19 / 40
Mechanical Technology — February 2016
17
maintenance –
from the last or even the last two surveys still in place? Similar
to the example of the failed motor, the fact that corrective
action needed to be taken was never brought to the attention
of that part of the organisation that was in a position to do
something about it.
The cause and fix for both examples seem entirely logical
and certainly very embarrassing and costly, but since there
have been multiple such incidents in a variety of organisa-
tions, it points to an endemic and common problem. In these
situations, there is no point fixing the symptoms. It is essential
to get at the root of the problem, which occurs for one simple
reason – the physical asset management system is deficient.
If it was as comprehensive and managed as it should be, then
reliability engineering, energy management and maintenance
would be brought closer together, since they have a common
objective in taking care of the physical assets of the organisa-
tion. In fact, let us consider just a few of the benefits applicable
to these assets that would have accrued from a mature asset
management system:
• The fact that condition monitoring was required would have
been a natural outcome from the asset criticality assessments
that would have been done.
• Historical failure analyses would have identified the most
appropriate monitoring regime, considering both technical
and economic factors.
• The necessity for getting asset health data back to mainte-
nance planners would have resulted in regular inspections and
alarm outputs going to the right people to respond to them.
• When a defect condition was detected, timeous corrective
action would have been initiated, planned, scheduled and
completed, with the necessary spares and resources made
available and the corrective action verified for efficacy.
• Plant performance would be routinely measured and reported
to top management.
• The statistics showing improved plant availability and ef-
ficiency would ensure ongoing management support.
• Because benefits to the organisation are quantified and vis-
ible, the sustainability of the plant’s proactive maintenance
strategy is ensured.
The term ‘physical asset management’ employed here is not
a loose one, but in the strict sense of the principles embodied
in the ISO 55000 series of standards and related documents.
It is the key to success for any asset intensive organisation
since it permits the knowledge and tools that are required
by the organisation to be harnessed in order to extract the
intended value from its assets, and so achieve its purpose. It
is a structured approach in which techniques and processes
are determined and formalised to allow such an organisa-
tion to both achieve and demonstrate that it is managing
its assets optimally. It fully supports all aspects of a mature
proactive maintenance strategy. This is well illustrated in the
chart opposite, which is an extract from the Institute of Asset
Management publication
‘Asset Management – an anatomy’
,
version 2, July 2014.
Seen in this light, how well is your condition monitoring inte-
grated into your asset management system and how well would
your enterprise asset management system (EAMS) perform?
q