The reliability and maintenance industry continues to face the challenge of adapting to an ever-expanding range of tools and techniques driven by industry 4.0.
While many progressive organizations have agreed that adding smart sensors and applying data insights may soon become the norm, implementing these advanced tools for improved performance without making the necessary changes to business processes and policies will result in short-lived success. This makes the role of the reliability engineer critical, as knowledge and experience provide a pivotal link between data analysis and insight-driven action.
Predicting the future
Before we can discuss how to improve the physical management of assets through digital transformation, we must first understand where and how an asset-reliability management program creates value. The value of asset management originates from two sources: the application of reliability based maintenance (RBM) methods and the implementation of better work management practices.
Proactive maintenance optimization
Reliability engineers provide value by applying a risk-based approach to maintenance. Value-added activities include developing an accurate master asset list, performing spare parts and root cause analyses, and ranking asset criticality to determine priority and maintenance requirements. When viewed through the lens of RBM, organizations are more aware of which assets are most critical — those that require preventive and predictive maintenance — and which are non-critical or run-to-fail. RBM strengthens enterprise asset management in the following ways:
- Eliminating maintenance on non-critical assets, saving labor and parts
- Tuning preventative maintenance intervals on critical assets and to optimize cost
- Identifying impending failures on mission-critical assets
Work management
Work management processes include activities associated with work identification, planning, scheduling and execution, as well as outage and contractor management. Work management improves efficiency through:
- Centralized, consistent planning and kitting of jobs
- Planning of work-based on-production schedule
While the role of the Industrial Internet of Things and analytics can be limited in the reliability of non-critical or critical assets, there is a potential for managing mission-critical assets. Here the question is whether conventional predictive maintenance techniques are providing sufficient advance notice of impending failures to give enough time to plan, kit and schedule the corrective maintenance with minimal business impact — or assist in early failure mode detection that can be correlated to asset-component health.
While these digital tools certainly enhance traditional services, they are not magic; without the essential asset-reliability management business process fundamentals in place, these solutions may fail to deliver on all of their intended benefits.
To maximize return on investment and realize the full potential of digital service offerings in use today, a reliability and maintenance engineer provides the process knowledge and experience needed for a more strategic application of digital technology.
For more information, visit abs-group.com, email info@abs-group.com, or call (281) 673-2800.
