An EAM cannot be very effective without a list of all equipment used in
the facilities. Employing a comprehensive equipment taxonomy is
the foundation for a value added EAM system. This includes a
listing of all equipment categories, classes and types. Once all
of the equipment types have been identified a list of technical
characteristics should be created. These technical characteristics
typically come from the manufacturer in an equipment datasheet.
Finally a list of all codes associated with each type of equipment must
be delineated. SAP-EAM offers a fairly robust set of fields to
document equipment history. However, the codes themselves must be
developed by the enterprise using the solution. Some of the key
fields on an SAP-EAM notification are the object part, damage, activity
and cause codes. SAP-EAM allows for the creation of catalogs to
associate various sets of codes to different types of equipment.
It even allows the end user to enter multiple items when there are
multiple components addressed on a single notification. This is
important as many repair notifications involve multiple components.
There are also fields to identify the problem, whether the event was a
breakdown and a myriad of date fields. The success of SAP-EAM
begins with the creation of complete equipment taxonomy.
The
purpose of EAM systems is to allow for the creation of job plans so that
work can be planned and ultimately scheduled. In order to do this
it is critical to have a method for developing equipment strategies.
This is often done with tools and methodologies related to Reliability
Centered Maintenance or RCM. There are many flavors of RCM being
employed in industry. The key is to have a basis for when to
employ a give task and for what reason (e.g. what failure mode is being
addressed). This can be a lengthy exercise but done
"practically" can be a real benefit to your maintenance and
reliability efforts.
Of
course none of this works without clear and defined work processes to
execute the work, document the history and maintain the system.
People must be trained in the use of the system as it pertains to their
role and function. For example, if a mechanic is expected to
document history on a notification then they should be trained in the
taxonomy and how the codes are to be used. There are many
workflows and roles and each must be given thorough review. The
key to a successful implementation is to make sure that everyone who
needs to interact with the system knows their role and has the training
and skill to execute their given task(s).
There
are, of course, many other aspects to SAP-EAM that have not been covered
here. These would include thing like material management, bills of
material and others. The key, however is to make sure that if you
are implementing SAP-EAM or any other EAM system it is important to
consider the issues discussed here. To learn more about SAP-EAM
you can check out our iPresentation on www.reliabilityweb.com.
http://www.reliabilityweb.com/forms/prg_reg.htm
Also,
check out this article on Best
Practices for SAP-PM Maintenance History Documentation.
Utilizing
maintenance history for reliability analysis
If
you are going to go to the trouble of collecting maintenance history
data in your CMMS/EAM system you should be prepared to use that data for
decision making. There are a number of uses for good quality
maintenance history. It is often the data required to generate Key
Performance Indicators (KPI's) for maintenance and reliability.
For example, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) is a very common metric
used to evaluate the performance of a reliability initiative. This
metric can be calculated using data extracted from maintenance history.
Maintenance
history can also be used for more advance reliability analysis
techniques like AMSAA Growth trending and Distribution Analysis like
Weibull. These techniques allow you to see patterns in the data
that can be useful in determining when another failure might occur, when
to take preventive action and even assist in the root cause analysis
efforts for chronic failures. These techniques do not require a
lot of data elements nor do they require a lot of event data. For
example, Weibull Analysis is often used to help plan shutdown/turnaround
activities. A number of process plants use this tool to determine
when the most appropriate time is to replace heat exchanger bundles.
To
learn more about some of these techniques you can download a recent
paper presented at a Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professional
(SMRP) conference.
http://www.practicalreliabilitygroup.com/SMRP_2003_Reliability_Analysis.htm
Using
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) on process related issues
Most people consider using Root Cause Analysis when they have a
catastrophic failure. Many times it is a mechanical failure like a
fractured drive shaft or leak on a critical vessel. These are
definitely events that would benefit from a disciplined RCA process.
However, these failures tend to be sporadic in nature.
RCA
processes can and should be applied to chronic events. More
specifically, they can be applied to process events and failures.
For example, if you have a system designed to cool a product to a
certain temperature but the temperature is consistently high, than an
RCA could be the catalyst to find out the cause(s) of the high
temperature.
RCA
is particularly good for these types of repetitive events/failures
because there is typically a great deal of data surrounding the problem.
Since these issues are often ongoing, you have the ability to collect
data as needed. For sporadic failures you really only get one
opportunity to get the failure information and then it is gone.
If
you are experiencing recurring process upsets consider using RCA to help
pinpoint the source of the problem. Often it is a simple fix to
correct the issue but you first have to identify the specific cause(s).
To
learn more about this topic you can check out Ken Latino's upcoming SMRP
presentation in
Birmingham
,
Alabama
the week of October 22-25, 2006.
http://www.smrp.org/pdf/confPC27%201.pdf
Check out the NEW 3rd Edition of Ken and
Bob Latino
's book on the PROACT® Root Cause Analysis Methodology.
BUY
IT NOW!
News
and Upcoming Events
This
highly interactive workshop is designed to demonstrate the benefits of
defect elimination while providing the PROACT® tools and techniques to
make it all happen. Click
here to learn more...
PRG
is working closely with the Society of Maintenance and Reliability
Professionals (SMRP) to form a new local chapter in the Roanoke Valley
of Virginia. Is you are interested please contact Ken Latino (klatino@practicalreliabilitygroup.com)
to learn more.
