Page 407 - Improving Machinery Reliability

Maintenance for Continued Reliability 371

defect driven operating and maintenance procedures, well thought-out checklists,
and similarly appropriate material compiled and executed by a trained workforce.
A trained reliability engineering workforce is thus needed, and this workforce must
obviously have a very thorough awareness of what constitutes proven and readily
available upgrade components. This awareness comes from reading up-to-date tech-
nical books, from reviewing (and, occasionally, reading) a large number of trade
and/or professional journals every month, from attending trade shows and exhibitions,
from participation in vendor-sponsored courses and outside seminars, and so forth.

Emphasizing Reliability Instead of Maintenance: The Way to Increased
Profits!

Some of the most knowledgeable world-scale petrochemical plants have realized
in the early 1990s that moves toward “world-class maintenance”-read “RCM’-
were costing them increasingly large amounts of money. They became convinced
that rapidly bypassing the more time-consuming, low value-added maintenance rou-
tines in favor of tangible reliability enhancements made real economic sense. These
plants had previously executed detailed shutdown plans, had trained their craftsmen
in doing repairs safely and efficiently, were using the latest predictive and preventive
maintenance techniques, and had implemented in-house facilities to test and evaluate
instruments and electrical equipment. Leak detection teams were surveying all oper-
ating units on a rotating cycle. Thousands of oil samples were analyzed, and comput-
ers reminded operators and craftsmen when specific lubrication routines were due.
Almost every piece of rotating machinery was monitored by someone, ranging from
an operator with a portable monitor to a technician with the latest, most sophisticated
data acquisition instrument. Vibration spectra were transmitted around the world
electronically so as to have them analyzed by the most qualified expert in the compa-
ny. Corrosion coupons and advanced corrosion monitoring instruments were used to
evaluate materials of construction and protective coatings. At this world-renowned
company, equipment maintenance records filled file cabinets and computer memory,
allowing management to receive up-to-date maintenance measurement^.^
But, while the company was considered profitable, maintenance productivity as
indicated by the ratio-of-maintenance cost to original cost of assets was inferior to
that of the best-of-class competition. More than one competing company had paid
attention to Phillip Crosby’s second dictum dealing with “The Absolutes of Quality
Management.” The system for causing quality is prevention, not apprai~al.~ Preven-
tion is the infusion of reliability at every opportunity. Prevention is the “engineering-
out’’ of maintenance requirements at the very inception of a project. The prevention
of maintenance, or the elimination of the need to perform maintenance activities,
starts with the cost estimating manual. This “price book” must reflect the purchase
cost of equipment that requires little or no maintenance. Prevention of maintenance
then moves through the compilation of a bidder’s list from which nonconforming
vendors are deleted, to the consistent adoption and implementation of a philosophy
that views every future maintenance event as an opportunity to upgrade or to impart
higher reliability to the equipment. When this world-class petrochemical company