Up Time Magazine - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 18) information technology upload The Third Dimension Optimizing Your PM’s in 3-D by Ed Stanek, Jr and Tibor Jung A wide variety of conditions have elevated visibility of the term PMOptimization, and it is now on everyone’s reliability radar. Whether it’s the demand for greater asset reliability, survival of impending maintenance reductions, or searching for the perfect complementary effort to partner with an RCM program, PMOptimization may be the missing link in your reliability efforts. The question isn’t so much “Is PMOptimization the right path?”, but what to do once you’ve begun. short, “you cannot optimize a whole PM. You can only optimize individual PM tasks within a PM.” It is also important to understand that while failures happen to the function, they typically happen at a component level. The definition of PM Optimization then is to ensure that PM tasks provide the required protection at the component level as defined above, using minimal required resources. 3-Dimensional PMOptimizationSM is a process which first opens capacity and elevates effectiveness through Initial Optimization (the 1st dimension), and continues to dial in the process through an ongoing PM Task Pass/Fail Analysis (the 2nd dimension) and Equipment Reliability Analysis (the 3rd dimension). It requires only a fraction of the time and resources of other methods, and typically results in: • 40% Reduction in PM Labor Hours • 35% Reduction in Scheduled Downtime • 50-100% Increase in PM Coverage Why aren’t PMs optimized today? There are many reasons contributing to the very conditions we are trying to improve, some of which are: • PM’s that are developed from equipment manuals • Highly visible failures can lead to more & more PM activities • PM’s copied across many pieces of equipment (generic PM’s) • CMMS limitations which don’t provide the ability to develop, manage or optimize PM’s. They simply provide a space to place them, assuming they were built in an optimized manor, and have limited ability to analyze the PM Effectiveness at a task level. • “We already have a backlog,” so staff The term itself, PMOptimization evokes a feeling of established process evolution, control, and confidence (implying that we all should be doing it to some degree), but defining PMOptimization may be more difficult than it appears. Few maintenance and reliability initiatives have had such a clear and direct title with such an undefined process behind it, as the definition differs greatly depending upon whom you ask. Ranging from individual efforts to “scrubbing” PM’s, to a “lesspainful version of RCM” (RCM-“Lite”), each optimize to some degree but miss the totality in which Optimization can be implemented. To completely optimize means targeting both the effectiveness (failure avoidance), of which we are all familiar, as well as the often overlooked efficiency opportunities hidden within the existing PM’s. This picture is completed in a formal, eleven-step 3-dimensional approach which takes full advantage of all opportunities found within the PM. PM, typically short for Preventive Maintenance, has many varying definitions, but for the sake of this article, we will refer to PM as “Regularly scheduled activities performed on equipment to prevent, detect or predict failure, and maintain operating parameters as required by the user.” The abbreviation “PM” is expanded here to include any activity that fits this definition, including Preventive Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance (or Condition-based Monitoring), Operator tasks & inspections (sometimes part of a TPM program), etc. While PMs can come in many different forms from checklists, to paragraphs of procedures and detailed instructions; in order to optimize a PM, individual tasks within the PM text must be isolated. A PM task protects required equipment functions against specific failure modes. In Editors Note: We published this article with specific references to 3Dimensional PMOptimizationSM software in order to tell more people about potential solutions as maintenance and reliability information management evolves. We did not want to make it generic. There are other unique software products that we will also be presenting to you in Uptime. In order to bring you the full impact of the capabilities of some of these new technologies - we have decided to allow product specificity - not as an endorsement - but to create an enhanced understanding of the rapidly changing landscape of Information Technology. Uptime is comfortable stepping out of the limited and traditional etiquette of magazine publishing and we hope you see the value in our decision. We certainly invite your feedback as we continue to move forward. december/january 2009 18
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