Is validating and optimizing the asset hierarchy a waste of time and money? (2023)

Across the industry, we hear statements like, "I don't have time to do what needs to be done." "I can barely keep the system running and you want me to validate the system hierarchy?" "Who's going to maintain the equipment while I do this?" "I just don't see any benefit to hierarchy validation, it's a waste of time and money."

Sound familiar? In most installations, the maintenance team is so streamlined that it's nearly impossible to keep track of everything that needs to be done each day. We looked at all possibilities to make concessions and still keep the system running. Routine maintenance takes a backseat more often than we'd like, while reactive maintenance often dictates the day's workload.

Regardless of the CMMS system used to collect the information, an accurate hierarchy of system assets is critical in today's factory environment. When we examine the meaning and importance of an asset hierarchy and the pitfalls of an outdated asset hierarchy, it becomes clear that we are wasting time and money when the hierarchy is out of date. If the hierarchy is not precise, it is impossible to achieve the required reliability, maintainability and asset traceability. How are planners supposed to do their job if they don't know plant assets and especially how assets relate to other assets? The scheduler's only reference is the hierarchy of system resources and the parent-child relationships established within the hierarchy.

Let's take a closer look at the benefits of having an accurate system asset hierarchy and how we can save time and money by simply validating the existing asset hierarchy. There are several areas we consider when performing hierarchy validation: (1) the current system hierarchy and parent-child relationship setup; (2) closed or disposed of assets; (3) new assets not currently in the hierarchical structure; (4) BOM to support usable assets; (5) loading of spare parts into the warehouse for asset support; and (6) preventive maintenance assigned to assets. In this article, I will examine the first three of these areas.

One of the benefits of building the parent-child relationship is planning preventive and predictive maintenance activities. For example, if the planner schedules maintenance on a tank, all equipment associated with that tank (pumps, drive motors, loop instruments, pressure relief valves, associated piping, and isolation valves) could also be candidates for maintenance. offline. . This saves a lot of time and money as we can shut down a group once for scheduled maintenance instead of taking multiple shutdowns to maintain individual assets.

Another benefit of establishing the parent-child relationship of the asset hierarchy is the ability to calculate costs for the lowest possible asset level, thereby providing a means of determining where maintenance money is actually being spent. Also, once the parent-child relationship of the asset hierarchy is established, engineers and field technicians can write job notifications at the correct asset level instead of a general area. This helps in developing historical data that can be used to identify the actual “bad actors” that are causing the maintenance effort.

When configuring the parent-child relationship of the wealth hierarchy, the ISO/DIS 14224 standard taxonomy can be a useful guide in determining appropriate levels. The pattern applies to CMMS programs that contain asset hierarchies. Businesses can customize the structure presented in the taxonomy to best manage their unique needs.

At this point, the field validation/optimization phase can be performed using the downloaded CMMS data, current P&IDs and flowcharts. The validation/optimization effort is a detailed and methodical comparison of all systems and assets in the field against the asset list in the CMMS with the assets shown in the P&IDs and flowcharts. The validation/optimization effort creates an asset hierarchy that reflects the actual system configuration. Validation/optimization efforts also indicate assets that have been retired or removed but are still an active asset in the CMMS system. Additionally, the validation/optimization effort shows all new assets that have not yet been entered into the CMMS system.

When a decommissioned, removed, or new asset is not reflected in the CMMS system, this is often a strong indicator that the Change Management (MOC) process is not working.

Deactivated assets and assets that have been removed from the facility but still appear as active assets in the CMMS system cause a significant problem. One of the main concerns is that assets are often still mapped to project management tasks. If the MOC program does not work, planners will not know that assets are not active. Therefore, PM schedules have not been revised to eliminate unnecessary activities.

If we look at an install with an install load of 45,000 and calculate that 2% of those installs have been removed from the install and/or retired over time, we can assume that 900 installs are no longer active. If only two PM were assigned to each of these assets, we would now have 1800 PM that would apply to these assets. Assuming each PM requires one hour and applying a conservative hourly rate of $55, the cost to complete the 1800 PM would be $99,000 per year. But assets that require this PM no longer work.

Now we can see why it is so important that the asset hierarchy is validated and optimized.