Mike Sondalini — Thought Leader

I read your article that compares maintenance costs to RAV and am inquiring to see what is your definition of ‘maintenance cost’ when measuring replacement asset value? Are you strictly referring to labor costs, or is this the cost of labor, services and capital equipment purchases to repair, replace or upgrade an existing machine?

Dear Tom,

In the example, ‘maintenance costs’ meant the direct and overhead maintenance costs – labor, parts, subcontract services and allocated overheads (i.e. supervision, management, associated infrastructure, etc. proportioned to direct labor hours) – incurred during the ‘normal’ operation of the car (i.e. the car is driven by a well-trained, responsible driver at the wheel). If you have a store/warehouse for maintenance parts then you add the proportionate cost of keeping and running the store to support the maintenance effort as part of the total cost of maintenance.

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Plant and Equipment Wellness (PEW) is a Physics of Failure based methodology for equipment failure prevention and defect elimination that results in the fewest activities, least resources and lowest expenditure to produce outstanding operational equipment reliability. PEW identifies the necessary business-wide processes and departmental actions an organisation needs to apply to get high plant and equipment availability. With high uptime comes more productivity, higher operating profits, and less capital expenditure. 

As much as possible PEW uses simple techniques that can be done by shopfloor people. Most companies do not have large staffs of university trained maintenance and reliability professionals. They have knowledgeable and experienced maintenance practitioners that know their plant and equipment. PEW does not require specialist RAMS software that none but mathematicians can understand, that very few companies can afford to buy or contract, and requires assumptions about the future that are hopeful at best. 

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Any standard EAM system can be adapted to achieve Operational Excellence with the PWW EAM methodology.

Rather than going from policy to practice, Plant Wellness Way starts with how to create a healthy environment for parts microstructure when equipment is in-service. By focusing on creating healthy operating environments for components, machines, equipment, and plants, your operation will perform at world-class levels of reliability.

The standard range of Enterprise Asset Management models available will typically use an EAM Policy to decree the purposes of the EAM system. From this statement processes and practices necessary to achieve the EAM Policy aims are chosen. People will then aim to meet the policy requirements for their team or department without taking the flow on consequences into account. As a result, businesses will unintentionally create an EAM system that instils randomness and variability into the company. In this situation is it nearly impossible to create a system that achieves operational excellence success.

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An example of an Accuracy Controlled Enterprise ACE 3T (Target – Tolerance – Test) Procedure with reliability standards to install taper spherical roller bearings on adaptor sleeves in Plummer blocks with taconite seals for 30mm-250mm diameter conveyor shafts 

 Machine performance is totally dependent on human beings. To address the problem of human error causing equipment failure, an Accuracy Controlled Enterprise sets best practice quality standards and uses 3T Target-Tolerance-Test work task quality control that assures high quality workmanship for high reliability results. Their work procedures are standardised so everyone follows the same methods to produce the same results, their training teaches people how to do craftsmanship work that creates outstandingly reliable plant and machinery. They create the reliability they want and as a result achieve operational excellence.

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ENSURING YOUR MANAGEMENT DESIGN-IN OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE TO GUARANTEE THE LASTING SURVIVAL OF YOUR COMPANY IS WHY QUALITY GURU W. EDWARDS DEMING ASKED HIS FAMOUS “WHAT?” AND “HOW?” QUESTIONS.

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Deming would expect that managers had a solid answer to the question: “If you want your company to reach Operational Excellence in the next five years, then explain to us all, EXACTLY HOW will you do it?”

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WHEN YOU DO A RELIABILITY FAILURE STUDY LOOKING TO PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS AGAINST LARGE UNCOMMON FAILURES, AND THOSE FAILURES THAT ARE VERY COMMON BUT THOUGHT TO BE TOO SMALL TO BE A SERIOUS PROBLEM, BE SURE TO DO LIFETIME FINANCIAL ANALYSIS WHEN DECIDING THE FAILURES TO INVESTIGATE

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I am to do a reliability failure study and would like to know the definition of repetitive failure with respect to some recognized reliability standard.

We want to apply the recommendations in the standard for failure codes in our CMMS system to decide which equipment failures need a reliability failure study. For example, we have a centrifugal pump bearing fail twice in a year. I am of the opinion this is a repetitive failure.

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 All machines and equipment fail for two reasons—distortion or degradation. Distortion causes parts to suffer such high stress or fatigue that their atomic structures fail. When parts degrade their atomic structure is attacked by environmental elements. Physics of Failure methods lets us analyse equipment for situations that cause their parts’ atomic structures to suffer excessive stress, or to degrade. We can identify the real causes of atomic failure and so institute the fewest maintenance and operational activities to keep equipment at its highest reliability, and the operating plant at its highest availability.

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