GreyCloud Limited

Category: Performance Management

  • Analytics for EAM – Template for Maximo

    Pleased to announce the launch today of the ‘Analytics for EAM’ Template for Maximo.

    EAMSubscribeNow

    Watch the “Getting Started” videos

    01: Introduction (video 07:13)

    02: Connecting to Maximo (video 08:35)

    03: EAM Template Demonstration (video 11:34)

    The creation of the “Analytics Template” is based upon the knowledge and experience of many years of working with computerised maintenance systems, building data marts, dashboards/KPIs and the requirement to analyse asset management data.

    The objective of the template is to deliver a plug’n’play approach to deliver a consistent and validated view of EAM data which can be used by end-user ‘consumers’ for self-service data discovery.

    This approach has been used with a number of different EAMs (Maximo, SAP, Infor, IFS and others) and the template can be quickly adapted if required to your particular EAM.

    The template also works as a data source for most popular BI, visualisation and data discovery tools.

  • Upstream Analytics Key Statistics

    This Infographic has been created in association with the Data Driven Production Optimization Conference (June 16-17, Houston)

    DigitalOilfieldInfographic

    The Data-Driven Production Optimization Conference is the industry-leading forum in which experts in the field of production and operations data and analytics gather to share strategies to use operational data effectively to increase efficiency and improve production rates in your operating assets.

  • The true cost of poor quality | Hydrocarbon Processing | April 2015

    The true cost of poor quality | Hydrocarbon Processing | April 2015.

    Good article on using RCA to drive production/operations improvement.

  • Involving your maintenance consultants

    At many installations a significant level of effort is provided by the external resources of maintenance and reliability consultants.

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  • Failure Analysis of ‘Near Misses’

    The upside of condition-based monitoring and digital control systems is that they are proactive in preventing failure but the downside is they frequently mask the cause of failures.

    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.

  • CMMS – Building the ‘Big Picture’

    The Big Picture – to get the big picture of events over time you need to obtain and analyse a lot of data from a number of different sources, CMMS, condition monitoring, SCADA, DCS, Production reporting. It is always difficult to identify links between these different silos of information but the TIME dimension is certainly always one.

    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 Analytics for EAM template model delivers the ‘Big Picture’ for the continuous maintenance improvement process.

  • The Concept of NEGATIVE WORK

    There is a lot of interesting discussion and theory around staff resistance to maintenance program initiatives regarding buy-in, training and supporting the maintenance program, however I think the simple insight is that the Supervisors and Technicians have seen it all many times before. Hence the negativity.

    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.

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  • Will You Ever Fly Again?

    In case you need a laugh, remember:

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

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  • ‘Sticking to The Plan’ delivers double the work

    Management summary:
    In 2007, BP’s Ravenspurn North and Cleeton platforms in the Southern North Sea (SNS) Gas assets transformed from a highly reactive to a more planned way of working (from 85% to 10% unscheduled activities). Now, with well coordinated workforces of 65 technicians on the two largest SNS Gas sites, these platforms are executing twice the amount of scheduled work with no additional personnel. (more…)