AIR LIQUIDE AMERICAN maintains more than 125 production facilities and 700 customer installations. ALA commissioned a "standardized benchmark assessment" of maintenance and reliability capabilities. The focus is on the improvements made from 2000 through 2003 and the benchmark update in late 2003.
AIR LIQUIDE AMERICAN maintains more than 125 production facilities and 700 customer installations. ALA commissioned a "standardized benchmark assessment" of maintenance and reliability capabilities. The focus is on the improvements made from 2000 through 2003 and the benchmark update in late 2003.
AIR LIQUIDE AMERICAN maintains more than 125 production facilities and 700 customer installations. ALA commissioned a "standardized benchmark assessment" of maintenance and reliability capabilities. The focus is on the improvements made from 2000 through 2003 and the benchmark update in late 2003.
Presentation: Mark E. Lawrence, PE, CMRP Director of Maintenance and Reliability Air Liquide America, LP
Edwin K. Jones, PE Consultant
CREATING A RELIABILITY CULTURE IN AIR LIQUIDE AMERICA
BACKGROUND
Air Liquide America (ALA) is part of the Air Liquide Group, the global leader in industrial and medical gases, headquartered in Paris, France. Our products include air gases such as Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon as well as Hydrogen, CO2, Electricity and Steam. In the US, we maintain more than 125 production facilities and 700 customer installations.
Late in 1999, ALAs management team realized that athat a higher reliability performance was key to our existing and prospective clients. Concerned that we needed to raise the bar on our current performance levels ,levels, we, we commissioned a standardized benchmark assessment of maintenance and reliability capabilities. ALA had used this tool in the mid-1990s with considerable success. Ed Jones applied both his benchmarking techniques and his substantial comparison database to the assessment project.
This presentation briefly summarizes the original assessment in 2000 and the ensuing improvement efforts from 2000 through 2003. The focus is on the improvements made from 2000 through 2003 and the benchmark update in late 2003. The progress achieved by ALA over 3 years is highlighted.
AIR LIQUIDE - SITUATION IN 2000
Since the companys beginnings in the US, the maintenance function was decentralized and primarily the responsibility of the plant managers. The plants were supported by technical resources at headquarters, but were largely autonomous. Few if any reports or KPIs measured maintenance or reliability performance. Performance was mainly measured by two indicators, costs and headcount. This arrangement served ALA well for many years, but by the late 90s, reliability issues began to affect customer satisfaction and maintenance costs were rising and unpredictable.
In 1999, ALA commissioned a regional maintenance concept designed to support up to two dozen sites from regional Reliability Centers (RCs). Initially the RCs were staffed with a manager and mostly technicians from the plant sites. Maintenance engineering support was provided as was planning and scheduling. However the RCs were mostly reactive in nature, trying to provide resources for plant shutdowns and emergency response. Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 1 After a year, the RCs were having moderate impact on reliability and maintenance costs remained unpredictable. As a result, the plants saw minimal value in the new centralized approach. Rather than abandon the effort, ALA executives decided to commission a Maintenance Benchmarking Study to define the issues that could accelerate progress.
THE BENCHMARKING ASSESSMENT PROCESS
Benchmark assessments usually involve the collection of pertinent data and a mechanism to validate the data. In most studies today, a base of comparison data already exists. The challenge is to collect client data on an apples-to-apples basis. Of course, using an unvalidated database can introduce a wide variation in data submissions for key information such as maintenance costs, replacement asset value and personnel counts. These variations, in turn, can significantly affect comparisons and interpretations. In the ALA studies (in 2000 and in 2003), all data was validated through on-site review of definitions, data reconciliation and interviews. Similarly, comparison data was also validated, project-by-project, to ensure that comparisons were as consistent as possible.
On-site validation not only provides an opportunity to validate submitted data, but also allows observation of maintenance practices. In reality, the Validation Visit provides the opportunity to: q Validate data. q Interview personnel. q Tour and observe the plant and its conditions. q Develop data comparisons and key issues in a team-based environment. q Draw conclusions that the plant team understands and supports. q Develop consensus lists of plant strengths and improvement opportunities.
Interviews conducted during the site visits allow the process to move beyond collection and comparison of data. The interviews typically highlight problem areas, obstacles to improvement, and very often, support conclusions implied by data comparisons. When the on-site work is completed and the Benchmark Team has discussed the issues and key improvement needs, the Assessment Report documentation begins. At this stage, the Team understands the hard number comparisons and the key areas for improvement. The Final Report and the subsequent presentation to management are designed to highlight issues to be addressed and resources required. The Report also quantifies the potential financial gain from improvements.
BENCHMARK STUDY IN 2000 CONCLUSIONS
In applying the Benchmark Assessment process at ALA in 2000, standard techniques were used with accommodations for the typically smaller size of ALAs US plant locations. The same validation processes, interviews, and team approaches were applied, as described above. Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 2
The key issues from the initial 2000 assessment were: q Improve cost control q Coordinate maintenance and reliability with capital projects q Restore key support resources q Redesign the reliability center concept q Strengthen or replace CMMS q Develop a contractor management strategy q Institutionalize RCFA q Perform RCM analyses q Institute work planning and work scheduling q Strengthen spare parts management
Benchmark comparisons were provided in the assessment to allow the ALA Team to gauge appropriate staffing levels for direct maintenance, as well as for support functions such as planning, reliability improvement, parts management, etc. The comparisons with external data and practices also provided a frame of reference for total maintenance costs, maintenance organization structures, and maintenance philosophies. Given the number of issues highlighted by the Study, it was clear that ALA would have to prioritize its targets. We saw a potential cost reduction of up to 25%, but it would come slowly, given the economic downturn in 2000.
PRIORITIZING IMPROVEMENT INTIATIVES AIR LIQUIDE
Using the Benchmarking Report as a basis, a Maintenance Improvement Team began to develop strategies and implementation plans. The elements of that strategy are described below.
Gaining Control of the Work
Figure 1 shows that at the start of the change process, the plant audits were generating 50% breakdown work. After applying the new tools and processes, ALA would control the work and equipment to the point where 90% of the work would be plannable.
The level of existing emergency work required a significant amount of resources and overtime. In addition plant turnaround performance was inconsistent hampering cost control and causing additional overtime. Before any of the improvements could be implemented, it was imperative that the plants and the RCs gain control of the work.
Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 3
To do this the RCs decided to concentrate on improving shutdown performance. Experienced professional planners were hired to supplement the existing planners, who were provided training. Planning tools were developed and planners began the planning process months in advance. To better manage the shutdowns in the field, additional field supervisors were hired and developed. However the most important aspect was the consolidation of quality contractors. ALA turnarounds were very small compared to those of our large customers such as refineries, chemical complexes or steel mills. ALA plants usually shutdown when their customers do. However, because the customers dominated the labor market during shutdowns, ALA was often left with few quality contractors. ALA immediately identified three high quality contractors to do general mechanical, high voltage electrical and major compressor repairs, and signed national contracts. These three efforts gave ALA improved planning, good field supervision and quality contractors. In less than a year, a measurable improvement in turnaround performance was observed.
There was not much that could be done about the frequency of emergency breakdowns at this point, but they could be better managed and investigated. Maintenance and Reliability Engineers were hired at each RC. These engineers were assigned to provide engineering analysis to determine the optimum scope for the repair. The new planning resources provided some planning and the increased field supervision were deployed to better manage emergency repairs. The new national contractors improved the quality of repairs and RC performance in emergency situations started to improve. The new maintenance and reliability engineers were all sent to Root Cause Failure Analysis training and began to do RCFAs on incidents in an effort to understand and prevent them in the future.
Planned Work
Unplanned Work National & Regional Contractors A L A C
S u p e r v i s i o n
P L A N N I N G
S C H E D U L I N G
TARS (25%) PMs (25%) BREAKDOWNS (50%) C M M S
PMs (50%) TAR (25%) Planned Repairs A L A
A S S E T S
Breakdowns (<10%) RCM ASSESSMENTS Improvement Wos PMs, CM Work History Restoration WOs RCFA
S t a r t
F i n i s h
Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 4 Fig 3: This is the RACI used to explain the roles and responsibilities of all employees involved in the Maintenance Management Process. R=Responsible, A=Accountable, C=Consulted, and I=Informed Maintenance Reliability MMP RACI M a in t
M g m t P r o c e s s C r e a t e
W o r k O r d e r s P la n W o s A p p r o v a l P r o c u r e
M a te r ia l R e c e iv e
M a t e r i a l S c h e d u le
W o s A s s ig n
W o r k P r e p a r e
E q u ip m e n t
&
P e r m its C o m p le t e
W o r k S a f e ty
A c t iv it ie s M a in t e n a n c e R e p o r ts C o s t C o n t r o l/B u d g e t P r e p a r a t io n s R C F A s R C M
A n a l y s i s M O C s P M s P M
J o b
P l a n s P d M
D a t a
c o lle c t io n P d M
D a t a
A n a l y s is C B M
A c t io n
I t e m
W o s BUSINESS TITLE RC Manager A R C A C R I I R/A R/A R/A A A R A I A C/I A Maintenance Engineer R R R R R I R I I R/A R R R R R R R R R R Reliability Engineer R R C C I I C R I C R R R R R/A R R/A R Maintenance Planner R R/A I R/A R C R I R R R C R Maintenance Scheduler R R I I I A R/A R I R R R C/I R C R C Maintenance Coordinator R R R I R R C R/A R R R I R C C/I R C R R Maintenance Specialist R R R R R I I I R R C R C C C C C C Production Tech R R C/I R C/I I C/I C/I Plant Manager R R/A C/I R C/I R I A C/I R I R C/I R A R I R I R Fig 4: Shows how fully integrated the Maximo CMMS was integrated with our ERP, Oracle. This arrangement more fully exploited the capabilities of Implementing a Maintenance Management Process
One of the major barriers to improved coordination and communication between the plants and the RCs was a lack of process by which they would work together. There were no agreed upon roles and responsibilities. Each group did what they thought they should be doing. A simple Maintenance Management Process was developed that included work identification, approval, planning, scheduling, execution and documentation. Each of these functions was broken down into tasks. For each task, Roles and Responsibilities were spelled out in RACIs. RACIs are a simple tool that detail for each task who is Responsible (R) for doing the task, who is Accountable (A) to see that the task is completed, who is consulted (C), and who is Informed (I). Training Manuals were developed and all RC and plant employees were trained. Soon thereafter much of the wasted energy and confusion, trying to determine who was going to do what, began to disappear. Employees began to better understand their role and how their role supported the process.
As new and unexpected issues arose, collaborative troubleshooting took place. Improvements in the process were documented and after a year, the process was reviewed and the manual was revised and employees were retrained.
Implementing a new CMMS The study revealed that the legacy CMMS was not being fully utilized. The strategy development team evaluated reconfiguring the system or replacing it with a new one. After a thorough analysis, the team recommended replacing it with a new version of Maximo from MRO software. The new software was configured to support the new processes. Asset data was gathered from the sites and placed in a multilevel hierarchy. Engineers entered legacy PMs where they existed and created new ones where they did not. The Workflow feature was mapped to route work orders for approval per the approval limits set forth in the companys Delegation of Authority. Fig 2: The MMP designated four types of Maintenance Work: Emergency(No Planning) where work starts immediately Urgent (Minimal Planning) where work starts in 24 72 hours Normal (Full Planning) where work is scheduled weeks in advance PreventiveMaintenance(Pre-Planned and Approved) that can go straight to Scheduling Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 5 The software was interfaced with the companys financial software to enable cost tracking and enable the purchasing and inventory modules. Virtually all software functionality was exploited.
In 2003, ALA received a Best Practices award from MRO software for the thoroughness of its installation. (You can find out more about this award and the CMMS Project in the April 2004 issue of Maintenance Technology in the article titled Enhancing an Enterprise Asset Management Project).
Vendor Consolidation
Because the maintenance function was decentralized for many years, the company employed hundreds of mostly small local vendors. Most of these vendors were very responsive to the local site but many lacked the level of quality needed to improve long-term reliability of the companys assets. Furthermore the fragmented service providers did not leverage ALAs spend in the basic maintenance services.
The Maintenance Department teamed up with Corporate Supply Management and began to identify common services used at all of the sites. Collaborative cross-functional teams of experts and stakeholders were assembled to evaluate potential service providers. A matrix of critical success factors was weighted and agreed upon by the team and potential services providers were identified based on the quality of their work with ALA and the potential of providing their services on a national basis. Each potential service provider submitted proposal and made a detailed presentation to the team.
Based on the data and final matrix score, a finalist was selected and formal negotiations took place. After negotiations were completed, the contacts were signed for a three to six year period. Both ALA and vendor KPIs were established to assure that both parties benefited from the new agreements. For ALA, KPIs were established to measure quality, and savings. For the vendor we measured leakage and timeliness of invoice processing.
Prior to roll out, each agreement was communicated to both Maintenance and Operations employees. Service providers handed out catalogs, normal and emergency contacts and phone numbers, and answered questions. Problems that arose were quickly addressed by the team to ensure that small issues did not escalate into bigger ones.
After two years, 17 contracts were signed. Among them were: Gas Turbine Maintenance General Mechanical Services Compressor Maintenance Electric Motor Shop Repairs Safety Relief Valve Management Electrical Switchgear PMs Inspection Services Transformer Oil Analysis Vibration Monitoring MRO Supplies Expander Turbine Shop Repairs Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 6
Organization Changes
The maintenance organization, as it existed in 2000 was comprised mostly of technicians and specialists. To support the new processes and tools, the Reliability Centers needed to be reorganized. The new organization increased support in two primary areas, engineering support and work planning and scheduling.
Additional maintenance engineering resources were hired in each RC to apply engineering principals to determine the optimum repair scope for equipment failures or equipment with known component degradation. They were required to document the repair scope and wrote detailed job plans in the CMMS. They followed the repairs, examined the parts, and made necessary adjustment s to the scope and plan based on what they found. They documented the repairs and conduct RCFAs.
Reliability engineering resources were also hired to monitor and improve equipment health. They were assigned to monitor vibration, oil condition, and infrared scans for the plants in their zone. For each recommendation, they were to write work orders in the CMMS with target dates based on their review of the data. In the first year, more than 500 interventions were made prior to failure, saving large amounts of downtime and significantly reducing costs. The Reliability Engineers were also assigned to do an in-house version of Streamlined RCM called a Vulnerability Study. For each piece of equipment, failure modes were identified and the appropriate predictive or preventive activity was identified. Spare part stocking levels were also determined based on criticality and lead-time.
Work planning was also strengthened. Additional Planners and Schedulers were assigned to each RC. All RC employees attended Planner Training to instill the importance of the activity throughout the organization. Additional Schedulers worked with production to plan work on a weekly and monthly basis, according to business needs and equipment availability.
At the technician level, both in-house and outsourced competencies were determined. It was decided that ALA needed to keep Instrument, Electrical, and Control System technicians in house because the intimate knowledge of our plant processes could not be readily obtained off the street. On the other hand, it was decided that almost all mechanical maintenance services could be safely outsourced because of the high quality of service providers available.
Importing and Developing Talent
Perhaps the most critical success factor was the hiring of new talent to fill many of the key positions and the development of the substantial technical talent that existed.
The most critical positions needing an immediate influx of talent were the six RC Managers. In the early stages of the implementation, several technical specialists were used for these positions because it was thought that these senior level engineers would be the perfect mentors for the influx of the younger talent being hired as maintenance and reliability engineers. What was underestimated was the need for managers with change management experience and those that had been there, done that in terms of implementing maintenance and reliability best practice. Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 7
In 2002 and 2003, several new RC Managers were hired with this type of experience. Most of them were Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (CMRP). Each of these new managers were able to articulate to their employees and counterpart in production how and why we were doing what we were doing and could paint a vision of what the end state should look like. They focused on roles and responsibilities and did extensive troubleshooting of issues and work processes that hampered performance.
The new department had some outstanding technical talent, but there were not enough resources to meet the needs and there were some gaps in certain areas. The gaps were identified and an extensive talent search began. Over two years, some of the best talent in the nation was recruited to join the team. Once on board, the new managers applied the knowledge and experience of the new and existing technical specialist in a much more effective manner, focusing on long term reliability improvement as opposed to simply fixing what was broken.
The new department also recruited some world-class planners to lead the new planning efforts and to serve as mentors for the fleet of planners in training. After two years, the depth of planning talent has increased significantly. These new planners were critical in troubleshooting issues that arose in the new planning and scheduling processes.
The new department also filled entry-level engineering positions with extremely bright young engineers. With their enthusiasm for their assignments and the new managers ability to utilize them effectively, their impact exceeded expectations and made the future of the department very bright.
Condition Monitoring
By 2002, it was time to focus on improving condition monitoring. The Benchmark Study indicated that the existing vibration program was ineffective, primarily because data was not collected frequently enough to avoid failures and was primarily used as an autopsy tool to determine when the failure mode had begun.
A team was assembled to design a state of the art system that could increase the frequency of data collection and implement a process that assured action prior to failure. We wanted to partner with a nationwide company that could provide data collection, analysis, issue reports and provide ad hoc troubleshooting.
After evaluating several proposals, the team selected Rockwell Automation as that partner. The program provides three full time and dozens of part time Level 2 (Vibration Institute Certification) Vibration Technicians to collect data at all plants on a monthly basis and issue monthly reports to or Reliability Engineers. The program also provides a full time Program Fig 5a: At ALA, monthly Condition Monitoring data is collected at all US sites and sent to a central database in Houston. There the data is analyzed and reports are issued to the Reliability Centers. Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 8 Manager that is located at ALA headquarters. This Program Manager is considered a valuable member of the ALA Maintenance Leadership Team, just as if he were an RC Manager.
KPIs were established to assure timeliness of data collection, the issue of reports, the review of the reports, completion of recommendations, and the number of saves attributed to the program. As mentioned earlier, more than over 500 work orders were issued that intervened in component degradation prior to failure.
The program has since expanded to include Infrared Scanning and Oil Condition Monitoring. The PdM data and reports for all three technologies are kept on a single database accessed from the ALA Intranet. ALA Technicians, Engineers, and Managers anywhere in the world can now access this data for analysis or troubleshooting issues with any piece of equipment at any plant in the United States. Given the challenging geography of our assets, this is an invaluable resource of information that is constantly being accessed to address and preempt equipment component degradation and avoid breakdowns.
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND MONTHLY REPORTS
Once the new people, tools and processes were in place, key performance indicators (KPIs) and monthly management reports were created to drive improvement. As ALA defined them, KPIs are quite different from Monthly Reports.
KPIs were initially established to measure the effectiveness of the initial implementation and subsequent adjustments to the processes. For example, during initial implementation of the Maintenance Management Process, we discovered that simply writing work orders for maintenance work was inconsistent. So we developed a Maintenance Work Order Compliance measure for each plant and zone. This identified plants with high and low compliance. Plants with high compliance were recognized publicly and additional training and coaching was provided for plants with lower compliance.
As work order compliance increased, the next problem arose: the lack the resources and skills to adequately plan the increased amount of work orders. We had work order planning KPIs for volume and quality but when work order compliance was low, the planning KPIs looked pretty good. As the planning KPIs fell, additional planners were hired and others were trained until the volume and quality improved.
As planning volume increased, we discovered that our scheduling process was under performing. Managers, Planners, and Engineers worked hard evaluating and troubleshooting the issues and bottlenecks in the scheduling process until it became very streamlined and effective.
We called this process getting around the bases. In other words we had to get to first base before we could reach second base. And we had to get to second and third base before we could Fig 5b: At the RCs, Reliability Engineers weigh solution alternatives and create work orders for the sites where they are scheduled for completion. Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 9 get to home plate and score a run. A run being defined as getting a well written work order; properly approved, well planned, scheduled days to weeks in advance; executed on time and in a quality manner, and documenting the problem, cause, and remedy. In this environment, KPIs were use for tactical improvement and modified weekly to measure new issues as they arose. As problems were solved and improvements became sustainable, old KPIs were dropped to make room for the new ones. To assure that the improvements were institutionalized, a higher level of the most critical KPIs was incorporated into Monthly Reports for management and corporate executives.
The relatively few Monthly Reports measures were much different than the numerous KPIs. Instead of being malleable measures used at the field level to measure the implementation issues of the day, the Monthly Reports measured performance at a higher level and were held consistent for at least a full year. They were used to assure management that the new processes were working and improving.
The Monthly Reports consisted of two sets of measures. One set for the Maintenance Management Process and one set for Equipment Reliability. For the Maintenance Management Process we measured only four items: Age of the Work Order Backlog This measures the age of each work order so that we can determine if the volume of work orders is exceeding the capacity of the RCs to complete work orders. The measure easily shows how many work orders come into the system each week, are completed, and grow old past our target of 9 weeks (excluding turnaround work orders. Preventive Maintenance Work Order Scheduling Compliance This measure shows compliance to the schedule date of PM work orders. Predictive Maintenance Work Order Target Compliance This measure shows compliance to the target date of work orders that were written as the result of a discovery by one of our condition monitoring reports. Maintenance Activity Type This measures the percentage of man-hours worked for each of the MMP work types: Normal (Planned at least a week in advance), Preventive Maintenance, Urgent (Planned less than a week in advance), and Emergency (No Planning).
Fig 6: Attached is a sample Monthly Report that shows the percent of man hours spent on the four MMP flow paths; PM, Normal (Planned), Urgent, and Emergency. These reports have drill down capability to the Business Unit and Plant Level and can be viewed by any ALA employee anywhere in the country. Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 10
The Equipment Reliability measures are a series of Mean Time Between Repair (MTBR) calculations for our most critical equipment. These classes and subclasses are as follows: Compressors Large (>2000hp), Medium (200 2000 hp), and Small (<200hp) Motors - Large (>2000hp), Medium (200 2000 hp), and Small (<200hp) Expander Turbines - All
These calculations take the number of significant work orders generated for a class of equipment and simply divide it by the number of equipment in that class. Because spared equipment is less prevalent in our industry, we do not attempt to account for on-line spares or actual run time. What the metric lacks in pure theoretical accuracy, it more than makes up for in consistency. Therefore its repeatability makes it ideal for internal continuous improvement. The thought here is that if we reduce the amount of significant work orders, equipment reliability must improve. Each of the MMP and Equipment Reliability measures are published in charts on the ALA Intranet for all employees to see. Each has the ability to show any of the measures by plant, production zone, maintenance zone, or business unit. This allows any manager at any level of the company in the company to view a customized report with his staff anywhere in the company. Managers can now set improvement targets for any plant or group of plants in a zone or business unit.
ALA also has an extensive set of production availability and production disruption reports generated by other departments. Coupled with these measures from the Maintenance Departments databases, ALA now has a very balanced and comprehensive view of key performance indicators.
DESIGNING THE 2003 REBENCHMARK STUDY
In late 2003, ALA decided it was time for an external assessment of improvement progress. The Benchmark approach was again used to get a consistent, three-year progress analysis. The Team approach was applied, as in 2000. Data collection was conducted on the same basis as in 2000. Clearly, the focus of this assessment was to gauge the extent of improvements over a three-year period and to bring attention to lingering issues still to be addressed.
Certainly, we all wanted to identify progress and recognize the hard work invested by the entire organization. Once again, quantifying the continuing financial stake was an objective. Another key objective in the re-benchmark study was to provide input for a more formal strategic plan. With the list of issues from the 2000 assessment, ALA opted to tackle the low hanging fruit without the delay imposed by developing a formal strategy. The expectation in the 2003 assessment was that the remaining issues would likely be more difficult to address and might require a longer-term investment in shifting the culture. The concept of a 3-5 year formal Strategic Plan approach forces people to keep all issues on their radar, but follow a disciplined schedule of tasks and resources.
Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 11 THE RESULTS OF THE 2003 BENCHMARKING
Substantial improvements were made in the 3 years between the initial Benchmark Study and the follow-up study in 2003. Key improvements included: q Personnel changes to facilitate planning and reliability improvement q More disciplined processes for planning, reliability analysis, and work scheduling q Better coordination of contractors q Improved material management q A comprehensive set of performance tracking measures q A substantially improved morale and teamwork environment q A reliability culture in place with support at the highest levels of management. q A number of technology tools supporting improved practices 1. New CMMS System 2. Vibration Technology Routes and Analysis 3. Root Cause Failure Analysis 4. Vulnerability Studies 5. Improved Cost Definitions, Reporting and Analysis q National agreements with key service providers and suppliers
Of course, there are still issues to improve going forward. The new Warehousing System is still in its infancy and needs to be developed into a comprehensive set of integrated National and Regional Warehouses. ALA also needs to continue to support the growth of the new Reliability Culture by finding ways for Maintenance, Operations, and Engineering to collaborate on solving reliability issues and integrating the Operating Technicians into the new Reliability Systems. ALA also wants to develop a Mechanical Integrity Program to improve reliability for Fixed Equipment after focusing on improving Rotating Equipment over the past few years. Also identified were several ways to take the new systems like the CMMS, the RCFA Process, and Condition Monitoring to the next level.
Fig 7: Attached are two Benchmarking Charts that confirm that both Planning and Engineering Resources were brought more into line with World Class companies in the benchmark database. Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 12
MEASURABLE PROGRESS
Between the recent Benchmarking Report and the new Monthly Reports, progress in several areas can now be validated, and more importantly drive continuous improvement.
Work Order Execution - Putting the Maintenance Management Process (MMP) in place with its defined Roles and Responsibilities and implementing the CMMS to support it, has dramatically increased the departments ability to do more work more efficiently. While the Work Order Volume was not known prior to the changes, the documented number of Work Orders completed each month has more than doubled in the past 18 months while reducing costs (see below). The primary reason is that the two most efficient MMP streams of work, PMs and Normal (Full Planning), has increased from below 50% to greater than 75%, and is fast approaching our target of 80%. Consequently, the most inefficient streams, Urgent (Minimal Planning) and Emergency (No Planning) are now less than 25% with the least efficient Emergency Work now at less than the target 10%. Our next opportunity is to reduce the Urgent Work to below 10% so that we can increase PM Compliance (see below).
Work Order Backlog When the MMP and CMMS went live, the number of work orders being written skyrocketed as previously undocumented maintenance work became documented. For about a year, the size of the backlog increased steadily each month. Then in 2003, as the influence of the MMP and the CMMS began to grow, the sizes of the increases began to lessen. By the start of 2004, the increases stopped and the total backlog remains remarkably constant. This is another indicator that the ability to complete work orders has equaled the volume of work orders created. Our next opportunity is to continue to increase efficiencies so that we actually exceed the amount created and start reducing the work order backlog
PM Work Order Schedule Compliance Again, when the MMP and CMMS went live, the number of PM Work Orders skyrocketed. As you would expect initial PM Schedule Compliance was low. However the volume of completed PM work orders has also skyrocketed and is now four times what it was a year ago. This has increased PM Compliance to about 80% in some months, but not consistently. This is related to the amount of Urgent Work Orders being above target. If we can reduce the amount of Urgent Work, we should be able to meet the 90% target for this measure.
PdM Work Order Schedule Compliance When the Condition Monitoring Programs were put in place, they initially generated large volumes of work orders because we were now looking at far more equipment far more frequently than ever before. As expected initial schedule compliance for these work orders was lower than desired. But as the work order capacity of the department grew, the backlog of these work orders were minimized and compliance is consistently up from 50% to more than 75%, and fast approaching our 90% Target.
Maintenance Costs Maintenance costs have steadily decreased over the past four years despite doing more maintenance work. All of the efforts from implementing the MMP and CMMS, to consolidating vendors, to increasing the engineering, managerial, and planning talent have played a role in this. The two benchmark reports confirm that Maintenance Costs as a Percent of Replacement Value were reduced by more than one full percent between 1999 and 2003.
Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 13
Downtime for Planned Maintenance - The amount of planned downtime has more than doubled in the past four years, confirming the fact that we are now controlling far more work than ever before. The ability to do this work on our own terms instead of the equipments terms not only improves the efficiency of maintenance, but also all of the other business unit costs associated with taking a plant out of service. Now that major maintenance is more defined and better planned, it can be better coordinated with our customers and our internal supply chain, reducing costs and increasing profits for both.
Supply Availability Like most everyone else, during the recent downturn in the US economy, business volumes were lower than they are today. Therefore, supply availability remained high due to the availability of excess capacity. However now that the economy has picked up markedly, our volumes have steadily increased and in some business units are at record levels. This has put a premium on the reliability it takes to operate at these rates with less back up capacity. During the past four years our traditional high levels of Supply Availability have held steady at these higher rates, again confirming that the investment ALA made in the area of Maintenance and Reliability during a down economy has positioned it well for an improved one.
Reliability ALA now has two new measures for reliability. The one at the plant level is the number of production incidents, no matter how small they are and no matter if they did not affect supply availability. At the equipment level, as described above, we now measure the Mean Time Between Repair for all of our Motors, Compressors and Turbine Expanders. Both measures are too new to give a trend, so we are validating the data in 2004 and setting improvement targets for 2005.
FUTURE DIRECTION
As mentioned earlier, ALA still has several areas to complete and optimize along this never- ending journey toward reliability excellence. In the short term, Air Liquide Group has just completed the acquisition of Messer Griesheims operations in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. (MG Industries). In the US, we will gain more than two dozen new production facilities. We will have to incorporate these new plants into our MMP, CMMS, Condition Monitoring Program, PM Program, and our National Service and Supply agreements. We also have at least four new plants under construction that must also be incorporated into these systems.
We have completed the commissioning of our new National Warehouse in Houston, and now need to create and integrate Regional Warehouses from our spare parts located at the plants. This is a huge project that will tell us what we have on hand. In parallel we will complete Vulnerability Studies at all of our sites over the next two years. Among other things, this will tell us what we need. Then we will be able optimize what we stock from what we have to what we need.
We have also commissioned a cross-functional team of Operations, Maintenance, and Engineering that will determine and define collaborative reliability activities to instill a reliability culture throughout the company. The team will explore several elements of Total Productive Maintenance including Operations Driven Reliability, Equipment Improvement Teams, Early Equipment Management, and increasing our use of RCFA.
Mark E. Lawrence, PE and Edwin K. Jones, PE - Page 14
Earlier this year a Mechanical Integrity Project was approved and staffed. This team will implement a more formal and comprehensive Mechanical Integrity Program. They will also institutionalize all of the new tools and processes with new Maintenance and Reliability Policies and Procedures and establish a formal audit protocol that will insure compliance and improvement.
And of course benchmarking every three years or so will always be a part of our long term plan to validate our progress, see where other companies are moving, and adjust our strategic direction to meet business needs and incorporate industry best practices.
At ALA, it is our firm belief that our investments in improving reliability will separate us from our competition and in the end, make both ALA and its customers stronger and more profitable partners.
Mark E. Lawrence, PE E-mail: mark.lawrence@airliquide.com Edwin K. Jones, PE E-mail: jjones1432@aol.com