Last year's publication of the voluntary ISO 55000:2014 series of asset management standards has the potential to change everything in maintenance management. That's the contention of many in the industry – despite more than 10 years' availability of the best-selling PAS 55 specification, developed by BSI (British Standards Institution) and IAM (the Institute of Asset Management) back in 2004 and updated in 2008. Why? Because PAS 55 was designed only as a foundation to optimise the management of physical plant and equipment, whereas ISO 55000, which supersedes that standard, kicks coverage on to include financial and business metrics, too.
That makes a critical difference. As Karen Conneely, group commercial manager at Real Asset Management, says, ISO 55000 provides a framework that now encourages businesses, not just their plants, to use 'asset insights'. "It is about cutting costs and improving effectiveness of the operation, but also understanding the business risk and hence costs associated with individual asset failures," she explains.
"It's also about improving planning and providing people across an organisation – from finance to production and senior management – with visibility into the end-to-end spend on [and value of] asset maintenance."
In effect, ISO 55000 changes asset management from a tactical factory and plant management issue to a strategic business issue. Physical assets are no longer the sole preserve of maintenance departments, but are of interest to the business as a whole. Put another way, ISO 55000 provides a framework for changing corporate attitudes – from thinking of maintenance as a necessary evil, to understanding how and why making the most effective use of assets maximises business profit.
For those who take it seriously, this now puts good old CMMSs (computerised maintenance management systems) at the heart of delivering business- as well as plant-critical information. Most importantly, it also enables plant and business process improvement – not just maintenance regime change. This is in tandem with management directed to use asset information to influence everything from resource utilisation to purchasing policy in the drive for better business competitiveness.
But the standard – which is based on PAS 55 and involved 31 countries in its development – is just the standard, or rather three standards. ISO 55000 provides an overview of asset management, with terms and definitions. ISO 55001 covers the requirements for an integrated asset management system, just as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 specify quality management and environmental management systems respectively. Then IS0 55002 establishes guidance for the implementation of an overarching asset management system.
In other words, it is not a specification for an EAM (enterprise asset management) system or CMMS. It is a formula aimed at helping organisations to harness such systems for more than just cutting maintenance costs and improving asset uptime. How? By articulating the detailed requirements and also the business value of taking conventional maintenance improvement projects (involving better scheduling of tasks, parts, instruments, equipment, engineering skills, etc) to another, business-led level, based on a strategic understanding of the value of individual assets.
Making this happen, though, involves a fairly major project – much the same as a wholesale move towards RCM (reliability centred maintenance) might be. "The first step – planning – requires the business to record detailed information about assets, costs, procurement and resource utilisation," suggests Conneely. Again, that is where a good CMMS comes in. This is your best source of information on: job numbers per day, week, etc; machines and lines affected; relevant fix times; skills and tools required (in-house or subcontracted); and parts and repairs required, including associated lead times.
And this data leads to the all important end-to-end costs – in terms of business performance and risk. "The business can then determine corporate objectives – cutting maintenance costs, reducing reactive maintenance, prioritising uptime of key assets, etc – which can then be reflected in the asset management strategy," she advises. Similarly, organisations need to understand how asset performance can affect business continuity and determine appropriate responses.
Armed with a clear understanding of asset value and risk levels assigned to each asset, management can then, for the first time, use a CMMS to support the next phase of the ISO 55000 framework. "From improving scheduling to tracking staff performance and delivering appropriate training, the 'action' phase of the standard delivers measurable improvements in resource utilisation and quality of the assets," explains Conneely. And she adds that, with that done, organisations can also run 'what-if' scenarios to assess the impact of proactive maintenance, and so prioritise projects against recognised business values.
All of which points up the importance of upgrading your CMMS, or specifying a new system, to match a necessarily wider remit. Note, for most, that should not mean simply going for a faster, better version of the previous software, but instead looking for a system capable of advanced maintenance management functions (such as skills matrices and permits to work), but also handling quality, compliance and other business metrics. Just as important, you are also likely to need integration with production management and, of course, business management systems.
Best advice is to check for functionality, specifically including an ability to: prioritise individual asset maintenance schedules against downtime risk; predict and purchase against future parts and service requirements; and schedule interventions in step with production requirements. It also needs to be capable of: maintaining a skills, tools and documentation database; and providing mobile functionality, including videos and maintenance history. Ultimately, it also needs to support moves towards TPM (total productive maintenance) and RCM.
But it's not just about the CMMS. If the goal of ISO 55000 is to take maintenance up the business management agenda, then you'd better be able to deliver when the demand comes. There's a world of difference between the traditional bottom-up clamour of maintenance managers for more money and attention, versus a future of management-led, top-down investment followed by expectations of rapid and efficient action. So, with the well-known skills shortage, plus the challenge of moving from mostly reactive and/or planned maintenance to condition-based predictive maintenance – and, ideally, operator engagement in TPM – people and processes are likely to be a limiting factor.
As Derek Hill, managing director of maintenance consultancy Advanced Technology Services, observes: "Establishing best practice in production maintenance is an achievable goal, but while many talk about it, few achieve it. Many blame it on the age of their manufacturing assets and the repairs they require. More blame goes to not stocking critical – and expensive – spares needed to sustain production. And still more can be blamed on today's fast-paced manufacturing that 'doesn't allow for proper planning or time management'."
One proven way of getting over that substantial hurdle is to get factories' and plants' production and maintenance teams working together to establish the steps required to reach world-class maintenance – but be prepared to outsource some aspects. "Moving the needle from reactive maintenance to best practices in maintenance takes time, a cultural shift and some very talented maintenance technicians," says Hill. "So it is conceivable that you might need help from a third party – not only to find good technicians, but also to help establish the proper metrics and processes within your operation."
That, he says, is a realistic route to achieving lean maintenance. He's not alone. Maintenance services specialist Eriks has made a successful business out of exactly such an approach. Indeed, David Manning-Ohren, business unit manager for condition monitoring, says the firm is frequently seen as an extension of manufacturers' own departments and facilities.
Partly, that's down to Eriks' processes and people. Partly, it's the buying power of an organisation able to consolidate spares purchasing across many manufacturers and sites. And partly, it's the rise of technologies capable of providing maintenance-related reports directly to clients' existing CMMSs, yet at very low cost. Manning-Ohren gives the example of cloud-based systems. "By hosting our clients' data in the cloud, via our own secure data centre, we not only save them having to invest in their own servers, but also provide remote access to inspection and maintenance reports online from anywhere," he explains.
That matters, particularly with condition-based monitoring and maintenance, given the data-hungry nature of the associated reports. Large thermal imaging videos, optical gas leak imaging, vibration analyses, acoustic bearing survey files and oil analysis reports generated by third parties are unlikely to get through companies' email systems. Also, using one of the online data transfer services for downloading gigabytes of data to your own systems is a time-consuming administrative process. Clicking instead onto your supplier's web-based cloud system puts you in charge of the information and images you want without the cost (systems and people) or fuss.
"Also, information can be provided for a manufacturing site's own database as Word, Excel or PDF files, with, for example, lists of defects – which occupy kbytes, not Mbytes – but with links to the original reports," suggests Manning-Ohren. And he explains that clients provide their asset lists so the information relates directly to their own CMMS's FLOCs (functional locations) in whatever format is appropriate – for example, failure risk score.
"From that, they can go to their myEriks webpage and look at the detail, if necessary," he says. "Then, they can schedule remedial action, parts allocation, etc, if appropriate, in line with the production schedule, the severity of the identified problem and the criticality of the asset in question." What's more, when condition monitoring equipment is 3G enabled for fast mobile connectivity, transmission of equipment condition ratings will be automated and available in near real time.
It's a changing world, and just in time to make ISO 55000 really shine for hard-pressed manufacturers. ¦
Monarch Aircraft Engineering takes tooling further
November 2013 saw the opening of a multi-million pound maintenance hangar at Birmingham Airport by Monarch Aircraft Engineering (MAEL), which provides aircraft maintenance services for sister company Monarch Airlines and other airlines. As part of a move to make this a world-class facility, and to ensure security and accountability around the hangar, the firm decided to replace all engineers' personal tools with a new controlled system.
"An established toolkit can take years to build," explains Lee Burgess, general manager for maintenance planning and strategy at MAEL. "This meant that experienced engineers possessed a full range of quality tools, but those relatively new to the industry often only had the basics." And he explains that the organisation wanted not only to ensure that all engineers had access to quality tools, but also to take control and ownership of the tooling inventory – including monitoring tool usage.
Following a selection process, MAEL chose tooling specialist Snap-on Industrial UK to replace more than 27,000 hand and power tools with its Level 5 tool control system and added its TCMax asset management system for its secure asset data storage and robust traceability. Burgess explains that it works to counter foreign object damage (FOD), and makes the workplace safer and more productive through five key measures: tool organisation; tool visibility, via coloured foam inserts; tool security; tool tracking; and digital tool accountability, including torque calibration schedules.
Now, Snap-on's Networkable Tool Control provides keyless access lockable tool storage units for authorised personnel. All tools are laser etched with an ID number linked to a cabinet within the TCMax asset management system. When a tool is removed from the cabinet, a record is generated, providing real-time inventory management, including details of the user, the intended aircraft and work-specific area, all linked to a works order.
Critical events, such as calibration requests and broken or lost tools, trigger automatic emails to shift supervisors, ensuring immediate action is taken.