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SMART SOLUTIONS FOR MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY

FIRM FOOTING Here are the essential steps to achieving world-class asset management

How Not to Train in Vain / P.9 Condition Monitoring via Video / P.11

MARCH 2017

Build Your Reliability Office / P.32 Kick Up KPI Performance / P.38

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COURSE

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO Lead a world-class maintenance department using Maintenance Managers and Supervisors, as well as Supervisors from Operations, planning and scheduling best practices to drive work execution, improve productivity, motivate staff, Warehouse or Housekeeping areas increase output and reduce waste.

Apply preventive and predictive maintenance practices.

Planner/Schedulers, Maintenance Calculate work measurement. Schedule and coordinate Supervisors, Maintenance Managers, work. Handle common maintenance problems, delays Operations Coordinators, Storeroom AND INEFlCIENCIES Managers and Purchasing Managers

Maintenance Management Skills

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Maintenance Planning and Scheduling

DATES & LOCATION

DAYS/CEUs

Apr 25-26, 2017 (CHS) Sept 26-28, 2017(CU)

3 consecutive days $1,495 2.1 CEUs

May 8-12, 2017 (CU) Jun 19-23, 2017 (CHS) Sep 11-15, 2017 (CHS)

5 consecutive days $2,495 3.2 CEUs

COST

Apply sound storeroom operations principles. Manage Apr 11-13, 2017 (CU) Materials Managers, Storeroom inventory to optimize investment. Understand the role Oct 24-26, 2017 (CHS) Managers, Planner/Schedulers, Maintenance Managers and Operations of purchasing. Implement effective work control processes.

Managers

Planning for Shutdowns, Turnarounds and Outages

Members of the shutdown or outage teams, planners, plant engineers, maintenance engineers

Predictive Maintenance Strategy

Collect and analyze data to assess the actual operating Plant engineers and managers, Maintenance, Industrial and Manufacturing condition. Use vibration monitoring, thermography and Engineers, Maintenance Supervisors and tribology to optimize plant operations.

Managers

Apr 4-6, 2017 (CHS) May 16-18, 2017 (OSU) Sep 19-21, 2017 (KU) Nov 14-16, 2017 (CU)

3 consecutive days $1,495 2.1 CEUs

ProsciÂŽ Change Management Programs

Executives and Senior Leaders; Managers Build internal competency in change management. and Supervisors; Project Teams; HR and Deploy change management throughout your Training Groups; Employees organization. Become licensed to use Prosci’s change management tools.

Contact us to schedule a private onsite class.

Sponsor: ½-day Contact Coaching: 1-day us for Orientation: 1-day pricing #ERTIlCATION DAY

Reliability Engineering Excellence

Learn how to build and sustain a Reliability Engineering Reliability Engineers, Maintenance program, investigate reliability tools and problem-solving Managers, Reliability Technicians, methods and ways to optimize your reliability program.

Plant Managers and Reliability Personnel Build a business case for Reliability Excellence, learn General Managers, Plant Managers, how leadership and culture impact a change initiative Design Managers, Operations Managers and Maintenance Managers and build a plan to strengthen and stabilize the change for reliability. CMRP exam following Session Four.

Apr 18-20, 2017 (KU) Jun 20-22, 2017 (CU) Oct 17-19, 2017 (OSU)

3 consecutive days $1,495 2.1 CEUs

SESSION 1 DATES: Mar 21-23, 2017 (CHS) Aug 15-17, 2017 (PR) Aug 29-31, 2017 (CHS)

12 days total $5,995 (4, 3-day sessions) 8.4 CEUs

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Reliability Excellence for Managers

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Materials Management

Save time and money on your next shutdown by learning Aug 22-24, 2017 (CHS) how to effectively plan for and manage such large projects. Learn processes and strategies for optimal resource allocation.

3 consecutive days $1,495 2.1 CEUs

3 consecutive days $1,495 2.1 CEUs

Project Engineers, Reliability Engineers, Maintenance Managers, Operations Managers, and Engineering Technicians.

Learn to create a strategy for implementing a successful asset management program. Discover how to reduce risk and achieve the greatest asset utilization at the lowest total cost of ownership.

Jun 13-15, 2017 (KU) Sep 12-14, 2017 (CHS)

3 consecutive days $1,495 2.1 CEUs

Root Cause Analysis

Anyone responsible for problem solving and process improvement

Establish a culture of continuous improvement and create a proactive environment. Manage and be able to effectively use eight RCA tools to eliminate latent roots and stop recurring failures.

Mar 21-23, 2017 (OSU) Jun 13-15, 2017 (CHS) Aug 15-17, 2017 (CU) Oct 31-Nov 2, 2017 (KU)

3 consecutive days $1,495 2.1 CEUs

Experienced maintenance and reliability professionals who want to attain the CMRP designation.

Review SMRP’s Five Pillars of Knowledge. The guided study is an intensive review of each pillar’s components designed for organizations looking to further develop their team through CMRP CERTIlCATION

Sep 19-21, 2017 (CHS)

3 consecutive days Exam on day 4

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Risk-Based Asset Management

GET CERTIFIED! www.LCE.com

REGISTER NOW! *LOCATION CODES: (CHS) = Charleston, SC | (CU) = Clemson University in Greenville, SC | (KU) = The University of Kansas | (OSU) = The Ohio State University

$1,495

TABLE OF CONTENTS MARCH 2017 / VOL. 37, NO. 3

FEATURES 26 / COVER STORY

Firm Footing Here are the essential steps to achieving world-class asset management 32 / RELIABILITY

What a Reliability Office Can Do for You Get measurable savings and fix longstanding problems with a holistic approach 38 / QUALITY

Kick Up KPI Performance Supplier quality management can yield big benefits to OEE and on-time delivery

SPECIALISTS 07 / FROM THE EDITOR

Ways of Seeing Data Keep one eye open while using the IIoT to drive new value 09 / HUMAN CAPITAL

How Not to Train in Vain Goals for leadership training often clash with reality. Here’s how to prevent that.

11 / TECHNOLOGY TOOLBOX

Condition Monitoring via Video The eyes have it: New video options give an unprecedented view of asset performance

40 / OPERATIONS

Four Building Blocks for Lean Manufacturing Give people the data they need to support them in making the changes you want 42 / INDUSTRIAL INTERNET

Get Yourself Connected 4 things you need to know about building a secure, IIoT-ready network infrastructure 45 / INFOGRAPHIC

15 / ENERGY EXPERT

Avoid Energy-Plan Market Madness The ball’s in your court when it comes to getting competitively priced energy solutions 17 / PALMER’S PLANNING CORNER

Protect Your Planners!

Be a task ninja to keep your maintenance planners from being overwhelmed

Asset Management for Distributed Operations How does your plant match up against industrywide investment in asset management solutions?

DEPARTMENTS

50 / BIG PICTURE INTERVIEW

18 / AUTOMATION ZONE

Allie Schwertner, account manager, Rockwell Automation “When I was recruited, it was about the idea of creating solutions for our customers that are going to take them to the next level. I think that’s really the big push with the younger generation, having that big-picture idea.”

Build a Better Integration Team Get your designers and builders on the same team for effective system integration 21 / WHAT WORKS

Partnering to Fuel Fleet Efficiency Purdue and automotive experts are teaming up to make fleet trucks more efficient 23 / YOUR SPACE

Avoid the Agony of Obsolete Parts Obsolescence happens, but a long-term parts strategy can help ease the pain

PLANT SERVICES (ISSN 0199-8013) is published monthly by Putman Media, Inc., 1501 E. Woodfield Road, Suite 400N, Schaumburg, IL 60173. Phone (630) 467-1300, Fax (630) 467-0197. Periodicals Postage Paid at Schaumburg, IL and additional mailing Offices. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40028661. Canadian Mail Distributor Information: Frontier/BWI,PO Box 1051, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, L2A 5N8.

Printed in U.S.A. POSTMASTER: Postmaster: Please send change of address to Putman Media, PO Box 1888, Cedar Rapids IA 52406-1888; 1-800-553-8878 ext 5020. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Qualified reader subscriptions are accepted from PLANT SERVICES managers, supervisors and engineers in manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Canada. To apply for qualified-reader subscriptions, please go to www.plantservices.com. To non-qualified subscribers in the U.S., subscriptions are $96 per year. Single copies are $15. Subscription to Canada and other international are accepted at $200 (Airmail only) © 2017 by Putman Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. In an effort to more closely align with our business partners in a manner that provides the most value to our readers, content published in PLANT SERVICES magazine appears on the public domain of PLANT SERVICES’ Website, and March also appear on Websites that apply to our growing marketplace. Putman Media, Inc. also publishes CHEMICAL PROCESSING, CONTROL, CONTROL DESIGN, FOOD PROCESSING, THE JOURNAL, PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURING and SMART INDUSTRY. PLANT SERVICES assumes no responsibility for validity of claims in items published.

25 / TACTICS & PRACTICES

Process Pumps: 8 Tips to Drive Uptime Nail down these necessities to keep your process pumps up and running smoothly 46 / PRODUCT ROUNDUP

Instrumentation If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it 48 / CLASSIFIEDS / AD INDEX

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FROM THE EDITOR

IN MEMORY OF JULIE CAPPELLETTI-LANGE, Vice President 1984-2012 PUTMAN MEDIA, INC. 1501 E. Woodfield Road, Suite 400N, Schaumburg, IL 60173 (630) 467-1300 Fax: (630) 467-1120 MIKE BRENNER Group Publisher mbrenner@putman.net

EDITORIAL STAFF THOMAS WILK Editor in Chief twilk@putman.net

CHRISTINE LaFAVE GRACE Managing Editor clafavegrace@putman.net

ALEXIS GAJEWSKI Associate Editor, Digital Media agajewski@putman.net

STEPHEN C. HERNER V.P., Creative & Production sherner@putman.net

DEREK CHAMBERLAIN Senior Art Director dchamberlain@putman.net

DAVID BERGER, P.ENG. Contributing Editor

PETER GARFORTH Contributing Editor

SHEILA KENNEDY, CMRP Contributing Editor

TOM MORIARTY, P.E., CMRP Contributing Editor

DOC PALMER, P.E., MBA, CMRP Contributing Editor

PUBLICATION SERVICES CARMELA KAPPEL Assistant to the Publisher ckappel@putman.net

JERRY CLARK V.P., Circulation jclark@putman.net

JACK JONES Circulation Director jjones@putman.net

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RHONDA BROWN Reprint Marketing Manager Foster Reprints (866) 879-9144 ext.194 rhondab@fosterprinting.com

EXECUTIVE STAFF JOHN M. CAPPELLETTI President/CEO

THOMAS WILK, EDITOR IN CHIEF

WAYS OF SEEING DATA Keep one eye open while using the IIoT to drive new value The 2017 ARC Industry Forum,

subtitled “Industry in Transition: Realizing the Digital Enterprise,” featured the annual array of keynotes, workshops, and learning sessions that make this February event a must-attend for plant professionals who want to tackle what the future holds for our industry.

Two impressions stood out to me from this year’s event. The first is the sense that cybersecurity has evolved from a tactical challenge to a strategic responsibility – one that will require the input of all plant teams to address and manage.

Marty Edwards, director of industrial control systems, Cyber Emergency Response Team for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, delivered the leadoff keynote by stressing that connectivity has ramifications across multiple dimensions. “Now that we’re connected, we have to start talking about security,” he explained, “because connectivity and security often don’t work well together.”

The other impression I took was that our industry is rapidly committing itself to new ways of collecting, processing, rendering, and applying plant/asset data, now that the internet and the cloud has put it within reach. From sessions on machine learning and augmented/ virtual reality to prescriptive analytics and the impact of drones and mobility on supply chain, the message was clear: Big data is changing the status quo, and those who are already imagining the future will survive to shape it.

Edwards even mentioned this dynamic in his keynote, admitting that the upside of the industrial internet is that it is easier than ever for the same set of data to be shared and analyzed by multiple teams of users in new and valuable ways.

This combination of hope and risk reminded me of one of my favorite writers,

art historian John Berger. In 1972’s Ways of Seeing, he warns that “the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe,” and “we only see what we look at.” He goes on to suggest that without new and multiple perspectives on the things we see, we may arrive at conclusions about the world that “simply embellish such experience as (we) already possess” rather than opening the door to new possibilities and new value.

THOSE WHO USE BIG DATA TO SEE THE FUTURE WILL ALSO SURVIVE TO SHAPE IT. It’s as if Berger had gotten out of his studio and walked the digital factory floor, commiserating both with plant veterans tired of hearing about more proactive maintenance modes and with newer workers in positions like reliability, automation, and data analytics, who often struggle to get other teams to support their professional visions.

This issue of Plant Services continues our mission to deliver you new ways of seeing, including two takes on how reliability principles can be applied at your facility, a review of innovative videobased condition monitoring technologies that add image capture to your data arsenal, and a fresh look at the value that supplier quality management can bring to manufacturing operations.

Be sure to keep your networks secure but your eyes wide open.

Thomas Wilk, Editor in Chief twilk@putman.net, (630) 467-1300 x412

KEITH LARSON VP, Content and Group Publisher

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 7

Productive Leadership© Workshops With Baseline & Progress Surveys Insight, advice and support for performance excellence.

Why Most Leadership Training Falls Short...

Course materials are not specific to plant situations.

Only 20% of typical training is retained after 90 days.

Not supported, unable to focus and apply what was learned.

Benefits and ROI for leadership training is not measured.

THE SOLUTION—PRODUCTIVE LEADERSHIP© i

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ƐŬ ƵƐ ĂďŽƵƚ ĐƌĞĂƟŶŐ Ă WƌŽĚƵĐƟǀĞ >ĞĂĚĞƌƐŚŝƉ© program in your facility.

info@alidade-mer.com

(321) 773-3356

www.alidade-mer.com A Veteran-Owned Business

HUMAN CAPITAL TOM MORIARTY, P.E., CMRP

HOW NOT TO TRAIN IN VAIN Goals for leadership training often clash with reality. Here’s how to prevent that.

Last month I broached the subject of “one-and-done”

leadership training and why the one-off approach is ineffective. Now let’s consider just how costly this kind of untargeted, generic leadership training can be for a plant.

Let’s say we have a plant manager who has been growing more and more frustrated with the situation in his or her plant: Turnover of the 300-person workforce has reached more than 23%, and grievances have doubled in the past 18 months. Climate and job satisfaction surveys show that the workforce is frustrated and unhappy. Word of the plant’s culture has gotten around, so it has become even more difficult to hire and keep qualified people.

The plant manager approaches the human resources manager and asks to have some leadership training for supervisors. The HR manager looks around and books some low-cost leadership training from a local firm.

The one-day workshop includes typical leadership topics such as communication skills, time management, group decision-making, and teamwork. Half of the plant’s 24 supervisors attend training the first day, and the other half attends a second day. No managers attend.

A couple of the attendees have had similar training a few years earlier, but to many of them, this is new. Each supervisor receives a take-home handout. The leadership training firm is paid $12,000 for its two days of services.

Back in the plant, there are a few jokes among the supervisors about some of the things discussed during the training.

The training booklets get placed on a shelf. Most if not all of the booklets are never opened again.

The pace in the plant has not changed. It’s hectic. There is always more to do than there are hours in the day. Supervisors think about applying time management techniques or delegation of tasks, but their managers (who did not attend the training) want action now. Each supervisor’s crew takes some good-natured jabs at the supervisor for “trying to be a boss” now that the supervisor has been “all schooled up.”

Two months after the training course, distractions and inconsistent support have made it impossible to see any tangible benefit from the leadership training The average loaded rate per hour of supervisor time is about $48/hour; that’s another $9,216 of cost. This does not include all of the things that did not get done while the supervisor was in training. If turnover cost per position were $7,000 ($28,000 estimated annual pay × 0.25), you would

need only to reduce turnover by 1%, or three people leaving per year, to break even.

Only 20% of material presented in typical workshop is retained if it is not reinforced by timely application of the learning. Brain research has shown that people require periodic reminders or use of new concepts within the first weeks after learning something for it to be retained. This improves the strength of neuron connections. It’s important to mea-

ONLY 20% OF MATERIAL PRESENTED IN A TYPICAL WORKSHOP IS RETAINED IF IT IS NOT REINFORCED BY TIMELY APPLICATION OF THE LEARNING. sure leadership performance and to have managers reinforce use of leadership skills. So is there a better way?

First, select leadership training that is designed for plant environments, delivered by people with plant experience.

Second, baseline team motivation levels and measures of team effectiveness. Within these survey measures, link the crew members with their supervisor and the supervisors with the person to whom they report.

Third, have plant-experienced trainers meet with the managers of those who will attend the training. The purpose of these meetings is to sensitize them to what attendees will learn and to encourage managers to watch for and support application of good leadership practices.

Fourth, get more than the basic leadership training. Get at least two days of comprehensive training that addresses delegation and how to correct underperformance – the two most important things for supervisors to do correctly. Ensure that there are lots of practical exercises and tools.

Fifth, re-survey team effectiveness and motivation, and measure changes in productivity, turnover, and grievances.

Managers should hold trainees accountable to apply what they learned.

You manage what you measure. The key is to do everything possible to provide good training, make sure that training is used, and measure the outcomes.

Tom Moriarty, P.E., CMRP, is president of Alidade MER. Contact him at tjmpe@alidade-mer.com and (321) 773-3356.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 9

2017

FLUKE ROADSHOW

Seattle May 2

Presented by:

Chicago May 4

Atlanta May 9

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Philadelphia May 23

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TECHNOLOGY TOOLBOX SHEILA KENNEDY, CMRP

CONDITION MONITORING VIA VIDEO The eyes have it: New video options give an unprecedented view of asset performance Video-based condition monitoring is on its way to

becoming a staple in the maintenance and reliability professional’s toolkit. Innovative video capture and advanced video imagery enhance the timeliness and accuracy of asset monitoring and inspection processes. Complex and remote industrial assets, shrinking budgets, and aging workforces and infrastructures are driving the development and adoption of these new technologies.

DRONE-ENABLED MONITORING

With videos captured by drone and analyzed in the cloud, maintenance engineers can avoid costly and time-consuming trips to check on an asset. Bentley Systems combines drones and reality modeling software to enable continuous surveying and “inspectioneering” (the convergence of inspection and engineering) in an immersive 3D environment.

Reality modeling is going mainstream, explains Phil Christensen, vice president of analytical modeling at Bentley Systems. “It is practical today to have a continuously surveyed, as-operated 3D digital model for all of your infrastructure assets,” he says. “Now, ‘right time’ information is always available during operations and maintenance leveraging technology that automatically indexes location with geocoordination.”

The Drone Enterprise Asset Management Solution (DE AMS) from Infor combines the software company’s EAM application with Drone Aviation’s tethered drones to provide up-to-date asset information. The drones can remain in operation for hours because they are powered from the ground through the tether. Video capture, perch-and-stare, and laser scanning functions are supported.

RDI TECHNOLOGIES

“DEAMS users are able to take an automated approach to asset maintenance and reallocate personnel to perform other essential tasks,” says Wayne Bobby, vice president of Infor Federal.

SOPHISTICATED VIDEO IMAGERY

Modern video capabilities simplify condition detection and analysis. Iris M optical monitoring video from RDI Technologies uses patent-pending Motion Amplification to make

WITH VIDEOS CAPTURED BY DRONE AND ANALYZED IN THE CLOUD, MAINTENANCE ENGINEERS CAN AVOID TIME-CONSUMING TRIPS TO CHECK ON AN ASSET. subtle motions visible to the user in a simple video format.

RDI says the Iris M is about 100 times more sensitive to measuring displacement than traditional imagery-based measurement is. Displacement measurements within an image can be made with a click of the mouse.

“Traditional vibration data comes in the form of time waveforms and frequency spectra that require analysis and interpretation,” says RDI Technologies founder and CEO Jeff Hay. “With the Iris M, motions and faults reveal themselves within the videos. For example, an imbalanced machine is simply seen to be rocking back and forth.”

IL5 digital high-speed video cameras from Fastec Imaging generate live (normal-speed) video for viewing via network or online. The date and time of each frame is recorded with microsecond accuracy. High-speed video can also be captured when triggered by a fault condition, giving the engineer an undistorted, slow-motion video of the event.

Samples of these views, which may be as short as a few tenths of a second or span several hours, can be recorded as high-speed video and archived at intervals for analysis, providing condition and performance records over time, explains Tim Brandt, product manager at Fastec Imaging.

APPLICATION-FOCUSED SOLUTIONS

http://plnt.sv/1703-TT01

For remote and unmanned sites such as pipelines and pump stations, operators need to deal with small leaks in minutes, not hours or days, says Christopher Beadle, a vice president at IntelliView Technologies. The company’s Liquid Leak WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 11

TECHNOLOGY TOOLBOX

leak profile,” explains Beadle. IntelliView Technologies also offers video solutions for continuous flare stack monitoring, industrial security and safety surveillance, and environment and wildlife protection.

To inspect the interiors of sewer, water, and drain pipes, Rausch Electronics USA offers its miniCam360 pan-and-tilt push camera that records video, audio, and photos. Digital zoom, self-adjusting smart LED lights, SD card recording, and handheld Bluetooth remote control are among the features. The system includes a TFT LCD camera, 200 feet of cable on reel, a system control unit and monitor, and lithium-ion batteries for four hours of operation.

INTELLIVIEW TECHNOLOGIES

http://plnt.sv/1703-TT02

Email Contributing Editor Sheila Kennedy, CMRP, managing director of Additive Communications, at sheila@addcomm.com.

solution has the ability to detect fluid leaks in real time and then send a picture and 15-second clip to a control center for action, all within one minute of detection.

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ENERGY EXPERT PETER GARFORTH

AVOID ENERGY-PLAN MARKET MADNESS Ball’s in your court when it comes to getting competitively priced energy solutions Here’s the good news: When developed with sound

economics, a multiyear, fully integrated energy master plan for a large, complex manufacturing site in North America will typically deliver energy productivity gains in excess of 30%. The challenge, though – and it’s a major one – is in gaining approval for, developing, and finally implementing such a plan.

Core to a breakthrough energy plan is a willingness to assess all elements of the site’s energy value chain against global best practices. The results of these assessments are combined to create a recommended energy solution. These elements will cover efficiency in buildings and processes and energy distribution across the site. Increasingly, they also include on- and off-site clean and renewable supply. All of this needs to be tied together with comprehensive measurement and control technologies.

The manager’s imperative is to source these elements at world-class performance and acceptable cost. This is often no small task, especially when the plan calls for measures that are substantially different from local market norms.

When this happens, even credible and trusted local or national suppliers may not be the right answer. When responding to a rare or unfamiliar request, it’s understandable for a local supplier to price in uncertainty, perceived risk, and the higher overheads of lower market volumes. A few early instances like this can rapidly discredit the entire plan and bring implementation to a screeching halt.

In recent projects, we have experienced examples where the North American market norms were more than two to three times higher than systematic global best practices.

The differences could not be explained by fundamentally different market cost structures or underlying deep technical differences. The core reasons were simply local market volumes and limited experience. In many cases, these differences were big enough to put the success of the entire energy master plan in jeopardy.

To deliver global best-practice energy performance, the plan also must ensure that implementation costs and quality reflect global best practices. This means the identification of key areas and the selection of appropriate vendors is as much a part of the overall master plan as anything else. Recent experiences indicate that the area of greatest mismatch here is comprehensive thermal efficiency. This includes retrofitting building envelopes; heat recovery and reuse of all types;

creation of heating and cooling distribution networks; and on-site combined heat and power (CHP).

Integrated metering and control across multiple utilities also seems to be an area in which there are cost and expertise mismatches among major markets across the world. No integrated energy master plan can succeed without a successful metering and control structure.

Once the critical areas for success are identified, the plan

TO DELIVER BEST-PRACTICE ENERGY PERFORMANCE, THE PLAN MUST ENSURE THAT IMPLEMENTATION COSTS AND QUALITY REFLECT GLOBAL BEST PRACTICES. should identify target cost and performance based on a global view, and then set a game plan for getting as close as possible to these levels. This takes us to the concept of designing a strategic implementation network of vendors.

These partner-vendors should be competitively selected based on demonstrated large-scale, world-class expertise, and they should be engaged for the long haul. They should also be willing to commit to price their expertise and materials consistent with global practices.

Successfully building this network will not always be easy.

It will demand a higher degree of vendor research and accessing unfamiliar market data from other countries. It may include approaching companies that have a limited market presence in North America. Equally, it may include setting new expectations with local players.

This effort can pay off handsomely, however. We have recent examples where this type of global benchmarking has resulted in major realignments of material and expertise pricing. In one case, thermal networks ended up costing less than half the prevailing local cost levels. In another, aligning CHP installations with global norms resulted in a similar dramatic difference.

To achieve breakthrough energy performance, energy managers not only need world-class plans, but also they must learn to be world-class customers.

Peter Garforth is principal of Garforth International, Toledo, Ohio.

He can be reached at peter@garforthint.com.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 15

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PALMER’S PLANNING CORNER DOC PALMER, PE, MBA, CMRP

PROTECT YOUR PLANNERS! Be a task ninja to keep your maintenance planners from being overwhelmed Last month we briefly identified the six principles that

make planning successful and the six principles that make scheduling successful. We also identified two considerations that deal with reactive maintenance in a planning and scheduling environment. This month, we want to discuss the first principle of planning: that management must protect planners from having too many other duties.

Far too many plants establish planning by creating and filling planner positions, and then after declaring victory, they find the planners are not planning at all. This failure to plan is usually not the fault of the planners but rather of management. Management must protect planners.

Planners often find themselves overwhelmed with too many other duties to fulfill their primary role of planning.

Planners generally spend about six hours of an eight-hour shift at their desks and two hours in the field. Simply because such planners are easy to find, plants usually have a number of miscellaneous tasks that they seem to assign to planners. Such tasks include participation on teams not at all limited to safety, root cause analysis, and projects. Other tasks include helping people find CMMS data and collecting CMMS data for KPIs. One plant had planners become its primary interface with IT: “If you have a computer problem, have the planner get with IT to fix it” was the M.O. However, none of these duties is “planning,” and each takes away from planning time. Consider that a planner can help make 30 persons as productive as 47 (through the improvement of craft wrench time from 35% to 55%).

Therefore, we make the case that a planner is “worth” 17 persons. But plants gain this value only when the planners are planning, not fulfilling other duties. In effect, assigning a planner to a non-planning duty is the equivalent of assigning 17 persons to something that a single person could have done. The maintenance work that these 16 persons could have accomplished goes undone because maintenance has lost its planning support.

Similarly, planners usually do not end up planning when they report directly to crew supervisors. Crew supervisors live in a very dynamic environment. Many jobs take longer than expected; many also finish early. Different craftspersons need different amounts of guidance on jobs in progress. Supervisors must continually consult with operations personnel regarding job progress and the next jobs needing support. The temptation for supervisors to use directly

assigned planners to help resolve problems with jobs in progress usually keeps planners too busy to spend enough time planning future work. The urgency of today frequently overwhelms any planning.

Can planners handle some other duties? Can they provide some help for supervisors for current work? The answer is “maybe.” Planners can generally plan for 20 to 30 persons. This ratio is usually for like-craft planners, such as a

PLANNERS OFTEN FIND THEMSELVES OVERWHELMED WITH TOO MANY OTHER DUTIES TO FULFILL THEIR PRIMARY ROLE OF PLANNING. mechanic planner planning for mechanics or an electrician planner planning for electricians. A planner without the specific craft background can probably plan for the lower end of the ratio: one planner for 20 craftspersons.

However, a planner planning for 20 to 30 persons can have hardly any other duties or help with hardly any jobs in progress. Such planning is a full-time position. On the other hand, a planner planning for only 10 to 20 persons can handle some other duties or help with some jobs in progress.

Still, management must be very careful to provide protections that keep such planners from becoming overwhelmed.

Typically, management must provide some sort of separate department away from the crew supervisors to protect planners from being assigned too many other duties. This organizational separation can usually protect planners even if the planners physically sit near to the craftspeople. These latter planners especially need organizational leadership that sets forth their mission as providing job plans above all else.

The No. 1 problem in industry with planning is giving planners too many other things to do. Protecting planners is the first principle in helping planning accelerate maintenance productivity. We’ll discuss the rest of the principles of successful planning and scheduling in coming months.

Doc Palmer is the author of McGraw-Hill’s Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook and helps companies worldwide with planning and scheduling success. Visit www.palmerplanning.com or email docpalmer@palmerplanning.com.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 17

AUTOMATION ZONE

JACOB HAUGEN, PORTLAND ENGINEERING

BUILD A BETTER INTEGRATION TEAM Get your designers and builders on the same team for effective system integration Progressive design-build (PDB) is a method of project delivery that integrates the design team and the builder into a single design/builder team from the project’s outset.

Whereas traditional design-bid-build (DBB) projects operate in distinct, separate phases, progressive design-build incorporates members of the design and construction teams into a continuous process of design and construction. This method continues to see increased use across engineer-

BY INCORPORATING THE SYSTEM INTEGRATOR INTO THE DESIGN TEAM, SO MUCH OF THE RED TAPE ASSOCIATED WITH CHANGE ORDERS IS REMOVED. ing disciplines, but it’s not just for big projects. Indeed, it provides to system integration projects several benefits not offered by other project delivery methods.

System integration as a design/contracting discipline is a process that involves bringing together component subsystems into a whole and ensuring that those subsystems function together. System integration requires a detailed and thorough understanding of the many processes going on within a given facility and the practical ability to bring them together in a way that enhances the client’s value and productivity without compromising the system’s longevity or robustness.

Every process in a facility is ultimately managed in your control room, so it’s crucial to have confidence that your system does what it is intended to do – optimize value, minimize risks, and help alleviate human error – reliably and consistently. When you invest significant resources and cost into your facility’s infrastructure, it makes little sense to cut corners on what is effectively the brain of your process – and yet this can be the inadvertent consequence of separating the design team from the builders.

Because of system integration’s place as a final step in construction, system integrators are typically far removed from the initial design phase of a given project. By the time a traditional DBB project design specification reaches the system integrator, it reflects set criteria. System drawings, dimensions, ergonomic factors, aesthetic factors, cost, maintenance that will be needed, quality, safety, documentation, and description are already finalized. And this specifica18

MARCH 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

tion, as all system integrators will understand, is more of a theoretical/conceptual estimation developed in good faith by less-than-practically-experienced engineers in the field of system integration. Just as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no design engineering specification survives contact with the system integrator, and the changes before implementation almost always benefit the owner.

The reason for change is the complexity of system integration. PDB projects often involve retrofitting and expanding existing facilities using new and old equipment while maintaining operations. This is more technically complex than a typical greenfield DBB project, and being able to complete projects like this successfully requires hands-on knowledge of how systems behave in the real world. The benefits of the PDB approach will emerge during design and project execution if system integration is included as part of the team.

COST IMPROVEMENTS

The most notable improvement to owners is cost savings.

First, on a traditional DBB project, a tremendous amount of time and money can be spent duplicating “bringing the team up to speed.” After the design team members spend months familiarizing themselves with the system and developing their design, the build team then must undertake the same time-intensive process just to reach a point at which it can execute construction. Because a knowledge threshold is required for all projects, by integrating the design team with the system integrator, much of this time wasted transitioning between design and construction is eliminated.

Second, by incorporating the system integrator into the design team, so much of the red tape associated with change orders is removed. No longer will change orders languish for weeks at a time moving up and down the subconsultant ladder. Instead, design considerations will be addressed quickly as a team, letting the system integrator execute on change orders quickly. This significant reduction in time coupled with direct consultation among all tiers of the design-build team saves owners money while producing a better design.

TIME SAVINGS

Much of the cost savings are manifest through time savings.

Projects that typically take six months to complete utilizing DBB can be completed in less than four months with PDB. Project schedule overruns are so common that we come to

expect schedules to creep, and while this may mean more billable work, it doesn’t help owners.

Time overruns, even those within budget, are costly in terms of public opinion, and being able to consistently deliver a completed project on time can depend largely on the system integrator. By contributing to the design and streamlining communication among team members, PDB will significantly improve your odds of completing your project on time (if not well in advance).

KNOWLEDGE ENHANCEMENT

System integrators play more of a role than simply tying systems together and starting them up. After the completion of any given project, the system integrator will often become the client’s de facto support provider. The client’s success will be driven in large part by the integrator’s knowledge of the system.

Including a system integrator as part of the design team provides clients with a long-term support resource that has an enhanced understanding of their system. This translates into long-term cost savings because support is optimized and all stakeholders have clarity on the owners’ wishes

and expectations for long-term support. Having a system designed from the outset with the inclusion of an integrator will ensure better troubleshooting down the road because the system design will be in line with industry standards and not disconnected from real-world operation.

Progressive design-build as a project delivery method for system integration projects isn’t limited to large-scale projects; it can be easily employed on small-scale system integration jobs, too. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for project delivery, but if your project is technically complex, needs to be completed in a hurry, and/or there are hidden issues, then progressive design-build will help set you up for success.

Jacob Haugen is communications director at Portland Engineering (PEI, www.portlandengineers.com). PEI provides engineering and systems integration services to partners throughout the Pacific Northwest. PEI is a member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA); see the company profile’s on CSIA’s Industrial Automation Exchange, www.csiaexchange.com.

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One of the world’s leading candy and gum manufacturers had no idea how much their compressed air system was costing them. Four compressors (totaling 290 hp) supplied the air needed for pneumatic controls, packaging, and wax line extrusion applications. Excessive water in the compressed air lines, steep maintenance costs, and high noise levels had them looking for a new solution.

SOLUTION: A comprehensive Air Demand Analysis (ADA) established a demand profile for the plant and showed how they were using compressed air throughout the week.

It also identified areas of waste and inefficiency. By installing a 100 hp variable frequency drive compressor and two 75 hp fixed speed compressors, they would have all the air needed—with one of the fixed speeds acting as a back-up. This split system solution would bring energy—and noise levels—well under control. A Sigma Air Manager 4.0 master controller could provide on demand energy reports so they would always know how their system was performing and what it was costing.

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In just over 9.5 months, the project has paid for itself. Annual energy costs

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WHAT WORKS

PARTNERING TO FUEL FLEET EFFICIENCY Big Data takes to the road: A federally funded effort getting under way at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, is pairing student researchers and area manufacturers on a project to develop algorithms that will help heavyduty trucks reduce fuel consumption.

Cummins Inc., Peloton Technology, Peterbilt Motors Co., ZF Automotive, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are working with Purdue on the project, which is funded through the U.S. Energy Department’s NextGeneration Energy Technologies for Connected and Autonomous On-Road Vehicles (NEXTCAR) program. The goal for the team is to create algorithms that will allow tractor trailers to connect to a cloud-based network operations center. That center will cull real-time traffic and weather data, letting trucks access and share information about road conditions ahead.

“These vehicles will be driven as if every driver had forward-looking information about what’s happening a few miles down the road, what the grades are going to be, where the hills are going to be, what the vehicle in front of them is doing,” said Gregory Shaver, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering and the project team’s leader, in a university news release.

This will enable quicker, fuel-saving responses, Shaver says. Trucks traveling the same route, for example, will be able to coordinate speeds automatically and cluster together like racecars to reduce aerodynamic drag.

Project partner Peloton Technology already utilizes such a “platooning” system, which relies on a wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communications link between two trucks’ throttle

Source: Purdue University/Charles Jischke

Purdue, transportation specialists team up to make fleet trucks more efficient

Purdue doctoral student Dheeraj Gosala works on an engine as mechanical engineering professor Gregory Shaver, the Purdue team’s lead for the NEXTCAR project, looks on.

and braking systems. Currently, it results in average fuel savings of 7% for the two trucks. The hope for the Purdue-led project, Shaver said in an interview, is that marrying Peloton’s technology with Cummins’ technical leadership in diesel engines will result in improved algorithms that increase fuel savings to 20%.

“There’s this magic thing that can happen when you’ve got the thought leaders at companies like Cummins and Peloton working with thought leaders at Purdue on coming up with new techniques and technologies that maybe none of the individual entities could have figured out on their own,” Shaver says.

To reach this end, the research team will pursue three specific technical concepts: on-the-fly recalibration of engines and transmissions so that

trucks can adapt to new conditions; running model-based control algorithms from the cloud as the vehicle is being driven; and enhanced platooning capabilities such as synchronizing transmission shifting.

The graduate student researchers, all studying mechanical engineering or aeronautics and astronautics, are working under the tutelage of Shaver as well as mechanical engineering assistant professor Neera Jain, aeronautics and astronautics professor Daniel DeLaurentis, aeronautics and astronautics assistant professor Shaoshuai Mou, and civil engineering professor Srinivas Peeta. Weekly phone calls with partner companies – Cummins is less than two hours away, while Peloton is in the Bay Area – will allow for brainstorming and sharing of the week’s learnings.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 21

“There’s going to be a lot of interaction,” Shaver says. “A lot of it is going to be on the use of mathematical models that simulate how these systems work, these engines and transmissions in these trucks in traffic scenarios.” The project team will use these models to develop decision-making algorithms that will then be tested in simulation.

“If successful there, we’ll do some testing with an engine in what we call a test cell at Purdue, and if successful there ... we’ll take those strategies that look like they still have merit and we’ll actually put them in two trucks in real-world operating scenarios.”

Much of the research, the news release notes, will take place at the Cummins Power Laboratory on the Purdue campus. Cummins’ relationship with the university is long and highly valued, says Ed Hodzen, director of advanced controls engineering at Cummins.

“We have a very long history with Purdue,” Hodzen says. “We have many graduates here working at Cummins who have studied at Purdue.” Beyond its interest in scouting new talent from the school’s renowned engineering programs, Cummins sees Purdue as an important research partner whose work can help the company adapt to changing marketplace realities and demands.

“We have different skill sets,” Hodzen says. “Cummins has the ability and experience working through problems on the engine side and getting systems to run; Purdue will have more of the theoretical background and approaches to problems that we don’t necessarily have the expertise in because it’s just not our key focus. So we kind of bring two aspects that hopefully together will get us much further.”

Access to the resources of a research university is nice, too. “Purdue has laboratories and some capabilities that we find very interesting,” Hodzen says. “Notably, they have a very advanced engine prototyping system that has variable22

MARCH 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

Source: Purdue University/Chalres Jischke

WHAT WORKS

“The beautiful thing about academia is that we put students right in the middle of (an industry partnership like this one), so it’s a real-world learning opportunity for them,” says Purdue professor Gregory Shaver.

valve flexibility. They have what they call a ‘camless engine’ in their lab, which makes an excellent platform for doing a lot of studies on efficiency of engines and some emissions control as well.”

The NEXTCAR project, which Shaver invited Cummins to be a lead partner on, dovetailed with work Cummins was already engaged in to investigate how wireless vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity and communication could yield fuel savings.

“One of the comments I’ve received about the project is, ‘You’re crazy; you can’t control an engine over the air,’ ” Hodzen says. “The thought is, if you have a (WiFi) cutout on your cellphone, it’s the equivalent of cutting out the engine. But in reality, you lose the signal, you go back to a normal mode, that’s all. It’s not a catastrophic event. We still have a control system on the vehicle, on the engine, that will be able to continue to power the vehicle, and if it’s in default mode without on-air connectivity, it will run just like it runs today.”

The research team, Shaver notes, will focus on models for trucks still driven by

humans. But Shaver says he recognizes that fully autonomous vehicles likely will be a reality down the road. “Ultimately I do think we will see some trucks and passenger vehicles too that at some point may not need a driver,” he says.

The three-year project is slated to receive $5 million; Purdue and the industry partners are contributing additional funding. Is Shaver concerned about any possible federal funding freezes or shifting priorities given the change in leadership in Washington? In a word, no. Improved fuel efficiency for heavy-duty trucks, the project’s desired outcome, will also result in reduced carbon dioxide emissions – a top priority for those looking to target global climate change. But there are significant financial reasons to focus on improving fuel efficiency, too, he notes.

“One of the main drivers of cost for moving freight in this country that is passed on to all of us is the cost of fuel,” he says. “Even if you don’t think about the environment at all and you just focused on the economic bit, efficiency is extremely important.”

YOUR SPACE

WILL JACOBSEN, MRO ELECTRIC

AVOID THE AGONY OF OBSOLETE PARTS Obsolescence happens, but a long-term parts strategy can help ease the pain Obsolescence of components and equipment is a continual challenge facing a variety of industries. It’s important for companies to minimize the inherent risks produced by obsolete components by realizing its causations, understanding the impacts, and constructing reliable solutions.

DRIVERS OF COMPONENT OBSOLESCENCE

There are several primary factors that drive component obsolescence. The first is technological evolution, which can render older technologies less practical and competitive.

Moore’s Law predicts that the number of transistors, and thus processing power, within computer chips will double every two years, and this has been proved true every year since Intel was founded in 1968. The exponential rate of technological growth creates technical obsolescence in the industrial sector at an increasing velocity, reducing many of the competitive lifecycles for components. These increasingly shorter lifecycles mean that components are becoming obsolete faster than ever before.

Environmental policies and legislation can also produce component obsolescence. The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive 2002/95/EC restricts the use of materials used in various types of electronic and electrical equipment, including printed circuit boards. The European Ecodesign Directive and the Energy Independence and Security Act additionally require certain energy-efficiency levels to be met for industrial motors. For many component manufacturers, this type of regulation means product lines have to be redesigned or upgraded to meet new standards.

Lastly, planned product obsolescence by manufacturers of components can drive obsolescence. This is a strategy in which obsolescence of a product is built into the product from its conception. Products are designed with an artificially bound functional life. Component and equipment manufacturers decide to pursue this strategy for a number of reasons, but primarily because they’d rather allocate their resources to researching and developing newer technologies than producing outmoded parts. This is a growing trend, as end-of-life documents produced by manufacturers announcing their components as obsolete increase year over year by as much as 25%.

CONSEQUENCES OF COMPONENT OBSOLESCENCE

Component obsolescence produces a broad range of consequences across many industries. The primary fear for

many industrial managers is the loss of equipment capability (downtime). Having a legacy or obsolete part go down without a reliable source for spares can be a terrible ordeal.

Failing to meet production schedules can also severely damage credibility with a plant’s end customers.

Obsolescence can also impact design. Some design cycles are long enough that a major portion of the components are obsolete prior to the system being fielded. Re-engineering obsolete systems is often not a viable solution because of the high costs.

PURCHASING TOO FEW OR TOO MANY SPARE PARTS CAN INCREASE COSTS AND INEFFICIENCIES FOR COMPANIES. In highly regulated industries such as nuclear and pharmaceuticals, there can be significant paperwork and red tape in upgrading all or part of a system. Redesigning and requalifying processes can be major expenses for many companies.

Obsolescence additionally increases through-life support costs. When part manufacturers notify their customers that a component is being discontinued, users are usually given a final buy opportunity. Users must then estimate their current and future demand for that equipment. This can often be a challenge, as forecasting demand of a component depends on a number of variables. These can include production and sales forecasts, as well as sustainment expectations and failure rates. Because this demand can be difficult to predict, purchasing too few or too many spare components can increase costs and inefficiencies for companies.

SOLUTIONS TO COMPONENT OBSOLESCENCE

Designing with obsolescence in mind can resolve many issues. Design engineers can choose products with longer predictable lifecycles to pre-emptively mitigate risk. While there will always be aspects of design that hold obsolescence risks, it is helpful if companies review these risks and find them tolerable during the decision-making process. Early identification of risks is key for providing a wide range of solutions and reducing the costs of obsolescence. By planning with design teams and conducting risk analysis, managers can maintain obsolete systems for lengthy time periods while staying within national standards.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 23

YOUR SPACE

Companies can also reduce risks by having a stable repair and preventive maintenance program in place. Companies can pursue several possible replacement and repair strategies: corrective, in which components are replaced and/or repaired only at failure; preventive, where components are replaced at optimal intervals before failure; or a combination of these. Managers can take steps to find the optimal maintenance intervals for components by using a variety of mathematical models. Although investing in repairs and preventive maintenance increases total system costs, reducing repair and maintenance allocations can lead to downtime and large production losses.

Finding a reliable independent distributor that can source obsolete components can further help to mitigate obsolescence risks. Usually these distributors can offer like-for-like replacements and repairs for parts no longer carried or supported by the manufacturer. Replacing failed components is usually cheaper and quicker than upgrading a whole system.

Replacement helps resolve problems faced by regulated industries, is the quickest method of reducing downtime, and can improve the inefficiencies presented by through-

life support costs. Companies should take the time to find a trustworthy distributor that stocks the obsolete components prior to equipment failing or spares being needed. Having an alternate supply chain and qualified independent distributor already in place to solve and avert disruptions is crucial to reducing much of the risk associated with obsolescence.

Obsolescence will remain a key risk for many companies in the years to come. Most engineers and users would love to be continually upgrading their systems to the newest and best technologies. This option is not economically viable for many companies. Despite its connotations, “obsolete” does not mean entirely useless. Many older components, including a diverse amount from the 1980s and 1990s, are still reliable, competent, and in place today. A well-designed, managed and maintained system with alternate supplychain options can operate for many years efficiently and productively with reduced downtime.

Will Jacobsen is digital marketing associate at MRO Electric and Supply (www.mroelectric.com).

Contact him at wjacobsen@mroelectric.com.

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TACTICS&PRACTICES

PROCESS PUMPS: 8 TIPS TO DRIVE UPTIME Nail down these necessities to keep your process pumps up and running smoothly

by Michael Aschenbrener, Motion Industries

A facility’s maintenance team is at the leading edge when it comes to ensuring that processes are being run efficiently, effectively, and safely. Utmost care must be taken in all aspects of industrial maintenance; work on process pumps and equipment is no exception. The following best practices, when consistently followed, can help keep your plant running smoothly.

STARTUP

4. If specified and on all large units, start the pump with a soft start installed. This will prevent quite a few issues caused by starting the motor at full load. These type of “hard starts” can cause the motor to burn out and can cause issues on the pump side, up to and including: shaft breakage, impeller shearing, excessive motor strain, and unnecessary wear on couplings if they are installed.

SAFETY

1. Remember to wear your PPE (personal protective equipment) whenever you are working around or maintaining a process pump. This includes safety glasses, gloves, hearing protection, and a respirator if necessary.

2. Check the MSDS sheet prior to working on a pump unit.

These sheets are required for every chemical being used.

The sheets include the chemical makeup and the First Aid measures necessary for care.

IF YOU ARE IN A MAJOR BREAKDOWN FOR A PUMP, UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, STAY AWAY FROM THE PUMP BONEYARD. 5. Check, recheck, and triple-check that all valves in the system are open and operating properly.

INSTALLATION

3. W hen installing a process pump, it is necessary to recheck all parts of the system before starting up the unit.

Ensure that the motor is wired correctly. If the wiring is not correct, it can cause the motor to rotate in the incorrect direction and will either (a) spin the impeller off if it is a threaded design, or (b) prevent the pump from moving the product to full capacity because of incorrect rotation.

Prime the pump if it is necessary before startup. If the pump is allowed to run dry, it can cause the mechanical seal to “burn up,” or the pump can overheat and seize up. These things can occur in a very short period of time.

Always check the power frame before startup. Each pump with a power frame or bearing setup will have lubrication necessities. Quite a few pumps are now shipped “dry” without any lubrication oil. Make certain you follow the manufacturer’s specified lubrication requirements; improper or incorrect lubrication will most likely void any existing warranty.

When installing a base, make sure that the base is absolutely level, properly supported, and anchored. Recheck pump alignment with the motor before operating.

When aligning a pump and motor assembly, always mount from the pipe to the pump. Never pull the piping to meet the bolted-down pump flanges. This can cause major misalignment issues, pipe strain, and leakages.

MAINTENANCE

6. I f an installed unit is changed in service with a different impeller trim, style of sealing method, elastomers, or something else, be sure to note the change within your company’s maintenance tracking system as well as on the pump tag. This will prevent numerous questions and the potential for unsafe misapplications based on old information. Distributors are only as good as the information they are provided.

7. If you are in a major breakdown for a pump, unless absolutely necessary, stay away from the pump boneyard.

Each pump is sold for a specific application, and while it may look identical to the pump installed, there may be a number of differences internally.

8. Cost savings: Be the hero for your plant – having a backup pump for applications that can shut down an entire system is a must! Expedited shipping and plant downtime add up quickly while a facility awaits arrival of the new unit. Even having a seal kit kept on the shelf can mean the difference between a few hours of downtime and a few days.

Michael Aschenbrener is Motion Industries’ Process Pumps and Equipment branch manager (www. motionindustries.com). He can be contacted at michael.aschenbrener@motionindustries.com.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 25

by Phil Beelendorf, Roquette America

FIRM FOOTING Here are the essential steps to achieving world-class asset management

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RELIABILITY / ASSET MANAGEMENT

Asset management and the new ISO 55000 standards are generating a great deal of interest and discussion. Whether the ISO 55000 set of standards will ever gain the almost-universal acceptance of the ISO 9000 series or follow the parabolic rise of adoption that occurred once certification became a customerdriven requirement is far from certain. What is certain is this: Adopting an asset management strategy so your customers see you as a competitively priced, reliable supplier while you also maintain the highest levels of environmental stewardship and an exemplary safety record is not an option in today’s highly competitive marketplace. Achieving these objectives is the difference between being a market leader and going out of business. ...And once these are addressed, • Are we consistently lowering the cost of our products?

If the goal of your asset management strategy is to master these essential hallmarks of a world-class business operation as quickly as possible, then the answer to the following questions might help you select your starting point: 1. W hich class contains the greatest number of assets at your facility?

2. On which asset class do you spend the most money?

3. W hich class contains the asset(s) that pose the greatest risk to your business (environmental, safety, customer impact)?

When establishing priorities, question four is not asked nearly often enough. The number of new opportunities that present themselves each day can be overwhelming. As I review each opportunity that crosses my desk, I try to concentrate my time and effort on the ones that land in the upper left-hand quadrant of the matrix shown in Figure 1.

If the answers to the first three questions I asked above lead you to select an asset class where the opportunities for improvement are difficult to achieve (upper right-hand quadrant), I urge you to select another asset class.

Nothing will derail your asset management strategy quicker than getting bogged down in the weeds. If it takes a great deal of time or effort to resolve an opportunity, chances you will not find the time to resolve it. Last time I looked there were only 24 hours in a day, and most sane people would like to spend at least 12 of those hours away from work.

Figure 1

High Potential payback

While the ISO 55000 set of standards is a great overarching document that establishes a general framework for asset management, the standards do not necessarily provide a detailed tactical road map to help organizations successfully execute an asset management strategy. If you are a reliability professional working in an organization that is considering adopting a formal asset management strategy, it’s highly likely that you will play a key role in the strategy’s creation and, most certainly, its execution.

So how does the reliability professional integrate asset management into his or her current set of objectives?

Having a road map that aligns with and complements your current reliability program is key to a successful implementation.

First and foremost, you cannot adopt an asset management strategy for all asset classes at once. So where should you start? Remember, at the end of the day, your organization’s executive leadership cares only about three things: • Are we supplying customers product that meets their expectations (quality, quantity, on-time delivery, etc.)?

• Are we effectively managing the risks that threaten business continuity?

...And, finally, 4. By adopting an asset management strategy, where can you make the greatest impact with the least amount of time and energy?

High Payback Easy To Resolve

High Payback Difficult To Resolve

Low Payback Easy To Resolve

Low Payback Difficult To Resolve

Low Easy

Difficult Degree of difficulty to resolve

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 27

RELIABILITY / ASSET MANAGEMENT

A few years ago when our organization decided to adopt an asset management strategy, we chose motors, centrifugal pumps, and mechanical seals as our starting point.

Go back to the four questions I just asked you to consider.

1. Which class contains the greatest number of assets at your facility?

Electric motors are the most numerous rotating asset in any facility. I haven’t seen too many hamsters on exercise wheels powering rotating equipment. In the corn milling industry, centrifugal pumps are the most common driven asset, and the pump’s mechanical seal acts like the fuse in an electrical circuit. Understanding the root cause of why it fails is crucial if you are serious about improved pump reliability.

2. On which asset class do you spend the most money? Based on the sheer number of assets, the amount of money spent on these two classes was significant at our facility.

3. Which class contains the asset(s) that pose the greatest risk to your business (environmental, safety, customer impact)? When a motor fails, rotating equipment stops rotating. And when a centrifugal pump fails, product stops moving from Point A to Point B. Again, by sheer number, many motors and centrifugal pumps are

TOO OFTEN, RELIABILITY PROFESSIONALS CHASE AFTER OPPORTUNITIES WHERE THE POTENTIAL PAYBACK IS NOT WORTH THE TIME INVESTED. critical to our business. Leveraging what you learn across multiple assets improves overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) substantially.

4. B y adopting an asset management strategy, where can you make the greatest impact with the least amount of time and energy? The most important factor in choosing motors, centrifugal pumps, and mechanical seals as our starting point was one of expediency. The reliability principles associated with these assert classes have been around a long time and are well-understood.

It wasn’t a matter of “reinventing the wheel” as much as it was adopting basic tried-and-true principles that already existed.

Once you have selected an asset class and set “best practice” targets, the next logical step is to audit your current process and then perform a gap analysis to determine where you are in relationship to the state you hope to achieve. I have developed the audit tool shown in Figure 2 to identify the gaps in opportunities that existed in the way we managed our asset base.

Audit Item

Category Description

1

Material procurement process

2

Repair process

3

Inventory management / Storeroom practices

4

Installation practices / Craft training

5

Operator basic care / Equipment troubleshooting

6

Root cause analysis / FMEA

7

Reliability centered design

8

Defect elimination program / Bad actor assessment

Score

Figure 2

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The audit form lists eight common activities associated with asset management. There is a list of questions under each activity. Each question utilizes a 1-5 scoring range, with five being a “best practice.” The overall score allows the site to understand its current state, while the individual question and category scores help the site identify areas of relative strength and weakness. Selecting the lowestscoring category or the questions where the score is relatively low lets the site focus its energy and resources on areas where the greatest and most immediate impact can be made.

Once the site audit and gap analysis have been completed, the payback for each program element should be calculated. I did a webinar for Plant Services titled “Show ‘Em the Money” (http://plnt.sv/1608-PB) during which I emphasized that you need to ask yourself the following two questions before you decide whether an opportunity is worth your time: • How does resolving this opportunity improve OEE? • How does resolving this opportunity reduce costs?

Quantifying the overall payback for each program element based on the results of the gap analysis allows you to further narrow your focus and select a starting point for your asset management strategy. Too often, reliability professionals chase after opportunities where the potential payback is not worth the time invested.

Once opportunities have been identified, a plan should be created to get the site to its targeted asset management goals. I like to use a continuous improvement tool I call the PDCA (plan, do, check, act) action cycle task

PDCA Action Cycle Task List TOPIC

Develop supplier partnership agreement for mechanical seals

Program element completion status

25%

Action description

KPI or validation task was completed

Person responsible

Supplier partnership

Develop questionnaire

Approved document

Maintenance engineer

2

Supplier partnership

Interview prospective suppliers-questionnaires completed

Supplier responses received

Seal suppliers

FS-1

P

3

Supplier partnership

Review supplier responses-assess capabilities

Formal review completed

Maintenance engineer

FS-2

P

4

Supplier partnership

Develop expectations for program-value added services

Approved document

Maintenance engineer

5

Supplier partnership

Supplier submits its formal proposal for value-added services

Supplier responses received

Seal suppliers

Action item #

Program element

1

Estimated hours to complete

Relationship to other action

Status

Execution comments (ACT Action Item)

P

P

FS-4

P Figure 3

list. An example PDCA action cycle task list for developing mechanical seal supplier partnerships is shown in Figure 3.

The PDCA action cycle task list identifies the individual action items; the resources (time and people) needed, the sequence or order in which these actions need to occur; an estimate of the time needed to complete each action; and an estimated start and completion date (these last two columns do not appear in the example task list above in order increase the legibility of the remaining columns).

Developing a plan with the PDCA action cycle task list has several advantages.

• You can look at the big picture and determine whether the anticipated payback is worth the time and money invested before resources are committed.

• Because you’ll be listing the estimated start and completion dates, one can easily see whether the program element is ahead or behind schedule.

• Because the status column choices (P, D, C, or A) have built-in formulas that track program element percentage completion, one can easily communicate how far along the program element is to upper management.

I ask myself the following questions before creating the PDCA action cycle task list to map out a program element: • W hat are the essential actions that need to be completed?

• Is the program scope well-defined for each action?

• W hat resources are required to complete each action? Are they committed to the assigned tasks?

• W hat is the payback for the program element? What needs to be done to ensure payback is met?

• Do I have stakeholder buy-in?

• W hat needs to be done before roll-out to ensure I am successful?

• How will I measure success?

Too often, when individuals identify an opportunity, they charge forward without knowing where they are going and not totally understanding what all they need to do to fully realize the opportunity. Take a moment to generate a list of all activities that are necessary to reach the desired state. By creating this list first, you can start to develop a picture of what is needed to realize the opportunity.

Start with the current state at the top of the page, and then list your desired state at the end. The steps in between (the actions) should connect the two dots. I like to use the PDCA template for this purpose, listing each activity; as the list starts to take shape, I start to see relationships form between the activities (i.e., #2 cannot be completed until #1 is finished). This approach allows me to sort the activities in sequential order, and then using the sort function over and over until my road map has no gaps and provides a clear path forward.

Just as often, we do not know how much of a time commitment we are asking from the individuals responsible to complete each action item. Again the PDCA template is useful for this purpose. I know that estimating the time it takes to complete a task can be difficult, but my advice is give it your best shot. The more you use time estimation techniques, the better your accuracy will become. If you do not provide an estimation of the time it takes to complete a given project and weigh this commitment against the potential payback, how will you know what opportunities WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 29

RELIABILITY / ASSET MANAGEMENT

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EVERY TIME YOU DECIDE TO ASSIGN A NEW TASK TO SOMEONE, CONSIDER WHAT THEY HAVE TO GIVE UP TO WORK ON THE TASK.

offer the biggest return on your investment? Time is money. Remember, the goal is to live in the upper lefthand quadrant of the priority matrix shown in Figure 1 as often as possible.

Have you ever noticed that your boss keeps adding assignments to your to-do list but never seems to take anything off your plate? Remember this as you map out each program element. Every time you decide to assign a new task to someone, consider what they have to give up to work on the task. It’s not just whether the new opportunity has an attractive payback, it’s whether the new opportunity has a better payback than the ones that fall by the wayside.

Stakeholder engagement is another crucial element of any successful asset management strategy. All of your stakeholders, executive leaders, operations, maintenance, purchasing, storeroom personnel, and suppliers must be committed to the goals and objectives outlined in the program element. And they must fully understand the role they play in the execution of your program element strategy.

Finally, your PDCA action cycle task list should include performance measures. For me, the C (check) in PDCA is a KPI. I not only use conventional KPIs to measure hard-dollar cost reduction or OEE improvement, but also I use what I call behavioral KPIs to measure acceptance of an idea or to measure culture change.

Behavioral KPIs are powerful tools to measure program sustainability.

During our mechanical-seal program audit, we found that we were not returning 100% of our mechanical seals and thus not taking full ad-

vantage of the cost difference of the repair versus new purchase price. A potential savings for achieving a 100% return rate was calculated, and actions were included in the Mechanical Seal Program PDCA. Within 12 months, a 98% return rate was realized.

In his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie wrote about trying to see things from the other person’s point of view. Our craftsmen often complain about being shorthanded. When I discussed this opportunity with them, I related the savings in terms of the cost of hiring one additional craftsperson. It helped them see the savings between the current state (at the beginning of the program) and the desired state (reaching a 100% return rate) in terms of something important to them.

Behavioral KPIs are not meant to be measured forever. As soon as the desired state is achieved, measurement frequency should be reduced to spot checks just to ensure the behavior is sustained.

I hope this article has spurred you to action and helped you generate ideas on how you might create your own road map to world-class asset management. Good luck and may the road ahead by safe, smooth, and free of potholes and hairpin curves.

Phil Beelendorf is maintenance technology senior manager for Roquette America Inc. For more on the philosophy behind zero-sum maintenance strategies and how to use LCC analysis to produce a lower total cost of ownership for your reliability program, contact Beelendorf at reality-excellence@q.com.

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RELIABILITY / PLANNING

What a Reliability Office Can Do for You Get measurable savings and fix longstanding problems with a holistic approach

by Jeffrey Ng, Kimberly-Clark Corp.

It’s well-known that performing maintenance on a

year. We knew that with whichever technology we selected, a sustainable program would require proper equipment, training, systems development, and documentation.

The Fullerton mill previously had a similar condition-monitoring program, which was suspended by mill leadership in a costcutting effort. As a result, we didn’t need to create everything from scratch. To that end, we started with three questions.

condition-based or reliability-centered basis is the preferred method for plant maintenance operation. This is the safest and most cost-effective method, and it’s the objective for most organizations. But how does one begin the journey?

WHY A RELIABILITY OFFICE?

In 2012, Kimberly-Clark’s Fullerton, CA, mill was operating on a reactive maintenance basis. Equipment was in continuous failure mode. The mill repaired the equipment on the premise of getting it running as soon as possible, and subsequent failures of the same equipment were not considered.

The years of reactive maintenance caused the mill to become the worst performer in its fleet, which in turn lowered the mill’s morale and raised operations costs.

As part of the mill revitalization effort, the movement from reactive to condition-based maintenance was identified as an important step. From this movement, a reliability office was created. The reliability office is a team of personnel trained in condition monitoring techniques and technologies whose work is dedicated to searching for equipment faults and pending failures. This team recommends corrective actions for its findings and performs root-cause analysis of failures.

The original team consisted of an engineer, two mechanics, two electricians, and a lubrication attendant. The reliability office’s focus was the tissue manufacturing department. As the team demonstrated success and reduced delays in tissue manufacturing, it added members and expanded its responsibilities to other areas of the mill. The expanded responsibilities led the team to grow. Today the reliability office consists of a team leader, a mechanical engineer, three mechanics, two electricians, and two lubrication attendants.

“Through the creation of sustainable best-in-class condition monitoring programs, we will increase the reliability of the Fullerton Mill assets to deliver business results.”

DEFINING THE MISSION AND VISION

HOW AND WHERE TO BEGIN

The broad assignment for the reliability office was to improve equipment reliability in tissue manufacturing. As a team, we developed a common vision of the end state we were attempting to achieve: “to drive the Fullerton Mill from a reactive/preventative maintenance culture to a proactive/ root-cause elimination maintenance culture.”

Now that we had our vision, we had to define how to make it a reality. We created a mission statement that would define our actions and we connected it to our mill’s objective:

Simply having a vision and mission statement would not be enough. We had to execute. With a daunting mission and a wide range of tactics and strategies available to employ, this could have been overwhelming. Immediately implementing all of the various condition monitoring technologies – vibration, lubrication, ultrasound, motor current analysis, etc. – did not appear to be the best strategy. We decided to focus on two or three technologies at the start, become very proficient with these, and then add another strategy each

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1. What equipment did we already have?

Answer: four laser alignment tools, four handheld vibration analyzers, and two infrared cameras.

2. W hat previous training or experience did we already have?

Answer: one to two people trained and experienced with vibration analysis, two to four people who had laser alignment experience, and one individual with infrared camera experience.

3. W ere any condition monitoring systems currently in place?

Answer: No formal condition monitoring programs existed, but we did have SAP. Within SAP, there existed routes for lubrication, oil sampling, vibration, and infrared at various intervals.

Based on the answers to these questions, we decided to begin with lubrication, vibration, and infrared. We had a base knowledge, equipment, and some routes in SAP for vibration and infrared, which made these two technologies a good choice. We prioritized lubrication over laser alignment, since it affects almost all equipment and can be practiced every day. Laser alignment is a higher skill that can be taught, but it offers only limited opportunities for practice.

Lubrication is the foundation upon which all other condition monitoring technology programs are built. Without proper lubrication, it would not matter what other condition monitoring programs were in place, as all of the equipment would be in a constant state of failure.

LUBRICATION

Before the reliability office was instituted, equipment lubrication was operators’ responsibility. The operators had little to no lubrication training and there were no checks in place to confirm that lubrication activities were completed. The mill would regularly experience equipment failures because of insufficient or improper lubrication. Some failures were minor; others were catastrophic to the equipment and/or asset.

We began our lubrication program with a third-party audit and an assessment of the mill’s lubrication program.

All team members were trained to Machinery Lubrication Technician Level I. The team reviewed all of the lubrication routes that existed in SAP. Equipment that was no longer in service was removed from the routes documentation. Routes were consolidated for ease of application and collection for the lubrication attendant. The lubricants for the mill were consolidated where possible to minimize the total number of lubricants in use – a move that offered several benefits, including reduced inventory and a lower risk of using the wrong lubricant.

To implement visual management in the lubrication program, color-coding of the lubricants and labeling of equipment was done across the department. Devices including desiccant breathers and water sediment collectors were installed on equipment for ease of daily inspections of lubricant condition.

The mill had a lab under contract for oil analysis, but the test slate was a general one that didn’t match the application of the mill’s oils. The standard response time from sample collection to receipt of results was 10–14 days. A new test slate was devised from the application of Machinery Lubrication Technician Level I training. The test slate was the basis of request for bids from a number of oil analysis laboratories near the mill. A laboratory was selected, trialed, and then placed under contract. The time from sample collection to receipt of results was reduced to 3-5 days, and the cost per sample was reduced by 63%, equivalent to $26,000 annual savings.

As part of this effort, we standardized sampling activities. Sampling of critical equipment was conducted on a monthly basis; for most other equipment the sample rate was set to bimonthly. Sampling routes were created to meet the intervals defined, and for ease of collection. The routes were leveled to have close to the same number of samples taken each month. Leveling ensured that the sampling technique was used regularly and performed consistently.

This also allowed ease of adding samples to routes for follow up sampling or additional monitoring of particular equipment, as needed. The sampling procedure was formalized and documented to ensure consistent samples and identical training for each lubrication attendant.

The daily rounds and oil analysis results drove corrective actions. Corrective actions were as simple as repairing lubricant leaks, and as complex as large bearing changes. To reduce WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 33

RELIABILITY / PLANNING

the frequency of oil changes, two oil purifiers were purchased.

The purifiers were moved between equipment to perform kidney filtering of the oil while the equipment continued to operate. The added benefit of the lubrication attendant rounds was all the other corrective actions found, from water leaks, to unusual equipment vibration or temperatures.

One of the largest benefits of the lubrication program, other than uptime of the equipment, was the reduction of oil loss in the department. Over the past three years, oil loss has been reduced from 65 gallons per week to 45, a 30% reduction. That is an equivalent of 988 gallons of oil a year, with a cost savings of $10,000 a year. The oil loss reduction positively affects not only operational costs but also the millâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s safety. Oil on the floor and on equipment presents slipping, fire, and environmental hazards.

The programâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s long-term sustainability has been improved by the recent construction of a world class centralized lubrication room and the development of formal procedures from the receipt of the lubricants to initial testing of the oils, subsequent handling, fi ltering, and dispensing of the oil. All of these procedures have been captured in written documentation for regular auditing of the process and for future training.

boxes were labeled. Other manually collected points had targets installed to facilitate consistent sensor placement for manual routes.

The vibration program was more complex than the lubrication program, primarily due to equipment and soft ware required. The vibration technicians received additional training on the equipment and soft ware direct from the OEM. A full system and program description was written to document the flow of data and the function of each piece of hardware and soft ware. Procedures and documentation for all vibration data collection were formalized. Included in the documentation were the special vibration test techniques, such as phase analysis, and synchronous time averaging.

The use of the advanced vibration analysis techniques aided in the identification of equipment faults such as unbalance, misalignment, and soft foot.

Through continued training on the vibration equipment and soft ware, we have discovered other applications where the equipment can be utilized. The vibration system has been expanded to perform minor motor current analysis and infrared monitoring. These other applications have been set up in the database and for regularly scheduled routes.

WE KNEW THAT WITH WHICHEVER TECHNOLOGY WE SELECTED, A SUSTAINABLE PROGRAM WOULD REQUIRE PROPER EQUIPMENT, TRAINING, SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT, AND DOCUMENTATION.

VIBRATION

INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY

Before the reliability office launched, a single mechanic sporadically would perform vibration rounds. The findings from the vibration analysis would often go ignored, leading to equipment failures.

The reliability office revitalized the vibration program by going back to basics. The mill changed the vibration operating system to the corporate standard equipment and soft ware. This allowed for ease of sharing of information, learnings, and techniques among the mills. Routes were standardized on four week intervals, and reconfigured for ease of data collection. All vibration technicians were trained and certified to ISO Level II. In the following months, an online vibration monitoring system was installed and critical equipment within the asset was wired to the online system. Th is data was collected once every 24 hours and was reviewed each day. The vibration measurement points that were not easily accessible or could not be collected without violating safety rules had permanent mounted sensors wired to a local switchbox.

All wiring for the online system and the local switchboxes was documented in the corporate drawing system, and all

The infrared thermography program previously consisted of a yearly survey of all the motor control centers that was driven by corporate insurance requirements and focused on power distribution. This work was always outsourced, and every year several critical and severe issues were found.

After the team completed Level I Thermography training, routes were created to perform surveys of all the motor control centers, critical drives, and PLC panels on a semiannual basis. These routes and surveys were more thorough than the yearly insurance survey and were focused on reliability. The routes were configured based on cabinet locations, opposed to which equipment was being powered.

This increased the efficiency of the inspections and reduced waste. The routes were leveled so that the technicians performed thermography routes each month.

When the infrared routes began, a high number of reliability issues were found in many panels. Some of the issues were loose wires, unlubricated switches, broken fuse holders, and unbalanced loads. In the beginning of the program, many of the faults were deemed critical or severe.

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MARCH 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

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RELIABILITY / PLANNING

After the first 18 months, the number of reliability issues within the panels were significantly decreased, and now the rate at which issues are found in panels are one to three a quarter.

Working with open power cabinets exposes the technicians to arc flash hazards. To eliminate the safety risk, infrared windows were installed on cabinet doors to allow the inspections to occur without opening the cabinet doors.

Thermography surveys were not limited to electrical inspections.

Rounds were set up to inspect the mill steam traps on a bimonthly basis. The first year of inspections yielded the repair or replacement of almost all of the steam traps in the mill. Many bypass circuits and valves were found to be faulty or in the incorrect posi-

precision alignment. Formal training was conducted for not just the reliability office members, but for other mechanics and all of the mechanical engineers in the mill.

Precision alignment consisted of shaft alignment and soft foot. Before the reliability office, precision alignment focused on shaft alignment only and ignored soft foot. Best practices were developed and documented for precision alignment, base plate design, and foundation and grouting.

Precision alignment was easily tied to engineering practices. Many aspects of equipment design and installation practices to improve shaft alignment and to minimize the effect of soft foot can be addressed at the design level.

This promoted design for reliability,

OVER THE PAST THREE YEARS, OIL LOSS HAS BEEN REDUCED FROM 65 GALLONS PER WEEK TO 45, A 30% REDUCTION ... WITH A COST SAVINGS OF $10,000 A YEAR. tion. Ultrasound was introduced about six months into the steam trap survey program. The ultrasound would confirm steam trap faults and would at times reveal faults that went undetected with thermography.

Thermography was further expanded to mechanical inspections of the asset. Routes were established to survey areas of the asset. These routes identified numerous faults, including bad bearings, failed check valves, and air leaks. This technology was also employed in tissue machine hood surveys. Leaks could be detected from a safe distance, limiting the technicianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exposure to the heat from the hoods.

PRECISION ALIGNMENT

As the reliability office became proficient with the initial three technologies of lubrication, vibration, and thermography, team members focused on the development of their skills with 36

MARCH 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

instead of attempting to improve the reliability of the equipment after installation and startup.

ROOT CAUSE FAILURE ANALYSIS

Before the reliability office was instituted, the mill repaired the equipment to operating condition, but most of the equipment would fail again soon after.

Failed components would be thrown away without investigating what may have caused the failure. When failed components were inspected, no documentation or sharing of the learnings occurred. The millâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reaction to failures was to create a preventive maintenance inspection or replacement based on a time interval. This resulted in repetitive failures of the same or similar equipment, and a proliferation of preventive maintenance work that could not be completed within the work capacity of the mill or the planned downtime of the asset.

The reliability office began to investigate failures on major equipment.

Root causes were identified and documented in root-cause failure analysis reports. The reports were shared with everyone in maintenance, engineering, and operations. Because the mill is one of six in the sector with similar assets producing similar products, the reports were also shared with the maintenance and reliability leaders at the other mills. The reliability office developed and authored the sector root cause failure analysis framework, which included the report structure and communication upon completion.

The purpose of the investigations was to find fixes that will prevent a repeat failure on similar equipment elsewhere in the mill. Countermeasures were developed for each failure, ranging from development of new assembly standards, to the application of precision maintenance techniques to new equipment designs.

Root cause failure analysis was employed to investigate the repetitive failure of the felt rolls on the tissue machine due to fretting corrosion. The bearings on three of the rolls failed after being in service for only a few months. The expected service life of the bearings was in excess of five years. The root cause failure analysis investigation found that although the bearing housings appeared to be dimensionally within specification when measuring the inner diameter, the housings were actually out of round and thus out of specification. The out of round bearing housings caused fretting corrosion of the bearings, leading to premature failure. New bearing housings were ordered with new specifications for roundness.

TEAM SYNERGY

The reliability office provided the mill with a team of condition monitoring technicians who interacted on a daily basis. The technicians and engineers worked together to confirm equipment faults and develop corrective actions utilizing multiple condition monitor-

ing technologies. For example, if an elevated temperature or vibration was detected, ultrasound would be used to discern a bearing fault versus a lack of lubrication or alignment. The combined use of technologies would help drive the proper corrective action.

Having the team members trained on each of the technologies enabled better communication, better questions, and ease of interaction between the members. In one case, the lubrication attendant found metal shavings in the oil filter of the recirculating oil system. Unfortunately, there were three separate pieces of equipment in operation on the recirculating system, servicing a total of fifteen bearings.

Which piece of equipment was failing?

The vibration technician used the vibration data to narrow it down to a single piece of equipment that consisted of two bearings, each of which could be changed independently. One bearing would require two days to change, and the other required five days to change. Bearing faults could be seen in each vibration signature.

Ultrasound revealed that only one bearing had faults. A regular scheduled shutdown of the asset was planned a few days later. The reliability office team performed a bore scope on the suspect bearing during the planned downtime and confirmed the failing bearing.

RESULTS & SUSTAINING PROGRESS

The total delay on a single tissue machine has been reduced 32% over the past three years, with unplanned mechanical and electrical delay reduced from 7.4% to 5.3% from 2014 through 2015. A significant portion of the delay in 2014 was attributed to process delay.

The mean time between failure (MTBF) of the tissue machines has increased by 35% over the past three years. A failure was defined as any event that caused the machine to stop making paper. MTBF has increased from 26.5 to 35.7 hours, a 35% increase.

There is little sense in building a program that is not sustainable.

Sustainability cannot depend upon a single person or champion; it has to come from within the group. Building a culture that will nurture and support the reliability office is crucial.

With the right culture, the reliability office can be a springboard to better morale, improved safety, and precision maintenance, ensuring a manufacturing site’s continued viability.

To share information and knowledge, we created a condition monitoring network, in which technicians from different sites meet via monthly conference calls to discuss learnings from failures and the use of the various monitoring technologies. The calls also address and help resolve

RELIABLE PLANT Now in its 18th year, Reliable Plant serves as the leading annual conference and exhibition for industrial machinery lubrication, oil analysis, and reliability professionals. This year’s event takes place in Columbus, OH, April 25-27 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

At the event, be sure to seek out Jeffrey Ng, who will be presenting “Going Beyond Fixing Equipment Faults to Defect Elimination.” This new presentation will describe a process for documenting root-cause failure analysis and communicating defect elimination to prevent similar failures. Attendees will also learn how to create a learning organization where knowledge is disseminated and how to capture tribal knowledge before it leaves the company.

Register: http://plnt.sv/PS-RP17

common application issues across the sector. Of the most importance, the network lets sites work together to build technicians’ skills and support condition monitoring’s value across the sector.

Culture alone will not allow the gains of the reliability office to be sustainable. Team members will change over time, so how does the knowledge and practice transfer from the existing team to the new members? Written procedures and best practices will help. The documents provide a means to audit actual practices. If the written procedures are followed, then the data collected will be more consistent as it is gathered by the technician.

Documentation of each of the technology systems can identify areas that need improvement. System documentation helps with troubleshooting of the technology and processes, especially as the technology changes and improves. These documents provide models for new systems to be developed as the site adds technologies to their program.

Verification of corrective actions must be conducted. Collecting data after the equipment has been repaired and dissecting the parts replaced or repaired proves that the corrective action and analysis were correct. This will build confidence in the skill and knowledge of the reliability office.

Marketing of the reliability office skills and successes will show the value of the reliability office’s work and that the mill views its work as important to the longevity of the site.

The true sustainability of the reliability office will occur when its practices are firmly entrenched in the site and in the overall maintenance culture – when all failures are known before they occur and effective countermeasures are employed after a failure’s root cause has been identified.

Jeffrey Ng is senior reliability engineer at Kimberly-Clark Corp. Contact him at Jeffrey.Ng@kcc.com.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 37

SUPPLY CHAIN / QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Kick up KPI performance with better quality management Supplier quality management can yield big benefits to OEE and on-time delivery

by Dan Jacob, LNS Research

BETTER SQM MEANS BETTER MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS

It is perhaps intuitive that suppliers that provide nonconforming or late shipments can idle production lines and cause late delivery. It can be a one-off issue arising from a typically low-risk supplier, more-frequent issues from higher-risk suppliers, or those occasional “what were we thinking?” scenarios. “Wait, production stopped at $nn,000/hour because we sourced specialty bolts from a supplier that has only two thread forming machines and needs 100% capacity from both to make schedule?

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How did their PPAP – production part approval process – get accepted?

Where were the supplier audits?”

Like it or not, the quality department owns shop-floor disruptions caused by poor SQM. As we’ll see in a moment, companies mitigate – but don’t eliminate – these issues with cross-functional, risk-based SQM teams and processes supported by appropriate technology.

However, the converse also is true, and LNS suggests viewing this in a posi-

tive light. Manufacturing operations improve through better SQM. It is in a manufacturing operation’s interest to have a mature, efficient, and capable quality and SQM operational excellence model (incorporating people, process, and technology).

BETTER BY HOW MUCH?

How much of an impact does SQM have on manufacturing operations?

To answer that, let’s dig into some

Top 15 Quality Management Best Practices that Increase OTD Best Practice Adopted

Increase in OTD

Formal NC/CAPA processes established across company

8%

Ability to visualize risk factors across operations, including suppliers

8%

Closed-loop processes established to connect quality across design, manufacturing, and suppliers

8%

Quality established as a top executive priority

7%

EQMS integrated with environmental, health, and safety (EH&S) software

7%

Production part approval process (PPAP) automated with software

7%

Calibration management automated with software

6%

Ability to identify risk factors across operations, including with suppliers

6%

Standardized escalation processes exist for supplier quality and noncompliance events

6%

Ability to prioritize risk factors across operations, including suppliers

5%

Supplier scorecards established to measure and monitor performance

5%

Cross-functional teams in place to manage quality across design, manufacturing, and suppliers

5%

Suppliers included in design-for-quality initiatives

4%

Ability to quantify risk factors across operations, including for suppliers

4%

Employee training automated with software

4%

Figure 1

Source: LNS Research

Don’t you just love that eureka moment? The exhilaration you feel when you find that missing piece of the puzzle that cascades into many other pieces quickly falling into place? It’s a swell of satisfaction, pride in perseverance, and joy in the outcome.

A eureka moment occurred for us recently when conducting our research on supplier quality management (SQM) – it might lead to a similar moment for you. Among other things, the SQM research leveraged five years of market survey data to characterize the state of SQM maturity, identify the journey to mature SQM, and quantify the correlation between adoption of SQM best practices and KPI improvements. It became clear that while SQM is critical to the quality department (obvious), it is also critical to other functions (not always so obvious).

CRITICAL ELEMENT: CULTURE OF COLLABORATION

SQM helps improve OEE and on-time

Top 3 Quality Management Practices that Improve OEE

1.

2.

3.

Those that automate SQM with software average 10% higher OEE than those that don’t Those that automate audit management with software average 9% higher OEE than those that don’t Those that automate PPAP with software average 8% higher OEE than those that don’t Figure 2

delivery, but manufacturing operations also plays a pivotal role in its success. While the quality department should lead quality activities, effective quality management and SQM is truly a cross-functional responsibility.

Unfortunately, LNS statistics show that 77% of companies do not have a cross-functional culture of quality.

The reality is that a cross-functional culture of quality does not need to be difficult or to add appreciable work.

In fact, it is likely to reduce total work because additional work performed during strategic and planning phases tends to reduce firefighting. As an example, one LNS council member recently adopted advanced product quality planning (APQP), an automotive development process that includes quality and design for manufacturability activities during product development to improve product and process quality. This process was different but no harder than the previous processes to implement. However, new equipment developed with APQP has 75% lower warranty costs.

To improve OEE and on-time delivery through improved SQM, manufacturing operations should partner with the quality department.

This can take several forms. Consider the following actions: • Work together with the quality department to build cross-functional teams and processes that connect quality between design, manufacturing, and suppliers.

• Work with the quality department to define a common risk framework and technology that will aid in identifying, quantifying, prioritizing, and mitigating risks across operations.

• Communicate to senior management the impact of SQM on manufacturing operations. Quality often has a fragmented technology landscape, which can prevent meaningful engagement by other functions. Resources will be needed to consolidate and automate this landscape.

BENEFITS ABOUND FOR “US,” “THEM,” AND EVERYONE

Was there a eureka moment in there for you? Maybe the perspective that SQM is nearly as important to manufacturing as it is to quality, or that cross-functional processes, teams, and technology centered on SQM can create competitive differentiation, was an eye-opener.

Regardless, the next time there’s a discussion about improving on-time delivery or OEE performance, consider SQM as one potential solution.

Dan Jacob is a research analyst with LNS Research; he focuses primarily on enterprise quality management systems with collaborative coverage across automotive, aerospace & defense, high-tech and electronics and medical devices. LNS Research provides advisory and benchmarking services to help line-of-business and IT executives make critical decisions.

Learn more at www.lnsresearch.com/blog.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 39

Source: LNS Research

numbers. As part of its quality management practice, LNS Research tracks the adoption of 46 best practices and 8 KPIs, including overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and on-time delivery – two critical manufacturing operations KPIs. LNS analyzed all 46 best practices against these two KPIs by comparing the average KPI of those that adopted a best practice with those that did not. We then expressed the KPIs in terms of percentage improvement. For instance, companies that include suppliers in design-for-quality initiatives experienced an average of 4% higher on-time delivery than those that did not. LNS then ranked best practices from highest to lowest to identify the highest-impact practices

by KPI. If companies that adopted SQM best practices saw improvements in KPIs, they’d bubble to the top of these ranked lists.

How did SQM practices do as compared with all tracked quality best practices? First, let’s consider the impact of SQM on on-time delivery.

Six of the top 10, and 10 of the top 15 quality management practices that improve on-time delivery are associated with cross-functional, risk-based SQM teams and processes supported by appropriate technology (see Figure 1). Clearly, SQM has played an important role in improving on-time delivery, and companies on average experienced a 4%–8% improvement in on-time delivery depending upon the SQM practice adopted.

Overall equipment efficiency (OEE) exhibits similar results. In fact, the top three quality management practices that improve OEE are associated with adoption of cross-functional SQM processes and appropriate technology (see Figure 2). It’s clear that companies that adopt SQM best practices improve OEE and on-time delivery – substantially so in some cases.

Four building blocks for lean manufacturing

by Bob Argyle, Leading2Lean

Give people the data they need to support them in making the changes you want Transitioning from traditional manufacturing to a more-efficient lean model is not as easy as simply flipping a switch. There are distinct philosophies and skills that must be embraced by everyone at the plant, a task that can seem a bit daunting. That doesn’t mean, however, that adopting lean principles and embracing a new culture at your manufacturing plant requires years to implement.

Over time and through continuous improvement, “there is a way to achieve things that you don’t necessarily know how you are going to achieve,” Steve Denning wrote in a Forbes article titled “Why Lean Programs Fail – Where Toyota Succeeds: A New Culture of Learning.” The task, he said, “is to lead the learners into developing good habits for working through problems.”

When considering how you can use technology to enable more problem-solving and process improvement, four distinct building blocks will help you establish that lean philosophy for your people on the plant floor. By embracing visibility, providing value to the end user, considering the ease of the system, and providing a mechanism for feedback, you will effectively lay the groundwork for a lean culture.

VISIBILITY AND TRANSPARENCY

Employing a lean system that allows for high visibility and complete transparency – where everyone can see what everyone else is doing at any given second of the day – is the first step toward creating that new culture.

Why is that important? If an employee can see the exact details of what happened on the plant floor during the previous shift, she will be able to make better decisions. She will be able to easily identify if equipment that has been having the same problem for weeks is still acting up and needs to be repaired.

That’s a far better alternative than simply walking into work blind to the problems or concerns from the previous shift.

When people can see what their fellow employees are working on, what problems are happening on the production

1

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line, and where those problems are, they can be much more productive and able to make a bigger impact with their work.

Visibility and transparency also give equipment technicians instant access to histories of equipment and operator use which can help pinpoint problems. That information will help technicians as they troubleshoot or perform regular maintenance.

PROVIDE VALUE TO THE END USER

Lean manufacturing systems should be a tool, not a task. These systems must provide value to the end user. In tandem with transparency, a lean system should be designed with that value in mind.

Before adopting lean manufacturing principles, many factories operated in pen-and-paper mode, keeping vague documentation of needed repairs or breakdowns on the line.

Statements as simple as “Fixed the machine on line 5” might be filed into a black box, never to be seen again.

When the lean end user considers that his documentation is going to be seen by managers, fellow operators, or even himself in a few weeks, however, he’ll be more apt to include thorough details.

With machinery manuals available at operators’ fingertips, operators will also feel empowered and better-equipped to solve production-line problems immediately when they arise. For example, if a problem happens to a machine repeatedly, operators can get instant access to see what has caused the issue and how to correct it.

2

EASY TO USE

For any new system rollout to be adopted quickly by hundreds of employees, it must be easy to use. If a new lean manufacturing system requires a PhD in computer science to use and understand, it’s far too difficult. Ease of use must be a priority for functions throughout the entire system, from

3

data entry and report analysis to accessibility and responding to alerts or alarms.

Lean systems should have the same simple interface that your employees experience daily. Think about how easy it is to navigate Facebook or do a Google search. Most people don’t need complicated instructions. Whatever system you use, it’s got to follow that simple format. If, for instance, information is too difficult to enter into your new system, it isn’t going to get done, which means the system will no longer be reliable.

Lean systems should also require very little training or no training at all. If the system requires numerous training sessions, then your lean system isn’t lean at all. Nobody has time to learn a complicated system out on the plant floor when time is of the essence.

PROVIDE INSTANT FEEDBACK – ARE WE WINNING?

For a lean system to be completely effective, employees will need to see the immediate effects of their work. Is the company or the production team winning or losing? The best way to capture that sense of immediacy is through real-time analytics.

When working in real time, operators on the plant floor will be able to witness how their individual work affects the overall condition of the facility. They will be able to see a

4

FOR A LEAN SYSTEM TO BE COMPLETELY EFFECTIVE, EMPLOYEES WILL NEED TO SEE THE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF THEIR WORK.

measurable scorecard. For instance, if an operator notices a machine on his production line needs to be cleaned, he can make the minor adjustment and save precious time, instead of waiting for maintenance to perform the task.

For a TPM process to be effective, it’s important for an operator to see how his or her activities on the plant floor affect the equipment’s overall performance. It’s also important that there be an easy mechanism in place to allow an operator to suggest improvements or changes to procedures.

This aspect of the lean philosophy fits right in line with driving that continuous improvement culture. Operators see what needs to be changed, and they’re encouraged to make suggestions on how to make those changes.

As Maslow’s hierarchy of needs outlines, people are motivated when they receive the recognition and esteem of others. So it makes sense that people genuinely want to be part of a winning team. When you provide employees with information and data that allows them to see that they are “winning,” they’ll be more motivated to push to continue to succeed.

In implementing a lean manufacturing system that allows for transparency and instant feedback, provides value to the end user, and is easy to learn and use, you’ll be able to engage employees while your entire factory reaps production benefits.

Bob Argyle is chief customer officer at Leading2Lean, a Wellington, NV-based provider of cloud solutions for manufacturers and other industrial organizations seeking to implement lean culture (www. leading2lean.com).

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 41

Photo by Ekaterina_Minaeva / Shutterstock, Inc.

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE / LEAN CULTURE

IIoT / INFRASTRUCTURE

This isn’t your father’s internet. For manufacturers and

other industrial production companies, the industrial internet of things (IIoT) promises unprecedented opportunity to manage assets and processes in real time from virtually any location and to connect disparate systems, teams, and sites.

But to create the kind of hyper-responsive manufacturing environment that the IIoT enables, you need a robust network infrastructure that will support assorted smart sensors and actuators, augmented reality technologies, and more – and do so seamlessly and securely.

If you’re unsure whether your network is up to snuff to handle IIoT demands – and how to get there if it isn’t – you’re not alone. “I feel like (the IIoT) is still a mystery” to a lot of

netic interference, and other challenges commonly found in manufacturing environments.

“A hardened network based on rugged components is vital in ensuring a reliable and secure manufacturing network, while being able to easily expand the network to incorporate new assets and technologies as they become available,” Faroni wrote.

The importance of making sure that IT assets are sufficiently ruggedized for an industrial environment isn’t always fully appreciated – and that can spell disaster, because as Faroni notes, “(e)ven minimal network disruption … can have ramifications along the entire production line.” When it comes time to select IIoT-enabling assets, then – be they

GET YOURSELF CONNECTED 4 things you need to know about building a secure, IIoT-ready network infrastructure

by Christine LaFave Grace, managing editor

end users, says Heitor Faroni, director of solutions marketing at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (www.enterprise.alcatel-lucent. com), a provider of enterprise communication products and services. “They don’t know much about the technology.”

As you seek to discern what your organization needs to make the IIoT a reality, then, here are four considerations you should keep in mind.

1. THINK “BUILT TO LAST”

The IIoT relies on the use of smart, connected endpoints (e.g., sensors and actuators) that track and monitor real-time performance of machines and processes. If you’re looking to increase the number of these endpoints and you’ll need to add more routers, switches, and access points in tandem, make sure that the hardware in this second category is industrial-grade, too, urges Faroni. In a paper earlier this year, “Manufacturing a Digital Future – Avoiding the Roadblocks on the Way to the IIoT,” Faroni noted that this enabling hardware needs to be “hardened to operate in more extreme conditions” and able to withstand heat, electromag42

MARCH 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

routers and switches or sensors and actuators – it’s a good idea to get input from all relevant stakeholders, suggests Larry O’Brien, vice president of research at ARC Advisory Group (www.arcweb.com).

“I think particularly the people at the plant level or the field level that are going to be using this technology, a lot of times they’re out of the loop,” O’Brien says. Everyday users know what kinds of conditions they and their machines face day to day, and they’ll be able to provide valuable feedback on what they need from a connectivity standpoint and the rigors that any new technology or device will have to withstand to be reliably useful.

Think of it this way: The average consumer in the market for a new smartphone may not know exactly how much data he or she needs in a month, but knowing whether/how often he or she anticipates streaming video, gaming, etc., and where the phone will be used can help guide him or her to an appropriate device and data plan.

So, “don’t leave those people out” of critical purchasing and implementation decisions, O’Brien says. “Everybody

that’s going to be affected by implementing (solutions) like this, they’re all stakeholders; they all should be involved in some way,” whether they’re an operator, an engineer, a field technician, or a plant manager, he says.

Jim Mansfield, group manager for the automation process control group at Faith Technologies (www.faithtechnologies.com), echoes the sentiment.

During the “discovery phase” of a network infrastructure upgrade project, in which an organization’s existing capabilities as well as its needs are assessed, pulling a multidisciplinary team together is vital, Mansfield says.

“It’s really imperative in a production environment…that the key plant personnel, including the plant manager, break down the communication barrier that often exists with the IT and IS teams whether it’s corporate or at the plant level. That has been something that is very difficult, and it has to do with ownership of data and ownership of network security, or who needs the data and why and when.”

Alcatel-Lucent’s Faroni adds that IT needs to understand the priorities of an organization’s different lines of business. “What you want to avoid is what we call shadow IT, where IT is not responsive and (operations teams) see them as a roadblock and they just don’t allow in; they develop their own solutions,” he says. “It’s important they cooperate and have a well-planned evolution of their network.”

2. CONNECT ALL THE DOTS

The most advanced monitoring and diagnostic capabilities in the world mean nothing if the network is down

or if service is spotty where you’re working. It can’t be overstated: “Connectivity needs to be reliable; it needs to have no latency,” Faroni says. For the IIoT to deliver on its promise of improved productivity and to become “a strategic part of your corporation,” he says, reliable, pervasive connectivity is essential.

What exactly does pervasive connectivity mean? It means highperformance wired and wireless connectivity anywhere in the plant, says Faroni. Connectivity should be seamless independent of the medium, he says, and it must be both secure and robust enough to support all of the applications you’re looking to run on the devices you’re looking to use.

“Some (organizations) are just concerned about what is the cheapest suite and what is the cheapest WiFi solution that they can find because they’re only looking at connectivity,” he says. “But now you need to look beyond that— what about security? What about creating a (level) of service necessary for the applications?”

3. KEEP CALM AND CEDE CONTROL

For manufacturers, moving to a managed-service cloud-based infrastructure can offload some of the heavy lifting of data storage while supporting anywhere, anytime data access and data-sharing. But companies moving to this model (and especially to a public cloud) from running their own data center need to be aware of the shift in control that it entails, says Tom Cibelli, a solutions engineer who manages the cloud solutions team at Bentley Systems (www.bentley.com).

IIoT / INFRASTRUCTURE

“A lot of times they don’t anticipate the loss of direct control over their infrastructure and the direct response to that infrastructure,” Cibelli says. “You can make everything an emergency when you’re running it yourself with your own staff, but it’s not quite so easy when you’re working with a managed service.”

4. CERTIFY AND VERIFY

Adding more points of connection on the shop floor, in the warehouse, or in the office means adding more points of potential security risk. Faroni notes a recent example, reported in The New York Times in January, of a hotel in Austria that found its smart electronic key system (as well as the hotel’s reservation system) hacked and taken down by ransomware. Hotel guests weren’t able to get into their rooms, and hotel management wound up paying the ransom to get back up and running.

High-tech doesn’t have to mean high-

risk, but in a world of ever-evolving security threats, what do you need to know and do to ensure your network is secure?

“I’d highly recommend investigating two things off the bat,” Bentley Systems’ Cibelli says. “One would be a certification path, specifically an ISO 27001 certification path.” (Per the International Organization for Standardization’s website, the ISO/IEC 27000 family of standards provides requirements for an information security management system.)

“Even if (organizations) don’t get that certification,” Cibelli says, “it will provide a good road map for the kinds of things they should be thinking about and asking about as they build out their cloud-based system or evaluate other cloud-based systems to put their data in.” Along with that step, says Cibelli, “I would strongly recommend a security and compliance-based tool that has multiple features.”

Gerald “Gerry” Bauer

President, EccoFab - Rockford, IL

 Sullair.com/GerrysStory

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It doesn’t even think about quitting.

In fact, it doesn’t think of anything but the job at hand.

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Cibelli and Faroni both note that even as security threats and threat vectors expand, most organizations aren’t adding IT personnel to assess and address these. “Every organization I’ve talked to, they’re never growing people” to deal with information security issues, Faroni says. “They’re staying the same or they’re reducing.” So in looking for tools as well as service providers to help manage security risk, make sure that solutions are scalable and that they enable your IT department to support growing security needs.

“You’ve got to have the right tools, the right procedures, and the right policies in place to allow existing headcounts or incremental increases in headcount to match the exponential increases in threat vectors and malicious agents,” Cibelli says.

From a cloud perspective, “There’s always a lot of focus on security and therefore compliance of cloud-based systems,” says Cibelli, “but I would say over the past couple of years there has been a consolidation of what that compliance and what that security should look like, what are the minimum barriers of entry, what are the kinds of questions that (a vendor will) need to answer before someone will agree to allow you to essentially host their data.”

Chief among the questions that prospective buyers should ask, according to Cibelli: What certifications or compliances do your systems hold or support? Besides ISO 27001, SOC (Service Organization Control) 2 Type 1 and Type 2 reports on nonfinancial controls relating to security, availability, privacy, and more are growing in importance, Cibelli says.

Ensuring that your organization and its security partners undergo thirdparty security audits to check whether security tools are operating – and of equal importance, being used – as they should is a critical step, too, he adds. At Bentley Systems, “we regularly vet our security policies and procedures via external audits to verify we’re doing what we say we’re doing,” he says.

SPONSORED RESEARCH / ASSET MANAGEMENT

Asset management for distributed operations Plant Services recently partnered with enterprise software vendor IFS (www.ifsworld.com) to conduct a survey designed to assess the market demand for asset management solutions that can handle distributed operations and scale both with organizational demand and with new data sets available in the age of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Results from the survey are available in a series of three special reports, with this infographic summarizing key findings.

ARE YOU HESITATING ON FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE?

80%

41%

of respondents consider field service a growth area for their organization

70%

of respondents consider field service a priority for driving revenue

of respondents are using or plan to deploy a FSM solution within three years

Most-used FSM software features among respondents: • Planning and scheduling (27.3%) • Parts life cycle management (15.9%)

Verticals leading this group: • Utilities / power gen • Chemical manufacturing • Pharmaceutical manufacturing

• Inventory management (13.6%)

Download the full report: http://plnt.sv/1703-RR01

IS YOUR ORGANIZATION GETTING IN THE WAY OF EAM/CMMS SUCCESS?

72.7%

of respondents think improvements are needed to their CMMS initiatives

Top three plant investments

Top three drivers for deploying a CMMS solution

Top three obstacles limiting success of CMMS initiatives

3 Safety systems (79.8%)

1 Improve uptime (85.9%) 2 Reduce OpEx (84.8%) 3 Reduce maintenance costs (83.9%)

1 Budget constraints (71.7%) 2 Undefined operational benefits (66.7%) 3 Undefined financial benefits (66.6%)

EH&S solutions (68.7%)

Energy management (60.6%)

1 Reliability solutions (85.9%) 2 EAM/CMMS (82.8%)

Download the full report: http://plnt.sv/1703-RR02

MOBILITY CAN DRIVE ASSET MANAGEMENT (if IT lets you go mobile)

64.2%

35.8%

of respondents' companies allow use of mobile devices on the job

of respondents are not currently allowed to use these devices

(mostly organizations that operate more than 6 plants)

(mostly organizations that operate 1-5 plants)

42.1%

of respondents access EAM/CMMS via mobile devices

(mostly organizations that operate more than 6 plants)

Most-used mobile CMMS features among respondents: • Work instructions (34.7%)

• Route management (28.4%)

• Planning and scheduling (32.6%)

• Alerts (28.4%)

• Reporting (30.5%)

At the bottom: Invoicing (9.5%)

Download the full report: http://plnt.sv/1703-RR03

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 45

PRODUCT ROUNDUP

INSTRUMENTATION If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it SMART CORIOLIS MASS AND ELECTROMAGNETIC FLOW

VANGUARD WIRELESSHART GAS DETECTOR

The Endress+Hauser Proline 300/500 family of industry optimized “smart” Coriolis mass and electromagnetic flow instruments simplify installation, speed commissioning, and streamline operation and maintenance activities.

Proline instruments connect to control systems via 4-20mA HART, WirelessHART, PROFIBUS PA/DP, FOUNDATION Fieldbus, Modbus, EtherNet/IP, or PROFINET. Both families provide access to users via the device’s display, a web server, a wireless LAN, handheld devices, asset management or process automation solutions, and Fieldbus protocol.

Each Proline instrument provides fast commissioning, in-situ device verification during operation, continuous self-diagnostics, and automatic on-board data storage. Each also features a HistoROM function to protect data storage automatically, including an event log book and data logger that can be accessed locally or remotely, and storage of calibration and verification information. The built-in web server provides universal browser-based access to device, diagnostics, and process information from any device with an internet or Wi-Fi connection.

United Electric Controls’ Vanguard WirelessHART gas detector can monitor the presence of harmful gases for more than five years without a battery replacement, reducing monitoring costs and increasing safety by eliminating the need for costly and fixed wiring. Vanguard field-interchangeable gas sensor modules detect and record hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or methane (CH4) gas in parts per million (PPM) or percent of lower explosive limits (LELs) respectively, along with network and battery status. WirelessHART 7.2 technology carries signals to local 128 x 64 pixel digital displays or other IEC 62591 compatible connections — all of which integrate seamlessly with existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) or asset management (AMS) systems.

United Electric Controls www.ueonline.com BW CLIP4 FOUR-GAS PORTABLE MONITOR

The Siemens Sitrans TO500 measuring system for fiber-optic temperature measurement enables complex temperature measurements and detection of the precise position of critical overtemperatures. The Sitrans TO500 is characterized by a large number of measuring points (as many as 48 per measuring lance, depending on the temperature range) and the small diameter of the sensor measuring lance, allowing users to use a smaller protective tube in the reactor. The precise determination of the temperature profile enables users to detect critical operating states in a timely manner and initiate countermeasures.

The Honeywell BW Clip4 is a new four-gas, portable monitor that, once turned on, can operate continuously for two years without the need to change sensors or charge batteries.

BW Clip4 reduces maintenance costs associated with fleets of portable gas detectors by eliminating repair work and the need to stock additional sensors and spare units. Because it’s always on, the BW Clip4 helps drive safety compliance by assuring that workers wearing the device are protected.

Using nondispersive infrared (NDIR) technology, previously available only in fixed-gas detectors from Honeywell Analytics, the BW Clip4 consumes 1,000-times less battery power than a catalytic bead (pellistor) sensor, the traditional technology used to detect flammable gases in a portable device. Other features include simultaneous monitoring of H2S, CO, O2 and combustibles (LEL), and real-time display for instant gas readings even in nonalarm conditions, along with current gas concentration level and changes in atmospheric conditions.

Siemens www.usa.siemens.com

Honeywell www.honeywell.com

Endress+Hauser www.us.endress.com SITRANS TO500 MULTIPOINT MEASURING SYSTEM

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EPS-SERIES DIGITAL PRESSURE SENSORS

The AutomationDirect EPS series of digital pressure sensors is ideal for industrial pressure measurement and indication in both gas and liquid applications. EPS-series sensors are available with measuring ranges from vacuum up to 5800 psig. Selectable engineering units such as bar, mbar, kPa, MPa, inches of water column, and inches of mercury can be shown on the digital display.

The compact and robust design and construction of the ProSense EPS series withstands extreme shock and vibration, provides high accuracy and reliability, and incorporates the best combination of overpressure, burst pressure and long term stability for each measuring range. Encased in a stainless-steel housing, the EPS-series sensors have a high IP67 ingress protection rating and achieve their atmospheric pressure reference at the 4-pin M12 electrical connection.

AutomationDirect www.automationdirect.com WIRELESS MACHINE LEVEL

The GTI Predictive Technology wireless machine level is a 2-axis precision digital level that simultaneously displays two-dimensional plane angles, simplifying and resolving the hurdles of taking angles one axis at a time. For simple tasks the built-in display can be used to perform a leveling task, but the level stands out with its latency free Bluetooth connection to the iPad. Technicians can be more efficient leveling assets by viewing the live level data on the iPad as adjustments are being made. Machinery can be leveled to a 0.001° angular measurement accuracy with GTI’s level.

GTI Predictive Technology www.gtipredictive.com IL5 HIGH-SPEED 5MP CAMERA FOR REMOTE MONITORING

Fastec Imaging’s IL5 High-Speed 5MP Camera allows remote monitoring and troubleshooting of your manufacturing process. At any given time, the IL5 enables you to record production lines moving at high speed for performance or quality analysis, troubleshooting, or machinery diagnostics using slow-motion replay so you can see what you have been

missing with normalspeed video. The IL5 can also be used to record gears, motors, small and large rotating machinery or equipment moving at high speed and susceptible to vibration problems for maintenance or troubleshooting. All models record over 3200 fps at VGA resolution and more than 29,000 fps at smaller resolutions and are able to save images to an SSD or SD card while recording high-speed bursts of hundreds or even thousands of images at a time.

Fastec Imaging www.fastecimaging.com VPFLOWSCOPE M AND VPSTUDIO FOR INDUSTRY 4.0

VPInstruments introduces major improvements and new features for the revolutionary VPFlowscope M. This compressed air meter, with its patented VPSensorCartridge technology and its built-in Ethernet interface, is the first one of its kind to be ready for Industry 4.0. Because the VPSensorCartridge of the VPFlowScope M can easily be exchanged with a perfectly calibrated new cartridge, the calibration and maintenance costs are dramatically reduced.

A new download algorithm also is available for the new VPFlowScope M firmware and VPStudio, reducing the download time of data log files by 10 times and improving button and menu response for the VPFlowScope M. VPInstruments www.vpinstruments.com 8008A PRESSURE GAUGE

Ashcroft introduces the 8008A pressure gauge to industrial OEMs looking for a cost-effective quality gauge. This new durable instrument meets the recognized specifications of EN837-1 and ASME B40.100, ensuring accuracy and long-term performance. A corrosion-resistant stainless-steel case along with liquid fill vibration dampening help extend the service life. The Ashcroft 8008A pressure gauge is a perfect fit for hydraulic systems, compressors, and many other demanding applications.

Ashcroft www.ashcroft.com WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017 47

CLASSIFIEDS

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

ADVERTISER INDEX

Aldon Company . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Life Cycle Engineering. . . . . . . . . 4

Alidade MER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Ludeca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Automate 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

MW Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

AutomationDirect.com. . . . . . . . . 2 Dynatect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Eventful Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Flir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Quincy Compressor. . . . . . . . . . . 3 Rabalais Instrument & Electrical Constructors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 SKF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Smart Industry. . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Fluke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Steute. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

ITW Vortec. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Sullair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Kaeser Compressors. . . . . . . . . 20

Turbomachinery Laboratory. . . . 16

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SALES OFFICES MIKE BRENNER, GROUP PUBLISHER AR, AZ, Northern CA, CO, ID, IL, MN, MT, NE, NV, NM, ND, OK, OR, SD, UT, WA, WI, WY Phone: (630) 467-1300, ext. 487 Fax: (630) 467-1120 e-mail: mbrenner@putman.net BETH ROLFE, REGIONAL SALES MANAGER AL, Southern CA, CT, DE, FL, GA, LA, ME, MD, MA, MS, NH, NJ, NY, NC, PA, RI, SC, TX, VT, VA, DC, WV Phone: (630) 467-1300, ext.440 Fax: (630) 467-1120 e-mail: Brolfe@putman.net

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MICHAEL CONNAUGHTON, ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE IA, IN, KS, KY, MI, MO, OH, TN, Canada, Literature Reviews, Inside Print and Digital Sales Phone: (513) 543-6432 Fax: (630) 467-1120 e-mail: mconnaughton@putman.net POLLY DICKSON, INSIDE SALES MANAGER Classifieds Phone: (630) 467-1300, ext.396 Fax: (630) 467-1120 e-mail: pdickson@putman.net

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION (888) 644-1803 or (847) 559-7360 REPRINTS RHONDA BROWN Reprints Marketing Manager Foster Reprints (866) 879-9144 ext.194 rhondab@fosterprinting.com PUTMAN MEDIA, INC. 1501 E. Woodfield Rd. Suite 400N Schaumburg, IL 60173 Phone: (630) 467-1300

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MRO MARKETPLACE OPTIMIZE CLEANING POWER “NLB Corporations Torrent™ tank cleaning heads optimize horsepower and flow for powerful cleaning action. We offer a complete selection of 3-D heads, telescopic lances, swivel turrets, protective cages and extensions for practically any application.

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WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM MARCH 2017

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BIG PICTURE INTERVIEW

WHY AUTOMATE? WHY NOT? Pen and paper on the plant floor and other oddities from a Millennial’s perspective In 2016, Allie Schwertner took her freshly issued B.S. in chemical engineering from The Ohio State University and went to work for Rockwell Automation (www.rockwellautomation.com). Her eight-month training program, which she’s completing as a part of a class of 24 new account managers, wraps up in March. A first-generation college student, Schwertner spoke with Plant Services about what drew her to the automation industry and what has surprised her about the state of U.S. manufacturing today. Chief among the eye-openers: how much room many companies have to grow from an automation perspective.

PS You’re a chemical engineer. What led you to go work for an automation company??

AS In college I had no idea on anything about the automa-

tion industry. One of my friends just happened to mention Rockwell Automation because she had interned with them.

Once I learned about (them) – I feel like they definitely are the future. I’m really into the technology and the ability to help others.

The fact that we’re going to be able to use less energy creating more-efficient processes, it’s been completely amazing to see. And learning about the mobility that that’s going to provide. What I’m seeing (though) is that industry is focused on traditional products and services.

When I was recruited, it was about the idea of creating solutions for our customers that are going to take them to the next level. I think that’s really the big push with the younger generation, having that big picture idea.

PS How is mobile technology changing either your job or the jobs that Rockwell Automation influences through its products and services?

AS One of the big ideas that my manager has been stressing is this idea of a connected enterprise. All of these individual machines in the plant will be able to talk to each other and then the whole system will be able to talk to us when we’re not even at the plant. People won’t always have to be at that location to see something going down. It is happening right now; just not everyone is making that shift.

PS Real-time data access really is incredible.

AS As a Millennial, we’re used to that. We are used to having answers right away and I’m shocked that places don’t have that. Some are still writing down inventory on paper.

It’s actually amazing to me.

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PS What else has surprised you about this industry?

AS I assumed that manufacturing plants were all automated. Like, I assumed that they would be able to stop the machine from one place (without having to be there). I’m amazed by how manual the processes are.

PS We see some factories that are 100% automated and almost all digital, and some, like high-end chocolate manufacturers, where almost everything is done by hand. Do you think those that haven’t made the shift really see where things are going?

AS I think it’s really hard to convince a lot of the people who are making the executive decisions. To me it’s hard to understand – why wouldn’t you switch and make this all automated? Could it be a high upfront cost? There’s just so much potential to (save) money from lack of errors, lower downtime.

PS Now that you’ve been on the job a while, what about this career or this industry has lined up with what you expected?

AS The ability to help, like when you’re finding a solution, is amazing. I really enjoy helping people, and I’m able to see when we provide a solution, and the other engineers are getting excited, and that’s a very big deal. I wanted something where I’m making an impact. And I really wanted to have a position where I’d be able to gain experience across multiple industries, not just work in a lab all day. It’s been incredible, moving around in all these different spaces.

I think the discipline of chemical engineering opens so many doors. It’s like learning how to think. Being able to use our generation’s mindset of always wanting to be better, always wanting to change things ... You don’t want to step on too many toes, but (if you) use it as a benefit and connect with the right people, you’ll be able to move forward.

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