Page 278 - Improving Machinery Reliability

Maintenance and Benchmarking Reliability 249

and retrieve the measurement data are expensive. Everyone involved must be moti-
vated to accurately and consistently collect data, and then to use the information.
Using the information can involve the cost of establishing a data utilization func-
tion with dedicated people. Measurement values and costs are high, and management
must accept the associated values and costs. Everyone is looking for the quick and
inexpensive answer. Therefore world-class measurements are attractive. The process
is simple and inexpensive, but the results are questionable.
True benchmarking is even more involved and costly. Once an operation knows
what it wants to measure, it needs to collect internal data and compare like data with
its benchmarking partners. There are collection costs and costs to locate benchmark
partners, as well as costs of travel to the benchmark partners’ operations to collect
the required data. Data must then be analyzed and new approaches determined. All
these procedures take time and money-more than management usually understands
and wants to expend.
In spite of the perceived high measurement costs, the resulting benefits are high
and the payback period is short. Wise enterprises seek out benchmarking partners
and share data. Without the measurement road map, the business direction is not
known until it is too late to adjust.

Organize to Manage Reliability*

An analysis of maintenance costs in hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) plants
has revealed that attitudes and practices of personnel are the major single “bottom
line” factor. In reaching this conclusion a world-renowned benchmarking organization
examined comparative analyses of plant records over the past decade. They learned
that there was a wide range of performance independent of refinery age, capacity, pro-
cessing complexity, and location. Facilities of all extremes in these attributes are
included in both high-cost and low-cost categories. Those in the lowest quartile of per-
formance posted twice the resource consumption as the best quartile. Furthermore,
there was almost no similarity between refineries within a single company.

The Record. Figure 4-3 illustrates rising profitability during 1986-1988 because of
market conditions. As the militaries mobilized into the Arabian Gulf in 1990, profits
climbed sharply. By 1992, margins relaxed somewhat to pre-war levels. But if we
look at trend data of a constant trend group of 68 refineries, the picture is different.
From the top curve in Figure 4-3, we note that the difference in profitability between
the highest and lowest quartiles was about 5% in 1986. But by 1992, the gap had
widened to 12%. This divergence is not merely an industry average phenomenon. It
is clearly a difference in performance of two groups, which is not related to the
industry average performance.
Similar performance differences can be found in industry maintenance data. Fig-
ure 4-4 portrays a six-year trend of maintenance cost for the same trend group of
refineries. The data represent total annual refinery maintenance costs per unit of
*Adapted by permission of R. Ricketts, Solomon Associates, Inc. Dallas, Texas. From a paper pre-
sented at the 1994 NPRA Maintenance Conference, May 24-27, 1994, New Orleans, LA.