APM Overview

The Meridium Asset Performance Management (APM) solution combines Strategy Development, Strategy Management, Condition Assessment and Performance Analytics into a single, comprehensive system that addresses all aspects of an effective asset performance management program. By implementing Meridium, your company can increase profitability and achieve predictable production capacity by increasing reliability and improving the performance of your production assets.
Meridium APM software has performance-driven, goal-oriented applications which provide a platform for continuous improvement. The software and methodologies provide analyses to decision makers about their production assets on an enterprise, plant, asset or equipment level. Meridiums APM solution delivers enterprise reliability software and work processes that: Drive and automate technical data analysis to identify and predict failure occurrence and cause Leverage critical asset performance data from enterprise and local sources which include ERP, CMMS/EAM, process historians, and condition monitoring systems Publish key performance indicators to enable identification of improvement opportunities Follow industry best practices for the assessment of risk and development of operational and maintenance strategies

Drive strategies into execution systems to close the loop and continuously improve asset performance across the enterprise With demonstrated low capital investment and rapid payback, Meridium APM provides an excellent investment option for improving capacity utilization, safety, process stability and environmental compliance. The complete Meridium APM solution can be described in four basic suites of products, all of which run on the APM Framework: Strategy Development, Strategy Management, Condition Assessment and Performance Management.

APM Framework
The Meridium APM Framework is the foundational platform that the Meridium application utilizes for basic decision support tools, data management and external system integration. Decision Support Queries and Reports Charts and Graphs E-mail Alerts Configuration Tools Custom Datasheets and Forms Business Rules Engine Workflow Management Integration Tools Interface Manager Microsoft Office Integration

Condition Assessment
Condition Assessment provides common work processes and methodologies to determine and document the current condition of your assets, which complements the core functionality and features of Enterprise Asset Management Systems, Predictive Systems and Process Historians. Calibration Management Calibration Management provides an integrated solution for the management of process instrumentation and its performance. The primary functions of the solution address the need for loop and tag management, calibration management and optimization, and reliability analysis of instrumentation. A key aspect of managing instrumentation condition is monitoring the calibration results of instruments, and Meridium provides the comprehensive system to manage large-scale calibration management programs. In addition to managing the overall calibration plan and schedule, Meridium documents the calibration findings, percent of error and pass / fail results. To automate field data collection, Meridium provides seamless integration with instrument calibration devices manufactured by Fluke. Meridium Calibration Management also provides full support for ISA-TR20 Instrument specification forms. Thickness Monitoring A primary approach to determining the condition of stationary equipment (piping, vessels, exchangers, tanks, boilers, etc.) is monitoring the wall thickness of the metal. Meridium provides industry standard API calculations and measurement management capabilities to determine and monitor stationary equipment condition. Specific calculations include minimum wall thickness, current and historical corrosion rate, next inspection date, and retirement date. Meridium provides seamless integration with many UT (ultrasonic thickness) field testing devices manufactured by Panametrics and Krautkramer Branson. Capabilities include the ability to upload and download asset datapoint and measurement information. Inspection Management For many of the industries that Meridium serves, the visual surveillance and inspection of assets is a critical element to assessing the condition of the asset. In many industries, visual inspection programs are mandated by regulatory agencies that can levy significant fines for non-compliance. Meridium provides functionality to manage large-scale inspection programs, providing a means of documenting the frequencies and as-found conditions as well as tracking recommendations that may result from an inspection.

Operator Rounds While analysts and engineers may be responsible for defining the overall strategy for equipment, operators often have a better day-to-day understanding of physical equipment functions and conditions. Due to their daily proximity to manufacturing equipment, operators are presented with the best opportunity to collect the data needed to assess the current condition of equipment. An optimal equipment strategy can be more effective when operators monitor the physical equipment to detect the existence of the symptoms that indicate imminent failure. Operator Rounds puts Meridium APM in the hands of equipment operators via a handheld application that allows execution of asset strategies in the field by monitoring equipment performance and capturing condition data electronically. Meridium Operator Rounds integrates equipment strategies into day-to-day operations and surveillance programs and facilitates the efficient assessment and quantification of asset performance.

Performance Management
Meridium's Performance Management suite provides a complete management system to assess and quantify the performance of your assets. By leveraging data collected through maintenance execution (work orders) and condition assessment and inspections (monitoring, inspection, predictive data, process historians), Meridium analytical engines can provide new insight into how assets are performing relative to their overall strategies. Metrics and Scorecards Meridium provides a robust framework to apply balanced scorecard principles to asset performance management. Strategies, objectives and key performance indicators can be defined to support the measurement of key asset performance management indices such as availability, reliability, lost production, regulatory compliance and asset/strategy cost management. Key performance indicators can be displayed in a dashboard or scorecard layout and provide automatic alerting when thresholds are exceeded so corrective action can be taken. Reliability Analytics Analysis of design, maintenance and operational data is a cornerstone of understanding the historical and future performance of an asset. Meridiums reliability analysis capabilities include statistical tools to measure asset performance, such as reliability distribution, reliability growth and unreliability cost analysis. Meridiums Production Analysis solution provides an easy method of plotting production output data for the purpose of evaluating process reliability and calculating costs related to equipment failures, process

slowdowns, and production shutdowns. The results of a production analysis can help you pinpoint the source of significant production losses so that improvement strategies can be developed accordingly. Root Cause Analysis PROACT for Meridium is a key work process to audit and analyze undesirable events that occur so that faults can be documented and strategies can be established to prevent the reoccurrence of the event. The PROACT work process steps an analyst through the process of documenting the failure event, documenting failure modes, determining root causes and tracking recommendations. The deployment of Root Cause Analysis across an enterprise provides a knowledge base of repetitive and critical failures as well as a corrective action database that can define asset strategy to help keep undesirable events from occurring in the future. Generation Management Meridiums Generation Management (GM) module integrates information from maintenance, operational, planning and financial disciplines to support generation reliability analysis and drive continuous improvement strategies. At the core of GM is a reporting process that has existed since 1982. GM provides for the standardized collection of monthly unit performance and event (incident) data that, in the United States, is reported to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) for most generators. This data becomes part of a NERC-maintained database referred to as GADS (Generating Availability Data System). GADS was originally conceived as a way to improve electric power reliability by aggregating performance and event data from a large population of equipment. Problems related to specific designs, for example, could then be analyzed across the fleet, allowing someone who only had one unit with that particular design to be forewarned of a potential problem.

ment capabilities that constantly evaluate the asset's performance using data collected through standard processes within Enterprise Assest Management (EAM) and Condition/Process monitoring systems. When strategy assumptions or performance parameters are deviated from, responsible parties can then be notified if the maintenance or operational strategy needs to change. Meridium RCM follows the SAE JA1011 specification for RCM implementation and also provides a streamlined FMEA approach for less critical items. Risk Based Inspection (RBI) Risk Based Inspection is a methodology that assesses the probability of failure against consequence to optimize inspection activities based upon overall risk. Meridium provides a complete risk based inspection work process, which allows for the documentation of corrosion circuits and potential damage mechanisms, the calculation of overall risk by the quantitative evaluation of damage mechanisms, and implementation and execution of the inspection strategy. The Meridium RBI solution provides an integrated criticality calculator, but also has standard interfaces to other popular calculators used in industry. Meridium's RBI module provides the key work processes to not only calculate risk but also to drive the overall RBI program and ensure that inspection strategies are evaluated as equipment condition changes, ensuring an evergreen program.

Strategy Management
Once a strategy has been defined through the utilization of strategy development methodologies such as RCM, FMEA and RBI, analytical models can then be applied to understand the risk and financial impact of strategy implementation. The Strategy Management suite of Meridium provides new capabilities to evaluate and quantify the risk and financial benefits for the implementation of a strategy. In addition, the Asset Strategy Implementation module provides highly automated interfaces to implement and link the strategy in common EAM and Condition Monitoring systems. Asset Strategy Management Meridiums Asset Strategy Management (ASM) solution provides a better way to manage asset strategies using a riskbased approach. ASM provides a common methodology to define actions and their mitigated risks, providing the ability to evaluate existing plans with basic qualitative risk analysis that is both straightforward and easy to use. Managers can validate existing plans or consider strategy options to update plans to be more effective in managing risk. Asset Strategy Implementation Once strategies have been defined and validated on risk, Meridium Asset Strategy Implementation (ASI) provides a comprehensive tool to employ them through an implementation package. This allows for multiple strategies to be combined in a common package but implemented into various work management systems. The implementation pack-

Strategy Development
Many methodologies and approaches exist for the development of asset strategies and continuous improvement programs. Meridium provides many popular strategy development approaches which are integrated through a common recommendation management model. This ensures that recommendations from all asset strategies can be managed as a whole and driven to completion. RCM and FMEA Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and Failures Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) methodologies evaluate the function of the asset, the failure modes and the consequence of asset failure. This approach allows for the definition of comprehensive maintenance, operational, and inventory strategies that balance costs and risks with overall production goals. By integrating the RCM and FMEA functions with the entire Performance Management suite, Meridium further enables its clients with strategy develop-

ages in ASI are tied directly to any revision made to the associated asset strategies in ASM.

Enterprise Integration
Utilizing industry-leading integration capabilities and technologies, Meridium can synchronize the APM system with your existing EAM, Condition Monitoring, Process Historians and Engineering systems to leverage the data that you are already collecting in common manufacturing business processes. In addition to interfacing with common manufacturing systems, Meridium can also integrate with virtually any external data source to support your specific asset performance management initiatives. Preconfigured Interfaces Use standard interfaces provided by Meridium to integrate with your existing EAM system. Custom Interfaces interfaces to any ODBC, OLE-db or Web Service compliant system. Scheduling Schedule interfaces to run automatically at pre-set intervals, such as hourly or nightly, so that the Meridium application always contains the latest information without any manual user intervention. In addition to supporting major EAM systems, Meridium has a strategic partnership with SAP to provide APM integration with the SAP PM product to leverage this key source of Functional Location, Equipment, Maintenance Order and Notification data. SAP Extract Pack Provides the capability to define common extraction models for any data that resides within SAP. Any data element within the SAP can be accessed, extracted, transformed, and loaded into a Meridium configuration for SAP. Standard extraction interface models include Equipment, Functional Locations, Notifications, and Maintenance Orders. SAP BAPI Interface Available for SAP versions 4.6c and later, this BAPI-based integration allows Meridium to create SAP notifications via SAP developed and supported BAPIs. Meridium Certified Powered by NetWeaver Interface Certified interfaces which support the generation of Notifications through the SAP PI platform. Corporate Headquarters Roanoke, Virginia, USA +1.540.344.9205 Regional Office Houston, Texas, USA +1.281.920.9616 Europe Walldorf, Germany +49.6227.7.33890 Middle East, Africa Dubai, United Arab Emirates +971.4.365.4808 Asia Pacific Perth, Australia +61.08.6465.2000 www.meridium.com info@meridium.com Microsoft Office Integration - Reports, plots, and data can be easily exported to Microsoft Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel as well as Adobe PDF formats. E-mail Capabilities - Links to any data in APM can be sent via e-mail, facilitating collaboration within and between various sites. Print Capabilities - Provides the ability to print various reports, plots, and data. Meridiums APM enterprise solution is not just reliability software but is also a comprehensive set of business processes, workflows, and data-capture tools that enable rigorous analysis to help you define strategies based upon best practices, plant history, and fact-based decision support.

Additional APM Capabilities

Alerts Can be generated from the system manually or automatically to notify users via e-mail when certain conditions exist. Hyperlinks Links to any feature or Meridium data can be placed in various locations throughout the system, such as on Home Pages, in query results, and in graphs, to provide immediate access to important data and to facilitate custom work processes.