The BI-Cycle 2012 model includes:

• KPI Management
• Reliability Analysis, RCM and FMECA compliant with ISO 14224 coding for Equipment Categories, Equipment Classes, Equipment types, Failure Mechanisms, Failure Modes, Failure Causes, Detection Methods, Maintenance Activities.
• Master Data Management
• FastPlan v2

BI-Cycle delivers value from the first time you put data into the model and start looking at your own data in a new light with the analysis tool.

The BI-Cycle Maximo demo and evaluation offer is:

• to build a BI-Cycle demo model with your data.
• deliver a web presentation of the BI-Cycle Analysis tools and data mart model using your data.
• At NO CHARGE

To build the model you need to provide an Oracle .dmp of your Maximo Schema and we can put in place an appropriate Non-disclosure agreement to cover this activity.

Based on the experiences of other BI-Cycle implementations you will probably not be surprised by some of the messages the tool will deliver but it will quickly highlight problem areas, provide the evidence for potential maintenance improvements and show how BI-Cycle can be used to support your maintenance activities.

To progress the offer email: maximodemo@greycloud.co.uk

Recording hours – I believe it is very important that the maintenance culture should support the technician recording and taking credit for all the hours that he spends on a work order. This should include safety/review of procedures, wait time (permits/isolations etc.), looking out/collecting materials, wrench time, and fully recording what was done in the CMMS and providing feedback on the planning and content of the work order.

These near misses should be treated as failures and analysed as such.

It is important that every touch/visit/intervention on the equipment is recorded in the CMMS, e.g. trips and resets are not general duties for the electrical crew, they should be recorded as corrective work in the CMMS against the equipment involved. They are frequently an indicator of a problem elsewhere.

It is often impractical and there is a lot of resistance to raising a new work order in these instances for each return visit to the kit to reset, but the simple solution is to raise one corrective work order against the equipment and record each intervention against it until the problem is fixed. A failure problem/cause recorded as ‘Unknown’ should not be acceptable to supervisors/management looking for improvement.

The data ‘is what it is’ and the CMMS is normally capable of recording what is needed but it is a fact that as more automated monitoring and control systems are added this data is recorded elsewhere and does not find its way back to the CMMS. This could be one reason why there are so few meter based PMs active, as this data is not directly recorded in the CMMS and so frequency based PMs are the norm. The technician cannot record what he no longer sees.

The big picture shows where we burn the most resources, most failures, lost production, hours, costs and helps identify the bad actors, whether they are machine or human. We can then improve data quality and business processes, repair, redesign, replace equipment with a business case based on evidence and monitor improvement. This is a powerful tool for changing behaviours which is the first step towards continuous improvement.

The BI-Cycle Plant Information Data Mart model delivers the ‘Big Picture’ for the continuous maintenance improvement process.

Over the years they have survived new systems and business processes and watched management initiatives come and go. Most of which from their perspective increased their workload rather than reduced it.

The ‘Dilbert Principle’ comes into play – ‘If you’re a surgeon, it takes a great deal of skill and intelligence to perform an organ transplant. It is much less challenging to write a mission statement for the hospital that explains your deep desire to avoid killing patients accidentally.’ – Scott Adams

You don’t want the administrator performing heart bypass surgery on you.

I believe that to achieve ‘buy-in’ from the workforce to continuous maintenance improvement you have to  change management behaviour around the maintenance processes.

All too often the maintenance resource is treated as a free resource by other areas of the organisation, for example  projects. Projects demand the maintenance resource, usually at short notice,  to drop everything and assist in the installation and commissioning of new equipment. The cost of this does not come from the project budget as they do not have to account for the use of ‘internal’ resources, yet year on year the maintenance department will witness a reduction in the maintenance budget by way of a cost challenge from top management and spend a great deal of that in clearing punch lists and snagging from ‘completed’ projects.

The behaviours are understandable. Projects are interesting, new and everyone  likes to be involved and talk about the project they are working on. Maintenance is continuous, repetitive, perceived as boring  and in contrast to projects, the maintenance overhead is  an area in which management always seem to be looking to cut costs.

For the maintenance departments, supervisors and technicians a simple formula can be described:

REAL WORK + NEGATIVE WORK = NO WORK

REAL WORK is a planned job, fully scoped , with a good estimate, including time to record in the CMMS what was done,  all required resources available (permits, materials, specialist tools/vendors),  allowed to start and complete without interruption.

NEGATIVE WORK is unplanned work, the interruption to the schedule, the kneejerk stop what you are doing and help with this other activity which has suddenly been ‘deemed’ more important than what was planned and agreed.

NEGATIVE WORK is also the realisation that the time spent in a planning  meeting discussing and agreeing a short outage with production and operations for an essential PM major equipment overhaul was wasted when ‘bumped’ by senior management to meet production targets.

NEGATIVE WORK is the production train wreck and long outage that occurred months later resulting from the failure of the equipment that had the major PM overhaul deferred/still to be done plus material damage to other related equipment.

NO WORK = With all these interruptions I don’t have the time to do this is the feedback you get from the supervisors and technicians at the mention of a new business process initiative for maintenance.

In my maintenance analysis work it is clear that assets that execute their PMs as planned stay up and have fewer unplanned outages. The more REAL WORK that they do the greater the reliability and availability of the asset.

NEGATIVE WORK can be measured: break-ins, unscheduled completions etc and with a combination of visibility, policing, intervention and training the behaviours relating to the creation of NEGATIVE WORK can be addressed.

I have seen organisations which have made the effort to address the behaviours associated with NEGATIVE WORK take great strides towards involving the organisation in the process of continuous maintenance improvement.

Sadly, no matter how lean, efficient and successful your maintenance group is at keeping the asset running with high levels of availability and reliability through continuous maintenance improvement , there will always be someone who thinks you can deliver the same next year with less. The annual cost challenge will always be there.

Using the market leading IBM Maximo as an example, so far we have had SQR, Actuate, BIRT, and now IBM is pushing COGNOS as a higher end approach. There is also a lot of BusinessObjects out there connected to Maximo and other EAM’s.

All these approaches have taken a long time to develop/re-develop and in my experience have not been effective in supporting continuous maintenance improvement.

The business case for the BI-Cycle data mart, Analysis tool and KPI management/web reporting remains as strong as ever. Why burn thousands of dollars on a new reporting environment, specification, development/testing when you can install a validated environment and reports which monitor maintenance processes, master data, reliability etc.. with all the KPI metrics you could wish for.

Having BI-Cycle in place before you upgrade can deliver the following benefits:

• Web Reporting, KPI Management and Reliability Analysis will be the same before and after you swap out or upgrade. This will reduce the need for costly rewrites of your reporting environment.
• The BI-Cycle Plant Information Data Mart is the perfect place to archive all the old work order history.
  • Why fill up your new system with old and possibly poor quality data?
  • Why compromise the integrity and upgradeability of your new system by having to customise/modify it to work with the old data and methods of working?
  • Why increase your implementation risk and costs to transform/migrate this data?
• BI-Cycle already has a comprehensive ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) tool which can be used to migrate the essential and validated structures and data from your old system to the new one.

Plus you still have a the BI-Cycle Plant Information Data Mart, RCM Analysis Tools, KPI Management to assist you in your continuous maintenance improvement process.

easyfairs MAINTEC 2011, NEC, Birmingham UK

Don’t miss a chance to share how bright ideas are helping to build a smarter planet through Enterprise Asset Management (EAM).

Pulse 2011 features a dedicated EAM stream focusing on:

• Asset Management Best Practices
• Implementation and Upgrades
• Introducing New Functionality in IBM Maximo Asset Management
• Maximo Technical Sessions
• Maximo Utility Working Group
• Smarter Asset Management for Your Industry
• Smarter Buildings

IBM Pulse Channel

It takes a college degree to fly a plane but only a high school diploma to fix one..

After every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a ‘gripe sheet,’ which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humour. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by the Qantas’ pilots (marked with a “P”), and the solutions recorded by maintenance engineers (marked with an “S”). (By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never, ever, had a crash.)

P: Left inside main tyre almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside m ain tyre.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft…

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200ft per min descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

/And the best one for last../………………

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.