FEATURE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT WHEN FAILURE SHOULD
NOT BE AN OPTION Establishing best practice in asset management
With proper asset management you can avoid unplanned downtime and catastrophic failures
time to repair (MTTR) that unit or find a replacement is excessive. This is where your process can become vulnerable. You may find yourself covered, in the short term, by implementing your standby unit, but you will also have reduced cover until the repaired unit is returned. This is where your spares and stock strategy needs to reflect the true crutiality ratings of the installed base. The solution to this is to use survey data to develop a suitable asset management strategy.
The role of asset management within a functioning production line should not be underestimated, but what does best practice look like? Andy Cruse, general manager for pumps at ERIKS reveals all
A
s any maintenance engineer will know, there is a correlation between
improving the reliability of critical assets, extending their mean time between failures (MTBF), and reducing warehouse costs. By bringing asset management into the equation, you unlock a host of additional benefits, such as: avoiding catastrophic failures, minimising unplanned downtime, rationalising spares purchasing, and reducing the overall unit costs of production caused by energy and raw materials wastage.
STARTING WITH CONDITION MONITORING The first step towards effective asset management is to establish a condition monitoring strategy. You can then identify any potential asset failures, and plan for repairs or swap-outs in a way that does not impact production. Identifying issues in their early stages also means that you can rectify them
32 JUNE 2018 | FACTORY EQUIPMENT
before a catastrophic failure occurs. If you are monitoring a pump, for example, and you notice that its performance is starting to drop off, you might simply need to replace wearing items. This is less costly and labour- intensive than replacing major components caused by an actual failure. It also prevents the faulty unit from compromising related equipment, or other parts of the process.
CAPITAL GOING SPARE? Getting the size and shape of your spares stock right can be difficult. No business wants unplanned downtime, but no business wants capital tied-up in spares that are only needed if a critical asset failure occurs, either. Imagine you have six pumps of the same type on your site. One unit failure may not impact the entire line - especially if you have a spare or standby unit installed. The problem can occur if the mean
SAFETY IN STATISTICS Let’s return to our six pumps. In order to prevent any catastrophic failures, our hypothetical maintenance engineer would need to know the criticality, MTBF, manufacturing lead time, and MTTR for each pump. Only with all of these facts and figures available would that person be able to develop a spares strategy that could optimise cost-effective spares coverage, and minimise production losses from an unpredicted asset failure.
THE ROOTS OF SUCCESS In my opinion, best practice in asset management involves a supplier that can advise you on the best possible purchasing and stocking decisions for sufficient coverage and reduced costs. In doing this, you can benefit from specialist knowledge of various types of equipment, as well as the suplier’s close relationships with leading manufacturers. Specialists in asset management also go beyond monitoring assets, predicting failures, and scheduling swap-outs and repairs. They maximise your MTNF by identifying the root causes of failures, and mtigating the potential for any reoccurances. Any critical asset can benefit from such strategies. Furthermore, in adhering to best practice and partnering with a specialist, you’re investing in the best-possible service, for your plant’s best-possible performance.
ERIKS
www.eriks.co.uk T: 020 3162 0771
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