Plant Services - March 2008 - (Page 23)

ASSET MANAGER Enterprise thinking One big picture is better than dozens of small ones T here’s more to buying technology than getting the from optimized placement of assets and parts inventory relmost bells and whistles. Features and functions only ative to customers, suppliers and workforce skills. It reduces determine the best package if they align with the transportation and inventory costs, improves capacity utilineeds of the entire organization. Vendor demos on test scripts zation, and yields fewer assets, technicians and operators. using your procedures and sample data show what a package Enterprise-wide thinking can facilitate planning and can deliver, if you’ve prepared by nvolving key stakeholders scheduling for production and maintenance. This includes in assembling clearly defined, enterprise-wide requirements ensuring another site picks up the slack when a given plant and weightings for each criterion and demo test scripts. experiences downtime – planned or otherwise. Parts can Many companies miss out on significant benefits by be sourced from other sites or shared storage rather than thinking in silos. One of my favorite examples duplicating inventory at each location. Orof this mistake is when you hear something ders can be accepted, costed and scheduled Companies like, “We agree that standardization across based on availability. stand to lose a the enterprise is critical … as long as you standardize based on what we’re using.” Thus, lot by allowing Share asset know-how building consensus around enterprise thinkindividual sites Managing and maintaining assets is more ing is more difficult than it might first appear, effective when information is collected and to deviate from shared across the enterprise, as opposed to but the rewards are substantial. an enterprisesites acting independently. Repair/replace decisions based on a common equipment history Procurement: consider consolidation wide CMMS and life-cycle analysis have greater statistiEnterprise thinking allows consolidating the solution. cal significance. It improves your bargaining purchasing of parts, equipment and services. power during procurement. But the difficulty Master contracts can incorporate economies lies in ensuring that each site uses the same equipment hiof scale and should result in lower overall costs compared erarchy and numbering scheme, and collects maintenance with the sum of individual sites going it alone. Duplicated cost data in the same manner and to the same level of detail, purchasing at each site is more costly and time-consuming regardless of whether outside contractors are used. than a centralized approach. Use Pareto analysis to deterThe other benefit to enterprise thinking is the sharing mine which vendors account for the greatest cost across of asset-care policies, procedures and standards. Examples the enterprise. Prepare a history by site, including costing, include PM procedures and standards, failure codes, equipvolumes and performance. This is the essential baseline for ment criticality definitions, repair procedures, predictive negotiating a better deal on behalf of every site. technologies, type and frequency of data collection, and Although the company benefits, the dark side of enterother opportunities for standardization and sharing. prise-wide procurement is the risk that some sites might be Enterprise thinking facilitates consistent tracking of asfaced with higher prices or decreased service levels. Allowset-related costs and key performance indicators across the ing one or more sites to opt out of the corporate solution organization and feeds them and real-time asset condition might reduce overall volumes enough so that the corporate information to higher-level decision-support systems for desolution no longer makes sense. Not everything that bentermining day-to-day equipment and capacity availability. efits the enterprise will benefit a given site. Plan and schedule to level loads From long-term planning to short-term scheduling, enterprise thinking pays dividends, starting with capacity planning for assets, components and spare parts. Savings stem March 2008 Converge on technology Companies stand to lose a lot by allowing individual sites to deviate from an enterprise-wide CMMS solution. Packages are feature-rich and flexible enough to accommodate 23 www.PLANTSERVICES.com http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Plant Services - March 2008

Plant Services - March 2008 Contents From The Editor Letters The PS Files Up and Running Crisis Corner What Works Asset Manager: Enterprise Thinking Technology Toolbox: Hydrogen In Action Cover Story: Get Real Electrical: Reliable Distribution Power Transmission: When the Belt Breaks Web Hunter: Tooting Horns In the Trenches Product Picks Classifieds Fast Facts Energy Expert: Energy versus Sustainability

Plant Services - March 2008

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