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Operating
Philosophy and Reliability
By
V. Narayan
Author of
Effective Maintenance Management – Risk and Reliability
Strategies for Optimizing Performance
April 2004, Industrial Press Inc., ISBN 0-8311-3178-0
Click
here for a print friendly 27k PDF version
Operational reliability – that is what we actually achieve in our Plants, is almost always lower than the
intrinsic reliability that the Plants were designed and built to achieve. To bridge this gap, some managers
look for silver bullets. Thus RCM, TPM, Six Sigma or some other process is selected to improve reliability
performance. If these are not part of a well thought out plan, sustained results are hard to achieve. The plan
will follow steps such as those described below.
1. Get the basics right, viz., keeping machines clean, dry and lubricated
2. Define, communicate and enforce the Operating Philosophy correctly. In the process get operators
and maintainers to work together as a team. Jointly define priorities, using a risk matrix.
3. Identify the correct maintenance strategies, using processes such as Risk Based Inspection or
Reliability Centered Maintenance if required.
4. Provide training to improve staff skills and competence; evaluate and if required take steps to
improve morale and motivation.
5. Map the maintenance process and understand it; use it as a communication tool.
6. Use the maintenance process map to define the right Performance Indicators and use them to
improve performance
7. Acquire a Computerized Maintenance Management System which matches your maintenance
process and enables performance monitoring. Use the CMMS to plan and schedule work, using
defined priorities.
8. Provide the required infrastructure; drawings, procedures, documents, supervision, spares, materials,
tools, vendor services and logistics support.
9. Implement changes keeping people's fears in mind. Managing change properly is critical to success.
10. Execute work to the required quality standards. Ensure compliance of scheduled maintenance work
at 90% or higher.
11. Encourage a culture that refuses to accept failure. Failure analysis methods such as Root Cause
Analysis should be part of the normal work practices.
12. Periodically revise/renew steps that are outdated.
A
holistic approach where the importance of achieving high
levels of reliability through a properly defined
Operating Philosophy is not often recognized. As stated
above, this in itself is only one step along the way,
but an important one that is sometimes forgotten.
The
Operating Philosophy describes how we plan to
operate our equipment, and provides guidance on the
choices to make in running the Plant. Some examples of
these are:
I.
Duty/Standby operation of (installed) spare
equipment versus alternate running (50:50) or unequal
running (90:10 or 75:25 or similar).
II.
Hot or cold standby status of major static
equipment such as Boilers.
III.
Spinning reserve of major rotating equipment such
as Power Generators.
IV.
Interlocked operation of installed spare Relief
Valves.
V.
Steady-state loading or fluctuating loading of
Plant, system or equipment.
VI.
In batch processes, whether the batch size is
constant or variable, and whether there is a minimum
batch size.
VII.
Controls on operational deviations from the
design envelope.
VIII.
Practices such as starting up of newly repaired
equipment as soon as they are installed and ready.
IX.
Maintenance activities that operators will
normally perform, such as testing of safety devices and
recording the associated data in the right formats.
Each of
these decisions affects the operational reliability of
the Plant or system, some quite significantly.
Decisions, such as those relating to items II, III, V
and VI above may be entirely market-driven in some
situations. Where they are in our control, the wrong
operating philosophy can reduce operational reliability
significantly.
The good
news is that Operating Philosophies can be reviewed and
where justified, corrected with relatively
little effort. Large improvements can be achieved within
6 –12 months of implementation. Unlike some of the
other steps, they don’t need large inputs of resources
or cost a lot of money. They can be implemented within
days of taking the decision. However, before making any
changes, it is necessary that current reliability and
cost performance is measured and that steps 6 and 10
above are in place.
Is there
an Operating Philosophy written down, communicated and
practiced in your Plant? If there isn’t one,
you can be sure that the Plant operators will create
their own versions, in several makes, models and sizes!
So get your Operations Manager on board to help you to
improve on your operational reliability. This is low
hanging fruit you cannot afford to miss!
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