiveness during initial implementation as well as within a mature program. This paper will outline the processes used by several industry leaders as well as factors driving them in this direction and results gained to date.

Maintenance Performance Measurement Survey in Belgium Companies
Peter Muchiri, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

In the face of the current global competition and increasing demands from customers, there is a basic business demand to improve manufacturing performance. The performance and competitiveness of manufacturing companies is dependent on the reliability, availability and productivity of their production equipments. Equipment maintenance and system reliability are therefore important factors that affect the organization's ability to provide quality and timely services to customers and be ahead of the competition.

These factors have put the performance of the maintenance function into the spot light. One of the key issues is to verify that the maintenance activities planned and executed have given the desired results. Maintenance managers therefore need a good track of performance on maintenance processes and results through a complete set of precisely defined performance measures/indicators. In turn, this would help identification of performance gaps between the existing and desired performance and provide indication of progress towards improvement.

In this presentation, the results of a maintenance performance measurement survey in Belgium/ European companies will be examined. The survey questionnaire was focused on maintenance managers, and the objective of the survey was to: gain insights into the use of maintenance performance indicators in the industry; investigate the influence of manufacturing environment on the choice of maintenance focus and indicators; and finally investigate the effective use of the indicators in practice. From the survey results, some correlation between the manufacturing environment and the choice of indicators were mapped. The indicators proposed in theory were also compared with the ones used in practice where popular categories of indicators were identified. Finally, the frequency of measurement and effective use of the indicators were analyzed.

The Power of Effectively Using Operational and Maintenance Data in Commercial Aviation
Vasil Rambi, Bombardier Inc., Canada

We are experiencing today an economic downturn and increasing cost of fuel. One of the industries that are feeling the dramatic consequences of these events is the commercial aviation community, especially the maintenance and engineering departments of the airlines and customer support and engineering groups of the airframe manufacturers and suppliers. While the interpretation and analysis of various maintenance and operational data has always been important in aviation, in today's situation it has become critical and instrumental for re-establishing and maintaining the health of the industry for the long term. The presentation will offer an overview of maintenance engineering data and analysis used in aviation and attempt to respond to the following questions: (1) What are the different types of operational and maintenance data used in commercial aviation? (2) How is the operational and maintenance data effectively used by airlines and aircraft manufacturers in order to reach and maintain the highest levels of safety and inherent reliability of the aircraft at the lowest possible cost? (3) How do aircraft manufacturers, suppliers and operators work together to streamline data exchange and maximize effective use of analysis? (4) What benefits will the airlines and airframe manufacturers have if they invest in collecting and sharing their operational and maintenance data and results of their analysis?

Asset Management - An Essential for Sustainable Business
James Reyes-Picknell, Conscious Asset Management, Canada

Maintenance management evolves as we gain knowledge of failure mechanisms, predictive technologies and management techniques. We've moved from technician to manager, and now to key business decision maker. Asset Management is about managing the life cycle of our physical assets from concept to disposal and clean-up. It's about sustainability and not just repair and maintenance management. It includes engineering, the management of people and the management of business risks.

Excellence at repairs and root cause analysis is no longer enough. If we are not proactive we put our companies at risk. We are stewards of physical assets just as those in finance take care of financial assets, those in IT look after information assets and those in human resources manage our human assets. Proactive approaches to managing risks are being demanded by shareholders, regulatory bodies, lawmakers and those all reflect the public's growing awareness of the importance of sustainability as it applies in all aspects of human endeavour. We create our own environment - "existence is but an extension of yourself."

In fact if we peel away the onion skin we see that we are responsible for more than just physical assets. We provide productive capacity, delivery capability, customer service, warmth, comfort, movement, energy and more. Without what we do, society as we know it decays to a state of chaos. Look at the result of Hurricane Katrina that destroyed so much of New Orleans in 2005, the 2004 Tsunami that devastated infrastructure in several countries surrounding the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea and Cyclone Nargis that destroyed large parts of Burma's coastline and rice production capacity in May 2008. Those are examples of our dependence on our physical assets. They are also examples of how we create our own problems. James will provoke thought and discussion, encouraging us to raise the bar substantially in delivering on our mission.

Maintenance Excellence Challenges, Evaluations, and Best Practices
Arthur Rice, Maintenance Technology Magazine, U.S.

Using some of the major challenges to maintenance excellence as his starting point, Art Rice, president of Applied Technology Publications, publishers of Maintenance Technology and Lubrication Management & Technology magazines and their related websites, poses the 10 key questions you need to ask yourself in your quest for excellence and offers a variety of best practices to help you along the way as revealed through the North American Maintenance Excellence (NAME) Award program. Any maintenance professional desiring to move toward excellence in today’s difficult environment will be inspired and enlightened by this presentation.

Evidence-Based Analysis of Maintenance Practices in Community Hospital
Tammy Sieminowski, Bridgepoint Hospital, Canada

Bridgepoint Hospital is a 475-bed rehabilitation and complex chronic care facility in downtown Toronto. In-patients occupy electronically operated hospital beds, which are subject to component failure. The resulting bed failures disrupt patient care and consume valuable nursing time. Currently, components are replaced only on failure. Using existing component replacement data, analysis was undertaken to provide evidence-based recommendations regarding optimal replacement policies for these components.

Uncovering Hidden Maintenance Capacity
Ed Stanek Jr., LAI Reliability Inc., U.S.

With backlogs exceeding available labour hours and sites looking for greater reliability, many maintenance teams are seeking out additional resources. In most cases, this capacity can be found within our existing process by identifying loss that is consuming our valuable labour hours. By measuring the Availability, Performance and Quality at the process level, we can look way beyond the elusive “wrench-time”. This approach will identify and minimize specific loss to elevate the capacity of your workforce. Once measured, we can apply PMOptimization and drive Planning & Scheduling in a Constraint-Based approach to optimize our process. Many have doubled productivity using this approach which allowed the new-found capacity to fuel additive reliability programs.

From Business Best Practice to Effective CBM
Ben Stevens, OMDEC Inc., Canada

Modern maintenance techniques – especially RCM – have greatly stimulated the use of Condition Monitoring and Condition-Based maintenance, and rightly so. However not all CBM is effective – either from the viewpoint of preventing failure or in the context of cost-effective maintenance. We will lay the foundations for how business best practices can be used to tune your CBM program. Applying business rules, we will explore when CBM is effective and will produce positive results – equally, when it is not effective and therefore should be avoided. Two general models for comparing CBM cost effectiveness to alternative tactics will be presented, and the linkages among CBM, RCM and CMMS will be explored.

Condition-Based Maintenance of Mechanical Components in Aircraft Systems
Will Tian, Concordia University, Canada

Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is an advanced maintenance strategy used to achieve the reliable and cost-effective operation of aircraft systems. CBM is based on the understanding that a piece of equipment goes through multiple degraded states before it fails. These degraded states, or health conditions, can be monitored and predicted, and optimal maintenance actions can be scheduled accordingly. In this talk, we focus on condition-based maintenance of mechanical components in aircraft systems, such as bearings and gears. Significant progress has been made in this area. We will summarize the current situation in this area as well as some challenging research issues.

A New Approach to Forecasting O, M and A Costs in an Electrical Utility
Joe Toneguzzo, Ontario Power Authority, Canada

As the average age of the equipment making up most of the developed world’s electricity transmission systems increases, many utilities are beginning to experience higher overall work requirements in both the planned and unplanned maintenance that is required to keep the systems operating in a safe, reliable and environmentally responsible manner. This trend, coupled with a regulatory movement toward fixing rates over a prolonged period of time and demanding more transparency on the factors affecting long-term costs, has resulted in the need for utilities to develop models capable of forecasting Operations and Maintenance (O & M) costs over longer periods of time.

To develop these tools, a large North American utility worked with external experts to develop and apply industry-accepted methods to improve the forecasting of these costs. These methods included the use of historical utility maintenance and demographic data combined with information elicitation from the utility maintenance experts and the utilization of a Bayesian approach. These methods were complemented with the unbiased expert opinion provided by the industry experts. This work revealed a number of key discoveries about the historical data, expert opinions and mathematical methods required to conduct such studies, and developed a model which provides valuable new information for use in decision making within the traditional business planning process used by the utility. The presentation describes the costing model, data mining and analysis performed, the results obtained and their application within the decision making process.

Effective Partnerships Help Drive Sustainable Success
Ben Venter, ABB Inc., Canada

In today’s increasingly competitive business environment, challenges and risks associated with investing in plant improvements are higher than ever. For this reason, companies investing in operational improvements may wish to partner with world-class organizations that have expertise in complementary areas that can help accelerate short-term benefits and long-term productivity. This presentation will outline the key elements of a successful partnership and highlight examples from ABB Full Service, a partnership arrangement that improves plant operations through maintenance expertise.

Operational Excellence at Gallatin Steel
Eric Wegscheider, Ivara Corp., Canada

The bottom-line impact that unexpected equipment failure has on production capacity is well understood by Gallatin. When you can sell everything that you can produce, unexpected equipment failures can have a dramatic affect on bottom line results. This session will provide insight into how Gallatin Steel uses Ivara EXP Life Cycle Optimization and Weibull analysis tools to support better business decision making and improve operational effectiveness. The Maintenance department at Gallatin Steel supports proactive practices and utilizes the latest asset performance software to further their competitive advantage in the steel industry. Attend this session and learn how Gallatin applies advanced statistical tools to improve capital planning and optimize ongoing maintenance practices and operation of their existing Liebherr cranes while developing a business case to acquire additional material handling capacity. Also discover how Gallatin applies Weibull analysis to refine the maintenance program of key assets to improve steel production in a capacity-constrained environment.

Building a Living RCM Tool into the JDEdwards CMMS
David Williams, Teck Cominco, Canada

In 2000, Teck Cominco began an intensive effort to apply a version of RCM to their Trail Operations. This effort resulted in some significant benefits, however, over time the outcome of the analyses became obsolete in two ways.

First, the records could not reflect the significant improvement in the business climate and its impact on Operational Consequences, and therefore the validity of some of the maintenance decisions. Second, it was difficult to keep the records synchronized with the changes being made to the maintenance tasks in the CMMS as a result of improved knowledge and experience.

This presentation reviews our development of an integrated RCM tool, based on SAE JA1011, into JDEdwards, our CMMS, and how the tool is set up to maintain a living record of our maintenance strategies and decisions.

Dynamic Inventory Optimization for Spare Parts Management
Li Zhuang, IBM Global Service, Canada

Spare parts management is a critical and integral process in any service and maintenance organization; having the right part at the right location at the right time dramatically improves asset availability as well as customer satisfaction. Yet according to a recent Aberdeen survey, two thirds of the polled companies indicated that their biggest hindrance to improving customer satisfaction and managing costs is in accurately forecasting demand for the parts. The second most commonly cited challenge is determining and maintaining parts and safety stock inventory.

While industry has invested heavily in technologies such as ERP, CMMS and advanced planning & scheduling systems (APS) in an effort to streamline and enable business processes, most of these technologies rely on users to input static inventory target and inventory policy parameters. Often these parameter settings are based on simple rules or simple calculation with incorrect underlying assumption such as Poisson or Normal demand distribution. As a result, inventory levels in many companies are far from optimal resulting in excessive inventory for some parts and posing risk in meeting target service level for other parts.

In this presentation, the author will introduce an advanced inventory optimization and replenishment tool known as Dynamic Inventory Optimization Solution (DIOS). DIOS was developed more than ten years ago by IBM Math Research Lab to help IBM customers solve complex inventory optimization problems. It has since evolved to provide much richer functionality such as demand forecasting, safety stock calculation, and replenishment planning of various types of inventory including spare parts. DIOS has recently been integrated into IBM’s Maximo software – an industry lead strategic asset and service management system. The author will also describe how DIOS can contribute to manage MRO inventory.