Page 283 - Improving Machinery Reliability

254 Improving Machinery Reliability

Success in Managing Reliability. Achieving high mechanical reliability does not
require simply more maintenance spending and more overhauls and other repairs.
The best performers require less expenditures for higher mechanical reliability. What
is required is a management approach reflected in the practices of superior perform-
ers, which is purposeful management of reliability for results, making repairs perma-
nent when it counts, uncompromising pursuit of equipment condition assessment,
and ongoing analysis of plant data. What practices and policies are associated with
low-cost, high reliability performance?

Organizational purpose. A prime factor distinguishing the better reliability and
maintenance performers is that they recognize that plant reliability is not simply a
result of repair effort. Not only that, they have been convinced that eliminating
failure is the organization’s prime mission. Consequently, they have designed their
organizations to achieve results. Ease of managing the maintenance work assign-
ments is given lower importance.
Information. Refineries generate large quantities of information that describe
physical needs of the equipment. Repair history, man-hour requirements for work
tasks, costs, and equipment operating performance are familiar examples. The bet-
ter performers recognize that their operating information is a company asset that
can be saved for re-use, and that analysis of these data provides information to
help in decision making. Whether they use paper or electronic systems, they don’t
accept excuses for not recording data or employing it to plan future work efforts.
Use of available technology. It is evident that there is a lot of reliability know-
how present in refineries. It includes reliability-centered maintenance, sneak analy-
sis, furnace tube creep rate capsules, and a wide array of recent technology
advances to help engineer reliability improvement. Disappointingly, recent survey
data reveal that there is not much effort expended in putting these tools to work,
Limited manpower, time, and funds are cited as barriers to progress in adapting
new reliability technology. Yet these same refineries may pay for thousands of
hours of permanent contract labor for which work may be created to keep them
occupied.
The new technologies may be reviewed by persons with special interests, but
often without regard to how they can best be applied in other functional areas. For
example, reliability-centered maintenance approaches define how resources for
preventive maintenance can be best assigned to preserve system function. These
same principles could also be useful in optimizing process operator resources.
Management review of reliability activities. Most refineries report that some
reliability improvement activities are being carried out in areas of the organization
that have distinct engineering disciplines, such as control systems and process
engineering. But at the same time they acknowledge that these specialty groups are
acting in isolation from each other, without structured review of their aggregate
effort by management. Priorities, expenditures, and results are not being evaluated
from a view of what is best for the refinery as a whole. The better performers do
not allow this to occur. They typically conduct formal, scheduled reliability pro-
gram reviews by the refinery management team, or by a reliability management
organizational element (see page 237) accountable for such activities.