The demand made of every plant manager and maintenance engineer in the current industrial climate is to reduce unscheduled plant downtime, extend the intervals between scheduled outages, and make the plant work more efficiently and effectively. The chief executive and the accountants see the loss of production during plant downtime as a lost profit opportunity, and so a major cost area to be targeted.
Oft quoted broad industry surveys show as much as 5% of production capacity is lost each year as a result of unplanned shutdowns, and nearly half of these come from equipment failure. In a 200 000 barrel per day refinery, Emerson quotes that every 1% gain in uptime achieved is worth $8,4 million of additional margin. GE has adopted an improvement of 1% in productivity as a company strap-line – ‘The Power of 1%’ – which they apply across industries from power to healthcare, to show the impressive savings that accrue from small efficiency improvements.
Today, the maintenance teams know and experience pressures from their managers, who read these reports, and quote ‘Benchmarking’ figures from equivalent industries. Maintenance managers also need to read and quote from such benchmarking studies, to ensure that comparisons of plants and maintenance budgets are also valid. The very best performers spend 2% of the capital value of the plant per annum on maintenance: plants with higher downtime find themselves spending more, fire-fighting. In the USA, Bob DiStefano started his reliability consultancy back in 1986, and in those days it was only in the nuclear industry that the concept of his business was acceptable. Now he says “Reliability as a Business Strategy” is becoming understood: major CAPEX projects are looking closely at maintenance and repair strategies during the planning, because on average, 30% of the expected project value returned is lost in the start-up years, as the maintenance team learns about the major problem areas.
Today, the reliability of most of the equipment used in a plant is understood, and the technology is available to monitor and track any problem areas, and provide warnings and then alarms. The plant management problem is often to decide on the type of system to be used to monitor the equipment and diagnose potential problems. This can vary from a portable diagnostic unit used by an engineer to monitor equipment condition, to in-house permanent monitoring with a local alarm to an operator; or a monitored alarm in the control room, with an automatic shutdown option; or an externally (Internet) monitored alarm, for example linked back to the manufacturer’s service department, who might remotely diagnose and modify the equipment, and report back separately; or even send out a local specialist engineer. Then, the ultimate of such a service, is a contract with the supplier which guarantees the uptime to be delivered by the equipment, with a penalty clause for non-compliance. The choice of system used is the strategy and planning aspect, and for each mode of operation there is a cost.
The major DCS vendors have expanded their capabilities to enable their systems to penetrate the maintenance and repair market, initially by offering asset management and device status data via their systems. However, with the advent of the Internet and wireless interfacing that can avoid laying extra plant cables, they were in danger of being bypassed by other suppliers, so they all increased their involvement with the maintenance market. The services on offer have mushroomed to include consultancy, remote monitoring centres, and more.
The Technews Industry Guide: Maintenance, Reliability and Asset Optimisation 2015 offers a reference manual and descriptions of the technologies and services now available to help you choose the right strategy for your plant operations, to ensure you achieve the right balance of technology and cost. With the product and services showcase, most of the local vendors can be identified and consulted. Further, Technews will continue to publish your resulting success stories, so that they can be shared amongst your colleagues.
Nick Denbow
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