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AMMJ ContentsAsset Management and Maintenance Journal January 2008

20th anniversary Year

Utilising Benchmark Metrics to Build and Manage 8

a Strategy for Maintenance ImprovementsTom Svantesson, TSMC Production and Maintenance Consultants (Denmark)

Tinker Air Force Base Lubrication/Oil Analysis Program 14Johnny Dillon, Tinker AFB (USA)

Battling The Skills Shortage 16A (Sandy) Dunn, Assetivity (Australia)

Asset Management 101 Fundamentals - Level of Service 26John Wilson, WPS Consulting (Australia)

Measuring Shock Pulse at a Paper Mill - A Case Study 28Louis Morando, SPM Instruments Inc (Sweden)

TPM Implementation - The P5 Critical Success FactorsFor Sustaining Improvement - A Case Study 36Toni Carannante, Castings PLC, William Lee Ltd (UK)

A FMECA of a Cement Plant 44

Rotary Kiln Drive SystemMahfoud Cha, et al,

University Boumerdes (Algeria)

Vibration Based Monitoring 52

And AnalysisK B Mulchandani, et al,Indian Institute of Technology (India)

Web Links for Maintenance 58

And Reliability

Len Bradshaw, AMMJ (Australia)

Maintenance News 62

AMMJ Subscription Form 67

What would a Precision

Maintenance Reliability

Revolution do to Your

Operation?(Precision maintenance on a shoe string budget,

with limited resources, in 100 days).

You may have heard that precision maintenance, with itsfocus on defect elimination and failure prevention, delivers

the highest equipment reliability and the lowest

maintenance costs of all the maintenance strategies. Youcan get 75% reduction in machinery maintenance costs and

over 5 failure-free years between stoppages. The challenge isto implement it at low cost and with limited resources.

At Lifetime Reliability Solutions we recommend a simplestrategy to introduce precision maintenance into your

operation in 100 days let your tradespeople do it. We

provide the change management method, the procedural toolsand expert guidance so you and your people quickly andsurely introduce, use, prove and adopt precision maintenance

into your operation. For details on 1-day seminars to be heldin Brisbane (March), Perth (April), Sydney (May) and

Melbourne (June) visit www.lifetime-reliability.com.

Free Report AvailableRequest a free report on using and introducing precision

maintenance, contact Mike Sondalini atLRSon mobile 0402

731 563 or by email at [email protected].

Cover Shot:Gear Maintenance SIRF RTs December Bestpractice in gearbox maintenance event includeda walk-around the SEW - Eurodrive maintenancefacility in Victoria, Australia.This issues cover shot shows a section of theSEW - Eurodrives servicing and maintenancefacility. See Maintenance News for details.

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Australias foremost learning network is pleasedto announce its National Forum line-up for 2008.These industry events are not to be missed. Led by practitioners and complemented by senior key industry personnel, 2008

will see a fantastic mix of speakers discussing cutting edge topics and case studies.

To learn about the latest in your respective fields, share ideas and experiences and an opportunity to network amongst peers,

these are the must attend events on your 2008 calendar.

Condition Monitoring - 28th and 29th October

Best practice in vibration analysis and lubrication

How to apply Thermal ImagingDecreasing the cost and maximising the benefit from your CM investment

Lean Leadership - 13th to 16th May

Do you want your company to run faster, smarter, better, leaner?

Learn how to overcome the barriers to change at all levels in your

organisation

Electrical Maintenance & Safety - 28th and 29th August

Managing and planning maintenance of electrical assets

Safety and arc flash prevention

Condition monitoring of electrical equipment

Hazardous area compliance

Planning4Reliability - 26th and 27th June

Those serious about delivering high quality reliability with

cost effective maintenance on time and on budget.

For further details or to register your interest,

please contact Anna Civiti at SIRF Rt on 03 9697 1100

or [email protected]

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AMMJAsset Management and Maintenance Journal

A journal for all those interested in the maintenance, asset management,monitoring, servicing and management of plant, equipment, buildings, facilitiesand infrastructure.

Volume 21, No 1.January 2008

Published by:

Engineering Information Transfer Pty Ltd

Publisher and Managing Editor:

Len Bradshaw

Publishing Dates:

Published in January, April, July and October.

Material Submitted:

Engineering Information Transfer Pty Ltd acceptno responsibility for statements made or opinions

expressed in articles, features, submitted advertising,advertising inserts and any other editorialcontributions.

Copyright:This publication is copyright. No part ofit may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system or transmitted in anyform by any means, including electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording orotherwise, without the prior writtenpermission of the publisher.

For all Enquiries Contact:

Engineering Information Transfer Pty LtdPO Box 703, Mornington,Victoria 3931, AustraliaPhone: (03) 5975 0083,

Fax: (03) 5975 5735,E-mail: [email protected]

Web Site: www.maintenancejournal.com

Submission of Articles or News* Do you wish to contribute maintenance articles, news or papers to the AMMJ?

* Do you have something to say?

* Is your company engaged in asset management and maintenance activities of interest to our readers?

See our website at www.maintenancejournal.com for details of how to submit your articles or news

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The benets and challenges of using benchmark indices and metrics for monitoring maintenance andavailability performance are discussed with particular reference to EN 15341, the recently releasedEuropean standard on maintenance key performance indicators

Benchmarking to detect performance slips and how to get back in the right direction

In order to explain what benchmarking of maintenance and availability performance can do for a company,I have presented the process via a case study from an oil renery:

In the mid - nineties the renery was ranked - in the Solomon Fuels Renery performance comparisonstudies - as one of the best all round performers, including being in the top quartiles for maintenance costand mechanical availability. Then the market changed, and as a consequence the maintenance organisationwas changed, becoming a decentralised organisation. The result was a rapid drop in availability andmaintenance performance, a resulting rise in costs, and a fall from among the best performing quartile of25% reneries to the bottom of the ranking.

After a series of business analysis, the renery reformed the maintenance organisation, and todaythe company is trying to get back to the previous level of performance. The Reliability, Availability andMaintainability (RAM) analysis of the renery identied a number of gaps, and today the company isworking hard on closing two major gaps in performance, one of which was identied as being in planning

and scheduling. Comparison of the maintenance performance and the quantication of these gaps gave thecompany the possibility of improvement.

What had happened was that responsibility for availability and maintenance performance was, at bestunclear. Focus was removed from maintenance and availability and the warning signal that could beprovided by a benchmarking process, was forgotten.

In most European companies, safety and quality is measured and audited, either by internal or externalbodies. This is a useful tool for managing the prioritisation of the companys resources, and is consideredto be normal business procedure. A similar measuring and auditing process can be applied to maintenanceand availability.

Fundamental concepts in benchmarking maintenance

practices and strategy development

I will use a case study to show how benchmarking can be used in maintenance. The study concernsa company Exempla Ltd running seven sites in Scandinavia. The corporate maintenance policy isexpressesdas stated below and I will focus on the indicators that ensure the performance of the maintenancepolicy. To keep the story simple I will focus on only the most important of these indicators.

Exemplas maintenance policy, objectives and strategies

Exempla Ltds vision is to be Number one in Europe. This will be achieved by attaining operationalexcellence and optimal production effectiveness. The maintenance department will contribute to this bycontinuous development of maintenance strategies and simple work processes, enabling that departmentto deliver optimal production effectiveness with efcient cost control. Our work processes will support anattractive work place, where decision making power is distributed to the lowest level, with regard for safety,the environmental and quality as a precondition, and with integration between operations and maintenance.Co- operation between the sites, resulting in the development of best practices will be developed.

Tom Svantesson (Denmark)Snr Consultant, TSMC Production and Maintenance Consultants

Vol 21 No 1

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10 Using Benchmark Metrics

Vol 21 No 1

Objectives

The production effectiveness will be monitored in relation to the planned availability at each site.

Right rst time will be monitored via the ramp up time until nominal performance is reached for theprocess.

Maintenance will be pre-planned by RCM analyses.

The balance between preventive and corrective maintenance and the stores value for spare parts will beoptimised.

The maintenance budget will be kept at the current level (with no compensation for ination)

Strategies

The maintenance policy will be implemented by focusing on core competences and the application of newmaintenance systems and maintenance methods.

Maintenance tasks will be balanced between internal and external resources, tasks outside the corebusinesses will be performed by contractors.

The maintenance effort will be rendered effective by the application of RCM and the use of key indices to measureproduction and cost at each site, and at corporate level.

Critical spares will be identied via the application of preventive maintenance and RCM.

A review of the policy, strategies and objectives has led to the identication of a list of supporting factorseach of which can be measured via a relevant benchmark or indicator, viz.-

Factor Indicator

Indicator 1: Optimal production effectiveness OEE value

Indicator2: Continuousdevelopment Manhoursformodications

Indicator 3: Attractive work place Average age

Indicator4: Safety OSHA(recordable,rstaid,lostworkdays)

Indicator 5: Planned availability AvailabilityIndicator 6: Ramp up time Hours

Indicator 7: Number of RCM analyses No. or equipment

Indicator 8: Preventive maintenance Man/production hours

Indicator 9: Corrective maintenance Man/production hours

Indicator 10: Stores value for spare part Value/Asset replacement value

Indicator 11: Maintenance cost Maint. Costs/ Asset replacement value

Indicator 12: Internal maintenance Man hours

Indicator 13: External preventive Man hours

Indicator 14: Critical spares Value/Asset replacement value

When selecting indicators for maintenance development, a set of rules or best practices must be applied.

The rules for the use of the maintenance indicators are:

Indicators must be understood by all of the many Customers(maintenance staff, management, production)

The Customer must be able to inuence the inputs to the indicators

Several indicators are needed to describe an organisation or part of an organisation

Indicators are management tools. They are not management

Indicators must be co-ordinated to the present policy, strategies and business objectives

Indicators must be generated from existing data if possible

Use positive indicators (e.g. Availability not Downtime)

Agree denitions; compare apples to apples

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12 Using Benchmark Metrics

Vol 21 No 1

International metrics for the measurement of maintenance performance and how to

interpret them

When comparing availability and maintenance performance one must ensure that the metrics used arehomogeneous and pre-dened. To support the comparing process a number of companies and organisationshave dened a series of indicators or metrics. I have chosen the most common ones used.

In the renery and process industries the denitions from Solomon Associates have been adopted asstandard. The European standard EN 15341 denes seventy indicators for measuring maintenance andavailability performance. Also, the North American Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals(SMRP) denes what it calls a series of metrics for measuring maintenance performance. In general allthree systems (and others not mentioned here) each comprising a glossary and denitions, the denitionsare almost identical, but the terminology does differ.

Going back to Exempla Ltd, the company can use the EN 15341 to dene, say, its Indicator No. 5, tomeasure its performance against planned availability

T2: Achieved up-time during required time x 100

Required time

This indicator (the Operational availability) is supported by a denition of Achieved up time during required timeand of Required time. Solomon Associates and SMRP have a set of identical denitions to measure availability.

Also Exempla Ltd want an indicator of maintenance cost. For this EN 15341 and both Solomon Associates andSMRP have an index dened as the ratio of maintenance cost versus the asset or plant replacement value i.e.

E1: Total maintenance cost x 100

Assets replacement value

The standard EN 15341 was released in a nal version in spring 2007. The standard is issued by theNational Standardization Body. The metrics from SMRP can be found at www.smrp.org and SolomonAssociates at www.SolomonOnline.com

What is Best Practice in maintenance and reliability?

When dealing with benchmarking, questions arise such as; Where are the best? and What is worldclass performance?

These questions are not easy to answer. First of all, if you compare various companies the circumstancese.g. market situation, plant size, plant culture, legislative environment, product mix and age - must besimilar. This is the old story of comparing apples for apples.

Which is also why benchmarking that is only based on the indices is dangerous. Maintenance benchmarkingand comparison must take into account the equipment, the plant characteristics and equipment complexity,practice and organisation factors. This will enable really comparable benchmarking.

When comparing maintenance and availability performance the following factors must be taken into account.

Location Society/culture Labour costs per hour Laws and regulations

Company culture Process severity Equipment complexity

Standby equipment Product mix Plant size

Utilization rate Age of the plant Others

This doesnt, however, prohibit you from looking at the performance of other plants, and at the industrialaverage and getting inspiration!. (see following table)

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Using Benchmark Metrics 13

Best results from the workshops in 2005

Workshop results - October/November 2005 Pharma Food Unit EN15341

I:01 Maintenance costs as a % of Plant

replacement value

1,2 1,5 % E1

I:02 Stores investment as a % of Plantreplacement value

0,2 0,33 % E7

I:07 Training man hours as a % ofMaintenance man hours

8,0 4,5 % O23

I:08 Immediate corrective maintenance manhours as a % of Maintenance man hours

3,2 12,8 % O17

I:09 Planned and scheduled man hours as a% of Maintenance man hours

96,7 85,3 % O5

I:10 Required operating time as a % ofTotal available time

98,6 100 %

I:11 Actual operating time as a % of Requiredoperating time

95,5 97,8 % T1/T2

I:12 Actual operating time / Number of immediatecorrective maintenance events

633,0 160 Hours T17

I:13 Immediate corrective maintenance time / Numberof immediate corrective maintenance events

0,3 0,2 Hours T21

T1 Availability related to maintenance 98,5 97 % T1

T2 Operational availability 98.9 97,8 % T2

Best results. Best results from the EFNMS Benchmarking workshops of maintenance indicators in Croatia, Ireland and Denmark.Results are based on contributions from 20 companies.

Manage the ongoing improvement program

After dening a set of indicators to measure the maintenance and availability performance the real challengeis to get the process running and kept in focus.

As for any other steps in performance improvement, the challenge is to prevent the organisation and thestaff returning to previous practices and standards.

To keep the process on track you should:

Distribute the responsibility for the calculation and distribution (Company or department web page,boards or monthly reports) of the indicators.

Keep focus on the indicators. Use shop-oor meetings, and department meetings to discuss them.

Change the indicators when the strategies change. Indicators will be withdrawn and new ones will be used tomeasure the implementation of new strategies.

Compare with yourself and with others. Measure and compare your performance against similar plantswith similar conditions. Be aware that the market is changing and todays excellent maintenanceperformance will be obsolete tomorrow.

Reference:

EN 15341 Maintenance Key Performance Indicators

This article was previously published in Maintenance & Asset Management Journal (UK) Vol22 No2 2007

Vol 21 No 1

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Tinker Air Force Base has been a critical component of Americas national defense since its creation as amaintenance and supply depot in 1941.

Today, it is home to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center and several major associate units including the552nd Air Control Wing, the Navys Strategic Communications Wing One, the 507th Air Refueling Wing, 3rdCombat Communications Group and the 76th Aircraft, Propulsion, and Commodities Maintenance Groups.The base is a heavily industrialized and urbanized facility comprising 5022 acres. The installation has 702

buildings with a building oor space of 16 million square feet. The OC-ALC encompasses 136 acres of indoormaintenance facilities and 93 acres of covered warehouse space. Historic Building 3001, headquarters ofthe OC-ALC, covers 62 acres and stretches for seven-tenths of a mile. The base is comparable to a city witha population of 27,000 which includes Air Force, Navy and Army active duty personnel, civilian employeesand military retirees. Tinker is the largest single-site employer in the state of Oklahoma.

Tinker has about 15,000 pieces of equipment maintained by the Industrial Service Wing, however not all aremonitored by the lubrication program. Several years ago (1994) our oil analysts developed a list of our mostcritical pieces of equipment from our CMMS system that were identied as single point failures, one of a kind,and high dollar value(s). All equipment was/is given an Equipment Condition Assessment before enteringthe lube analysis program. Our CMMS system tracks oil sampling times. These times are calendar basedbut exible and control is by any 3 certify lube analysts. Preselected tests are run once the samples arrive.We can test Particle Count, Viscosity, Ferrography, FTIR Spectrum Analysis, moisture analysis, Elemental

Spectroscopy, TAN, and TBN. After analyzing and reporting to management we continue trending, lteringor changing the lube on condition assessments.

We check 94 New Oil Baselines to assure correct viscosity, additives and contamination levels. 475Equipment Sampling points are monitored.

One Example of estimated cost savings for 17 heat-treat furnaces:Prior to oil analysis program Oil changed every 30 days. Labor and Oil cost estimates = $10,778 per month / $129,336 per year.Oil changes currently extended to approximately every 90 days.Estimated savings = $21,556 per Quarter / $86,224 per year.

Under our Oil Pharmacy Concept; oil is issue/controlled to a work order and tracked in are CMMS. Allbulk oils are in a labeled, color coded portable containers that acts as a hazmat container for spills,environmentally friendly. All oil is ltered thru 3um particle/water lter. Each type of oil has its own dedicatedpumping unit with petroleum resistance hoses that pump oil into closed top, labeled dedicated containers.Portable ltration carts are available when required.

On going process improvements are:

1. Lube color code labeling at machines and posted in CMMS for all shifts to access.

2. Continued Equipment Condition Assessment.

a. Target cleanliness levels

b. Updating lubrications section of the RCM guidelines for acquisition of new/used equipment

3. Hard copy and data base backups

4. Training/Benchmarking

Johnny Dillon, Tinker AFB USA)A Paper Presented at Pdm 2007

We wish to thank Reliabilityweb.com for giving permission to publish this paper.14

Vol 21 No 1

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1 THE NATURE OF THE CURRENT SKILLS SHORTAGE

We have all read and heard much about the skills shortage within Australian industry, and many of us, particularly in theresources sector, have experienced it rst hand. Salaries are increasing, good people are hard to nd, and importantwork is frequently not being performed, for the want of someone with the skills to perform it. While much of the popularpress has focused on issues relating to the provision of blue collar labour Tradespeople, in particular let us startby examining some of the characteristics of the current skills shortage, as supported by objective evidence, rather thansimply by hearsay and the pronouncements of the tabloids. In particular, let us consider the following:

What are some of the factors that are currently contributing to the Maintenance skills shortage in Australia?

The impact of demographic changes on the skills shortage How long is the current skills shortage likely to last?

What Maintenance skills are in short supply?

Is this a skills shortage, or is it a people shortage?

1.1 Factors contributing to the current skills shortage

Research carried out by a number of organisations indicate that the following factors are currently contributing to theMaintenance skills shortage in Australia:

Macro-economic activity the Australian economy continues to grow, although the rate of growth varies from industryto industry, and State to State. In the year to December 2006, overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a rate of2.8% per annum (seasonally adjusted). However Western Australias GDP grew at an annual rate of 7.8% (seasonallyadjusted), Queenslands at 6.7% (seasonally adjusted), while Tasmanias and the Northern Territorys GDP shrank overthis 12 month period. Clearly, high growth rates create demand for labour, and the potential for skill shortages. (1)

Unemployment rates As at March 2007, the Australian unemployment rate was 4.5% - however, once again, thisvaried from State to State. In Western Australia, the unemployment rate was 2.9%, while in New South Wales, it was5.2%. Unemployment rates of less than 3% are close to the range considered by economists to represent frictionalunemployment that is, there will always be a minimum rate of unemployment of around 2-2.5% simply because acertain number of people are in the process of voluntarily changing locations and/or jobs. (2)

Industry-specicgrowth Clearly, at present, the resources sector is booming contributing to the higher growthrates in Queensland and Western Australia, while other industries are not growing as quickly. According to ABS, in theyear to December 2006, the Mining industry grew at an annual rate of 8.6%, the Construction industry at a rate of 8.1%,while Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing shrank by 20.4%. The Manufacturing sector grew at an annual rate of 2.0%. (3)The resources sector, being relatively more capital intensive than other sectors, tends to have a higher requirementfor Maintenance. High growth rates in this sector tends to increase the relative requirement for Maintenance andReliability personnel.

The Impact of Maintenance Outsourcing Contractors are blamed for a lot of things. Is it fair to blame them also

for contributing to the skills shortage? Certainly it is true that a lot more maintenance work is contracted out thesedays than was the case previously. Some of this work is contracted, using long term contracts, to large organisations,who have the capacity and capability to train and develop their people, including apprentices. However much is alsocontracted out, on short term contracts, to smaller organisations who largely compete for their work based on price.In this situation, for these organisations, the costs associated with training and developing their people is potentiallya source of competitive disadvantage even if they are large enough to have the capacity to perform adequatetraining.

Demographics and the Aging Workforce much government-funded research has been conducted into the agingworkforce. We will consider this in more detail in the next section of this paper.

1.2 Demographics and the Aging Workforce

The impact of retirement of the baby boomer generation is immense. It is of concern to governments, who see a waveof people entering retirement, and a proportionally smaller number of people of working age who are being expected

to support these retirees in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. As a result, a number of AustralianGovernment funded task forces and research studies have been set up to study the phenomenon. Some of theirndings should be concerning to Maintenance professionals.

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Battling The Skills Shortage 17

The National Skills Industry Report, in May 2006, found that it is clear that the ageing of the population is inuencingthe structure of the labour force in most industries. Industries and occupations which are particularly affected include:... most areas of trades and apprenticeship, ... physically demanding occupations, including some trades. (4)

In 2005, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations stated that All major occupational groups areforecast to be adversely affected by population ageing. Particularly hard-hit groups include Tradespersons .... As thereis already widespread excess demand for Tradespersons, the ageing effect is anticipated to exacerbate an alreadydifcult situation. (5) They noted further that The share of mature-age workers for many Trades in national shortage,such as Electricians and Motor Mechanics, is below the national average. This runs counter to industry concerns aboutageing of the trades workforce. While the age prole is tilted to mature-aged workers for occupations such as MetalFitters and Machinists, there is a more important factor at workmost Tradespersons move out of the occupation inwhich they trained (their home occupation) well before retirement age, and their skills are, at least to some extent,wasted. While the movement of people out of the trades in which they trained would be partly related to careerprogression, strategies to increase retention may be worth examining. (6)

The Australian Industry Group also noted, in 2005, that more than 37% of people working in engineering trades are 40years or over. (7)

Clearly, while the aging workforce is assisting in contributing to a general shortage of labour, the impact of this is higherin the technical trades area, and particularly in Maintenance. Figure 1 on the following page summarises the ndingsof the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations when assessing the impact of the aging population onemployment growth rates for different professions. (8)

This chart clearly shows that there is expected to be a signicant decline in the rate of employment growth for tradespeople,as a result of population aging, and that this group is worst affected of all the occupation groups studied.

1.3 How long is the skills shortage likely to last?

In order to answer this question, we need to consider two factors the likely duration of the baby boomer retirementbubble, and the expected demand for trades people.

The Department of Workplace and Employment Relations predicts that, over the next 5 years, the estimatedimpact of workplace aging will be a shortfall of 195,000 workers. (9) If we are seeking to replace thosewith younger workers, then we are also likely to be disappointed, as demographic projections indicate thatthe relative proportion of young people in the population will fall considerably over the next 20 years (10).

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Figure 1 - Forecast Reduction in Average Annual Employment Growth (Percentage Points) due to

Population Ageing, by Occupation, 200405 to 200910 (Source of Figure 1 is Centre of Policy Studies Monash University model forcasts )

Further, on the demand side, the National Institute of Labour Studies from Flinders University, in its examination of thedemand for labour in the Mining Industry predicts that To achieve currently predicted increases in output, the resourcessector will need to employ 70,000 more workers than it currently employs, by 2015. (11) Further, it indicates that Thelargest shortages are projected to be in the non-professional occupational classications with the greatest absoluteincreases being in tradespersons (26,983 additional workers required) and semi-skilled workers (22,058 additionalworkers required). (12) It concludes that, between 2005 and 2015, the demand for tradespeople in the mining industryis projected to grow by 87.7%, while the supply of tradespeople is projected to grow by 28.7%. (13)

And the shortages are not just limited to blue collar workers. The National Institute of Labour Studies from FlindersUniversity also predicts that, over the same period, the demand for professional staff in the mining industry is projectedto grow by 79.0%, while the supply of professional staff is projected to grow by 22.0%. (14) Monash University andthe Australian National University also noted, in February 2006, that There is unlikely to be any immediate expansionin the ranks of new graduates from ... engineering and science elds, because the number of new undergraduatecommencements, at least for Australian residents, has not increased over the past decade. (15) Given that it takes aminimum of four years for engineering students to complete their undergraduate degrees, it appears that the shortageof professional engineering staff is likely to be with us for at least 5 years, and possibly as many as 20 years.

All the evidence indicates that this is not a short term problem. As a profession, we cannot ignore it, and expect that itwill resolve itself.

1.4 What Maintenance skills are in short supply?

Two studies have researched the specic Maintenance skills that are in short supply. In the Engineering sector, theAustralian Industry Group (16) indicates that the shortages are primarily in the areas of:

Engineering Tradesperson Mechanical Fitter Toolmaker

Machinist 1st Class Welder 1st Class

Engineering Tradesperson Fabrication Boilermaker

Sheetmetal Worker 1st Class Electrician Special ClassIn the Mining sector, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (17) found shortages in the followingareas:

Mechanical tters (heavy diesel, mechanical technicians, shovel tters, drill tters and schedulers); Electricians (particularly those with high voltage experience), Automotive electricians (heavy vehicles); Boilermakers; Explosive operators; Instrumentation technicians, Supervisory personnel with relevant trade experience.

However, as indicated previously, the National Institute of Labour Studies from Flinders University indicated thatshortages were also being experienced amongst professional staff, particularly those with technical and engineeringqualications. (18)

1 Battling The Skills Shortage

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0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5Percentage Points

0.13Managers and Administrators

Advanced Clerical/Service Workers

Associate Professionals

All occupations

Professionals

Labourers

Intermediate Production/Transport Workers

Intermediate Clerical/Sales/Service Workers

Elementary Clerical/Sales/Service Workers

Tradespersons

0.20

0.30

0.37

0.37

0.38

0.42

0.44

0.44

0.46

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1.5 Is this a skills shortage, or is it a people shortage?

It is politically correct to refer to the current labour issues as a skills shortage, but are, in fact, the issues broader thanjust a shortage of available skills? Once again, the severity of the shortage of labour varies by State (indeed by regionwithin State), and by Industry.

In Western Australia, where unemployment rates are the lowest in Australia, there has been anecdotal evidencenot only of a shortage of skilled personnel, but a shortage of personnel in general. Restaurants are having difcultyrecruiting waiting staff (19), the Western Australian Education Department has had to y cleaners from Perth to Karrathato clean the local high school, due to a shortage of local cleaning staff (20), and fast food outlets in the Pilbara arehaving difculties in nding suitable staff to manage their stores.

The National Industry Skills Report also noted that the labour shortage is not simply constrained to skilled staff. Thereappear to be two factors at work: the availability of labour generally and changing skills requirements, that is, workerswith the right kinds of skills. (21)

Referring to the Mining Industry, the National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University noted Given that theprojected demand supply gaps are largest in occupational classications with low skill levels, the labour shortageproblem identied here in the resources sector is not one that training policy can necessarily address. It is more amatter of attracting people to the industry, in other words, what the sector is facing is a people shortage, not necessarilya skills shortage per se. (22)

Clearly, if the issue is broader than being simply one relating to a shortage of skills, but instead relates to a more generalshortage of labour, then addressing the skills shortage in Maintenance is going to be signicantly harder.

2 STRATEGIES FOR ADDRESSING THE SKILLS SHORTAGE

There are several ways in which the Maintenance skills shortage can be addressed. However not all of these are likelyto be equally effective. The following sections of this paper will consider some of these options.

2.1 Attracting younger people into a career in Maintenance

In recent times, Maintenance has not been an attractive career for younger people. The National Industry Skills Reportstates Other factors which inuence the availability of skilled labour include recruitment and retention of young people,particularly in industries and occupations with a poor image... and the difculty of attracting workers to isolated placessuch as mines. (23) The Australian Industry Group concurs that there are issues with attracting younger peopleinto trades positions, in particular. Employers are repeatedly advising that the quality of applicants for positions andapprenticeships is poor. The 1997 DEWRSB Survey of the Labour Market for Apprentices, found that although there

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is an adequate supply of suitable applicants for existing apprentice vacancies, employers reported that nearly seventyper cent of applicants were unsuitable, lending support to anecdotal comments about the poor quality of applicants.(24)

According to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), between 1996 and 2002, the numberof apprentices grew from 163,300 to 369,100. However, the number of apprentices in the traditional trades, such asplumbing, carpentry, hairdressing etc only grew from 101,300 to 115,400 during this period. (25) While the numbers oftraditional apprentices rose in some trades, such as construction, it fell in others, including mechanical and engineeringtrades. The Australian Industry group notes There has been a downward trend experienced in TAFE enrolments forEngineering and Manufacturing programs over the past three to four years. (26) Further, Australian National Training

Authority statistics indicate that almost 50% of those commencing an apprenticeship do not complete it. (27)

Clearly a career in traditional trades, such as those are not particularly attractive to younger people today.

When we look specically at Maintenance trades, the situation becomes even worse. As at June 2006, approximately2.1% of apprentices were engaged in training packages in Asset Maintenance. This proportion has not changedsignicantly in recent years, but compares unfavourably with other apprenticeship training packages. 7.6% ofapprentices are engaged in General Construction packages, 7.4% in Metal and Engineering, 9.6% in Retail and 3.2%in Hairdressing. (28) Currently, as a nation, we are training more hairdressers than Maintenance tradespeople.

We run the risk of a maintenance trades position becoming the factory worker job of the 1970s and 80s a positionthat nobody aspires to, and which can only be lled by hiring lower-skilled migrants.

So why is it that a traditional trades career, and particularly one in Maintenance is no longer attractive to youngerAustralians? Insights may be gleaned by looking at the sociological and psychological studies that have been conductedinto Generation Y. Generation Y is generally considered to consist of those people born between 1977 and 1994.In 2007, therefore, they are aged between 13 and 30. (29). What are some of the key characteristics of this group ofpeople?

According to Bruce Tulgan and Carolyn A. Martin, Generation Yers career choices and behaviour are driven, rstand foremost, by their quest for opportunities to play meaningful roles in meaningful work that helps others. (30) Ifwe consider this within the context of Maintenance, to what extent do we give most of our tradespeople meaningfulroles? Do our organisations consider the work of a tradesperson to be important to the business? Indeed, do ourorganisations consider the Maintenance function to be important to the business, and therefore provide some intrinsicsatisfaction in the knowledge that what our maintenance people are doing is important, and is valued? And to whatextent can our organisations be considered to be helping others. In the mining industry, in particular, the connectionbetween performing maintenance work on a crushing plant, and the user of a nished metal product is tenuous, at

best. If we add on to that the commonly held perception that mining is simply raping the earth, as expressed byAustralian actress Toni Collette (31), then making working in maintenance in the mining industry appear attractivebecomes even more difcult. Generation Yers are particularly altruistic if the nature of the work does not createopportunities for them to feel that they are generating benets for society at large, then at the very least, organisationsthat wish Generation Yers to work for them must demonstrate that they are actively supporting social and environmentalprograms, and encourage Generation Yers to become involved in these also. Whether it be working to address povertyor health problems amongst the underprivileged, or actively working to improve the environment organisations thatare encouraging progress in these areas will appeal more to Generation Yers than those that are not.

Tulgan and Martin also suggest that Generation Yers are the most education-minded in history. For them, the expectationof life-long education is a fact of life. In the US, and I suspect also in Australia, 90% of high school seniors expect toattend university. 70% of them expect to work in professional jobs. 70% of teens believe university is necessary tomeet their career goals, and 40% of university students expect to get their masters degrees. How does this t with ourcurrent expectations of tradespeople?

Generation Yers want to work with a highly motivated team of committed people. In this regard, I believe that maintenancehas much to offer. Frequently maintenance staff - particularly in remote areas, when conditions are difcult, and thegoing tough are among the most dedicated people you will ever meet.

Tulgan and Martin also state that Generation Yers facility with technology has empowered them in ways older cohortscan only imagine. They have never experienced life without computers or mobile phones. They use the internet toaccess information and master increasingly complex systems so much faster than their elders. And they expect thatthese technologies will be available to them in their work roles also. Try telling an engineering student who is doing hispractical experience on a remote minesite that his mobile phone will not work while he is on site, and then watch thereaction. To Generation Y, mobile phones and the internet are a vital and essential tool in their social and collaborativenetwork. Workplaces simply must make these technologies available to all staff if they wish to attract and retainGeneration Y.

Generation Y are also keen to ensure adequate balance between their work and personal lives. They work to live, notlive to work. It is essential that they be given the opportunity to take time off, when desired, to pursue their personalgoals.

Finally, Tulgan and Martin conclude that Generation Yers have lofty nancial and personal goals and fully expect tomeet them. They expect to be working at senior levels in organisations in a very short space of time. They expect tobe earning high salaries. But they are also prepared to accept pay for performance. Such is their condence that theybelieve that it is only through performance-based incentive schemes that their true worth will be recognised.


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So clearly, as organisations, and as individuals, we need to work hard to make a tradesmans role valued, and providethese people with meaningful work. We need to train them, and continue to train them throughout their career. We needto create the reality that a trades role is only a stepping stone to a professional career. We need to give GenerationYers tradespeople and engineers alike the opportunity to use their brains at work to solve problems, to extend theirknowledge and skills, and create challenges that they can rise to.

2.2 Providing more pathway options to achieve trade skill outcome other than the four year apprenticeship

In general, the exibilities enabled by the introduction of Training Packages and the National Training Framework arenot being taken up in large measure. State Government legislation and traditional delivery patterns have resulted ina longer lived adherence to the traditional four year indenture approach than anticipated. This restricts the appealof trades pathways to high performers. There are also some rigidities in current workplace relations arrangementsunderpinning traditional apprenticeships. These factors can reduce the attractiveness of apprenticeships to employersand young people, as the length of apprenticeships does not easily sit with short-term contracts, and, according to the

Australian Industry Group, a four-year indenture is not attractive to young persons. (32)

Nevertheless in Western Australia the Metals Industry Working Group (a committee of the Skills Formation Task Force)has completed consultations with industry stakeholders to alter the expected durations of contracts from 4 years to 3.5years for engineering trades (including fabrication, mechanical, aircraft maintenance technician), and ship-wrightingand boatbuilding trades. Within these arrangements there will continue to be scope for applying competency-basedapproaches to completing contracts earlier than the expected durations. (33)

2.3 Other initiatives

The Australian Industry Group has proposed several other initiatives to address the skills shortage (34). Theseinclude:

Closer, and more proactive, relationships between employers and TAFEs and other Registered TrainingOrganisations

A marketing campaign to improve industry image

Re-balancing in society the concept of trades as a worthwhile career

Becoming more attractive to other possible labour resource pools such as women and indigenous peoples

While these are worthy initiatives, much of this appears to be window-dressing. A marketing campaign to improveindustry image, in particular, I suspect, is destined to failure. Unless the reality of working in a trade, and particularlyin maintenance, matches the publicity, then any success is likely to be shortlived. We would be better served byaddressing the fundamental underlying issues, as discussed in the previous sections, rather than simply embarking onan advertising campaign.

3 ATTRACTING AND RETAINING STAFF DURING A TIME OF SCARCITY

Organisations have adopted several paths in their attempts to recruit and retain scarce skilled staff. This section of thepaper will consider three key areas:

Attracting skilled staff training versus recruitment

Retaining staff through nancial rewards and compensation

Non-nancial benets, and their impact on staff retention

3.1 Attracting skilled staff

The Australian Industry Group has surveyed organisations in the Engineering industry, in order to determine whatapproaches these organisations have taken to address the current skills shortage, and the relative success of theseinitiatives (35). Their ndings are summarised in Table I below.

Technique Success

Employ a trainee leading to apprenticeship 92%

Train an Apprentice 86%

Employ an apprentice through group training company 85%

Directly recruit a tradesperson by word of mouth 74%

Informal training of existing employees 65%

Directly recruit a tradesperson by sponsorship of skilled migration 62%

Employ a qualied tradesperson through labour hire company 62%

Directly recruit a tradesperson by advertisement 58%

Adult Apprentices 57%

Directly recruit a tradesperson through recruitment agency 48%

Table I Relative success of different methods of resolving skills shortages

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The interesting thing to note about the ndings of this survey is that organisations tend to report that training their ownpersonnel, either directly as an apprentice, initially as a trainee, or through a group training company tend to be moresuccessful than recruitment of already skilled personnel from outside their organisation.

3.2Retainingstaffthroughnancialrewardsandcompensation

Comparatively speaking, Maintenance personnel are generally well paid, in comparison with National Averages particularly those working in high demand industries, in remote areas, such as the Mining industry. It is a fundamentallaw of economics that as demand for labour increases, and/or the supply of available labour decreases, salaries willincrease, and we have seen substantial increases in wage rates in industries and skills areas that are currently in shortsupply.

However, it will take some time for these pay rises to ow through to an increase in the supply of skilled labour whilethe nancial benets are attractive to those without the skills, or working outside the industries currently experiencingskills shortages, those without the skills or experience necessary will take some time to be trained, and gain adequateexperience to relieve the current skills shortage. It may take as much as ve years or more before we see the ow-oneffect of an increasing supply of skilled and experienced labour.

In the meantime, continually increasing salaries represents a risk for those organisations and industries that engage inmerrygo-round pay rises. Eventually, wage rates could become sufciently high to mean that some, more marginaloperations may not be protable. While it is clear that paying competitive wages and salaries is necessary, in order toattract and retain staff, paying above the going rate is not likely to be a successful strategy in the long term.

3.3Non-nancialbenets,andtheirimpactonstaffretention

By far the more effective manner of attracting and retaining staff is through the provision of additional non-nancialbenets. In the mining industry, in particular, the standards have been raised in such areas as the quality of onsite campaccommodation. At one minesite that I visited recently, some contractors who were engaged to work on a three-dayshutdown at a remote site refused the work offered, as the site accommodation did not include ensuite toilet facilities.

Another major gold mine has experienced difculty in attracting professional staff for the same reasons.

It is now quite common for workplaces to contain recreational facilities showers and changerooms for those wishingto exercise during the day are almost mandatory, and many workplaces have chill-out rooms. Recruitment companyTalent2 has surveyed 1731 Australian respondents and found that 25% say the stresses of work life are such that theywould like a plug-and-play room at work in order to escape. A further 25% would like a meditation ofce to bring peaceback into their life. John Banks from Talent2 suggests installing a video-game console with 40% of Gen Y employees

agreeing that this is a great suggestion. (36).The existence of a supportive work environment, and the ability for personnel to adequately balance work with theirchosen lifestyle through exible working arrangements, as discussed earlier in this paper, are also important factors toconsider if employers are to attract and retain skilled staff.

4 REDUCING THE NEED FOR SKILLED STAFF

Of course, in a time of shortage, we should not only consider what we may require to do to attract skilled staff, but alsoconsider what we may be able to do to reduce the need for these scarce, skilled resources.

4.1 Job Design and the Art of McMaintenance

One area that may be worth exploring is the whole area of job design, and how tasks may be assigned to individuals insuch a way that scarce skilled resources are given the maximum opportunity to use their skills.

It is worth considering, in our maintenance organisations today, what proportion of a tradespersons time is actuallyspent performing tasks that require a tradespersons skill. What proportion of their time is spent performing clericalwork? What proportion of their time is spent performing routine visual inspections (such as inspecting V-belts, lookingfor leaks etc.) that may be able to be performed by a lesser skilled person? What proportion of their time is spentperforming routine, minor repairs that could relatively easily be taught to trades assistants or plant operators (such asrepacking pumps, replacing Vbelts)?

It could be argued that, in many organisations, we grossly underutilise the skills and abilities of our tradespeople. Weoccupy them, in many cases, by asking them to perform routine, mundane, repeatable work that plant operators orother semi-skilled people, with the appropriate training, could perform. Compare this with the situation that exists atMcDonalds restaurants, for example. How many chefs do McDonalds employ? Not many. Their restaurants produceconsistent quality (depending on your views not necessarily good, but certainly consistent) for the most part, using highschool and university students to produce it. How do they achieve this? By focusing on three areas:

Dening, and implementing simplied, and standardised, business processes,

Designing and using task-specic tools and jigs which can be used easily by lesser-skilled personnel, and

Ensuring that all personnel are trained using task-specic training, rather than training in more general skills

Why cant we employ this type of thinking in Maintenance?


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Can we break down more complex repairs into smaller tasks, some of which are performed by skilled tradespeople, andthe others done by semi-skilled personnel who have been trained specically in those activities? Can we design somerepair tasks so that they use customised tools, jigs and dies which make it easier for a semi-skilled person to perform?Is the return of the trades assistant imminent albeit with an enhanced role? Further, how much routine maintenance,including PM inspections are, in fact, a complete waste of a tradespersons time? How many of these inspectionactivities could be performed by a person of lesser skills an operator or a trades assistant. In our experience, in

applying PM Optimisation and Reliability Centred Maintenance, we frequently nd huge opportunities to rationalise PMprograms, and allow trades people to concentrate on performing trades work. Figure 2 illustrates the outcomes from astudy performed at an Aluminium smelter.

This illustrates that, in fact, almost half of the routine maintenance program could be safely deleted altogether, and afurther 9% of tasks could be performed by operators, rather than tradespeople. Clearly, in this time of scarce skilledresources, we can ill afford to have our tradespeople performing tasks that add no value to our organizations.

4.2 Equipment Reliability, and its impact on the need for skills

Another key area in which the demand for skilled resources can be reduced is by focusing on improving equipmentreliability. If we assume that a typical ratio of Maintenance work orders consists of 80% of work orders being Plannedand Scheduled, 15% being Unplanned, and a further 5% are Breakdown work orders, and then apply a commonlyused rule of thumb which suggests that Unplanned work requires three times more labour than Planned and Scheduledwork, and that Breakdown work requires nine times more labour than Planned and Scheduled work, this results in an

approximate distribution of labour hours as being:

47% Planned and Scheduled 26% Unplanned 26% Breakdown

In comparison with a situation where 100% of maintenance work is Planned and Scheduled, the net requirement formaintenance labour is 70% higher. In addition, the skills required for managing breakdowns and other unplannedmaintenance work include:

Diagnostic skills Higher level technical skills Higher level problem-solving skills

Higher level organisational skills Higher level communication skills

Clearly, there are huge benets, in terms of our requirements for maintenance labour, if we can move closer to 100%of maintenance work being Planned and Scheduled. This can only be achieved if we focus our attention on identifying,and eliminating, the causes of Unplanned and Breakdown maintenance work. So what contributes to unplanned and

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breakdown maintenance? Some of the contributing causes could include:

Inappropriate equipment design/specication Inadequate equipment installation/commissioning

Inappropriate equipment operation Inadequate or inappropriate spare parts Maintenance error

Many of these factors fall outside the control of the maintenance function, so if we are to signicantly improve equipmentreliability we must...

Quantify the losses due to equipment failure

Embark on an organisation-wide reliability improvement program that embraces Engineering, Production and Supplyas well as Maintenance

Apply the Pareto principle, and focus on equipment failures that have the greatest business impact

Identify, and address, the root causes of those major losses

This is easily said, but more difcult to do. This area of opportunity is clearly outside the scope of this paper to discussin more detail.

4.3 Equipment Design and Design for Maintainability

One other area in which we can work to reduce the requirement for skilled labour is by designing our equipment

in such a way as to reduce the amount of skill, and time, required to perform common maintenance activities. Anopportunity exists, at this time of operational expansion, to encourage our equipment designers to consider designfor maintainability as a core responsibility. I suspect we are missing this opportunity, at present, in our rush to getequipment installed and running, at any cost.

Ideally, equipment designers must:

Reduce the level of skills required to perform most routine maintenance tasks, and

Reduce the time required to perform most maintenance activities

There are a number of techniques that they can use to do this. These include such things as:

Quick-release latches Enabling modular change-outs, rather than in situ repairs Etc.

5 CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, the key points that I hope youtake away from this paper are:

The skills shortage in maintenance islikely to be with us for some considerableperiod of time possibly as long as

the next 10 years

As a career option, Maintenance, andparticularly a trades-based career inMaintenance simply does not appeal to

the younger generation

As a profession, we need to very quicklyaddress this issue, if we are to avoiddeterioration of our infrastructure, and

a long term detrimental effect on theperformance of our National economy

As individuals, we need to take theopportunity to promote the rewards andsatisfaction that we achieve from working

in Maintenance to the younger generation whether it be through school career nights orother channels

As employers and managers, we need to ensure that we provide opportunities for growth for our maintenanceemployees, that we truly value their contribution to our organisations, and provide recognition for the contributionsthat they make

As employing organisations, we need to ensure that we get the work-life balance correct, and provide the nonnancialbenets that our younger Maintenance personnel are demanding

As a profession, we need to be working with governments, employers and training agencies in order to ensure thatthe current skills shortage is being addressed with the urgency which is required.


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Figure 2 Outcome of a PM Optimisation Reviewat an Aluminium Smelter

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6 REFERENCES

1. ABS 5206.0 Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, Dec 2006 2. ABS 6202.0 Labour Force, Australia, Mar 2007

3. ABS 5206.0 Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, Dec 2006 4. Australian Government, Department of Education, Science and Training, National

Skills Industry Report, May 2006, p.7 5. Australian Government, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Workforce Tomorrow Adapting to a more diverse labour market,

2005, p.4 6. Australian Government, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Workforce Tomorrow Adapting to a more diverse labour market, 2005, p.12

7. Australian Industry Group, Skills Shortages in Engineering, 2005, p.13 8. Australian Government, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Workforce Tomorrow Adapting to a more diverse labour market, 2005, p.22 9. Australian Government, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Workforce Tomorrow Adapting to a more diverse

labour market, 2005, p.3 10. National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Evidence of Skill Shortages in the Mechanical Engineering and Fabrication Trades, February 2000

11. National Institute of Labour Studies , The Labour Force Outlook in the Minerals Resources Sector: 2005 to 2015, May 2006, p.4




15. Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University & Demography and Sociology Program, The Australian National University, Brain Drain, Brain Gain: Accessing the

Required Skills, February 2006, p.19 16. Australian Industry Group, Skills Shortages in Engineering, 2005, pp.15-17 17. National Centre for Vocational Education Research,

Evidence of Skill Shortages in the Mechanical Engineering and Fabrication Trades, February 2000, p.8 18. National Institute of Labour Studies , The Labour Force Outlook in the Minerals

Resources Sector: 2005 to 2015, May 2006, p.40 19. For example, see http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=41&ContentID=18455

20. See http://abc.net.au/news/items/200610/1762946.htm?northwestwa 21. Australian Government, Department of Education, Science and Training, National Skills Industry Report,

May 2006, p.6 22. National Institute of Labour Studies , The Labour Force Outlook in the Minerals Resources Sector: 2005 to 2015, May 2006, pp.4-5 23. Australian Government,

Department of Education, Science and Training, National Skills Industry Report, May 2006, p.7 24. Australian Industry Group, Skills Shortages in Engineering, 2005, p.23

25. National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Australian vocational education and training statistics: Trends in traditional apprenticeships, 2004, p.6

26. Australian Industry Group, Skills Shortages in Engineering, 2005, p.24 27. National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Australian vocational education and training statistics:

Apprentices and trainees June Quarter 2006, p.2 28. National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Australian vocational education and training statistics: Apprentices and

trainees June Quarter 2006, p.12 29. See Characteristics of Generation Y or GenY, http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=707769

30. Bruce Tulgan & Carolyn A. Martin, Ph.D., Managing Generation Y: Global Citizens Born in the Late Seventies and Early Eighties, RainmakerThinking, Inc., 2001

31. http://www.tonicollette.org/press/pr2003westaustralian.htm 32. Australian Industry Group, Skills Shortages in Engineering, 2005

33. National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Addressing barriers to employment & training of traditional trade apprentices in the Aust. mining industry, 2005, p.9

34. Australian Industry Group, Skills Shortages in Engineering, 2005 35. Australian Industry Group, Skills Shortages in Engineering, 2005

36. As quoted at http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/Avoiding-gaffes-in-online-news-Catering-to-Gen-Y-Bigger-than-Second-Life.html

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Asset Management appears to be growing in all directions. A few years ago it was the label placed onmanaging money; now that the term has found acceptance for managing physical assets the label is beingstuck onto just about every aspect, from conceptual design to maintenance to whole cities, including someobscure practices such as using neural networks for asset failure analyses.

To me, attaching the badge Asset Management to almost all matters relating to assets is valid in the

broad context but also trendy and confusing as if some are using the term to merely get a ride on somebandwagon.

Part of the widespread labelling of Asset Management is that it is trendy and this attracts those who wantto show-off about being up with latest technology and management practices.

Back to Basics

For years Engineers held sway on physical assets. Engineers built them and maintained them and keptthe wheels of industry turning. Then the Economists and Accountants entered the scene and graduallytook control of the nances and relegated the Engineers to the ling cabinet lower drawer. EngineeringManagers became subservient to Finance Managers. The Australian Public Service is a classic example

where Engineering was out-sourced from the 80s and technical matters were controlled by bureaucratsand Finance Managers. In broad terms there were constant cuts to maintenance budgets because theywere easy targets. Finance Managers could cut maintenance budgets almost yearly or quarterly despitefeeble protestations from the Engineers. What happened? Assets kept performing or sudden failures wereexcused as just a bit of bad luck.

Modern management practices gradually drifted towards quarterly-adjusted business performancemeasures, with little room for long-term outlooks. Finance Managers trimmed the soft edges to stay withinthe margins.

In many ways it was like postponing the routine servicing of a motor vehicle. The manufacturer providesgeneric service intervals, which if pushed out a few months or kilometres actually save the owner somemoney sometimes real and sometimes imagined. Business and Government followed the same deferral

principles. In many cases it works ne but as anyone in the maintenance business will attest, sooner or laterthe asset performance will deteriorate. Maintenance does not operate on quarterly reporting in generalthe consequences of deferred maintenance can take 7 years to manifest.

In present day business and in Government reality checks have surfaced. The best example is the US$1.5brequired to refurbish the famous Smithsonian Museums in the USA. Maintenance and repairs were deferreduntil the buildings became unsafe. No doubt many new exhibits were bought with the savings and theFinance Managers were admired for their acumen. However, the US Congress approved the R&M fundingbut not before admonishing the Management and ordering an increase in the annual maintenance fundingto properly care for the assets. In Australia, the generally deteriorating state of the major infrastructure alsoreects brilliant scal management the Engineers, who were hiding in the ling drawer have nally foundvoice and the Dollar Masters need to listen.

So the advent of Asset Management. In reality it was a much needed management science bringing thebureaucrats and technocrats back to the table.

John [email protected]

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Asset Management 101 27

The new philosophy melded the nance and Engineering disciplines as well as brought in the otherstakeholders, as they should function based on sound decision-making principles and methodologies.

Assets do not exist or should not be created without a purpose. The asset is the result of having a needto provide a service. Once the vision and need are determined so the asset can be created to suit. Aslong as the need exists so the asset must perform its function. In order to perform its function it requiresmaintenance and other ownership management.

One of the fundamentals of Asset Management is understanding and dening the Level of Service in termsof functionality and appearance. Asset Management cannot function without a clear denition of the Levelof Service. For example a large rolling mill needs to roll a certain thickness of material to certain tolerances thats its Level of Service. If the mill is not maintained the Level of Service will deteriorate and this may beacceptable to the owner. In such a case the Level of Service should be redened so that all stakeholdersare aware. What is the primary Level of Service of a bridge? To provide a crossing of a gap. If a bridge ratedat 20 tonne is not maintained it will deteriorate. The choices are relatively simple either change its Levelof Service (to say 6 tonne) or spend money to restore it to its 20 tonne Level of Service.

Understanding, dening and redening the Level of Service predicates all subsequent Asset Managementfunctions such as planning, acquisition, maintenance, operations and budgeting. It also drives the downstream

activities such as maintenance philosophy (RCM or run-to-failure, etc). When we all understand the core ofAsset Management as the Level of Service then asset owners, Engineers and Finance Managers can sittogether and move forward by rstly debating the Level of Service then addressing the associated nancialand technical issues.

Of course, thinking about Level of Service helps order and make sense of the nancial and technologicalissues surrounding Asset Management. For example it helps comprehend vibration monitoring, computerisedmaintenance managements systems, Reliability, Risk Management, skills training; all are related to knowingthe asset better and deciding on the most cost-effective means of meeting and sustaining its Level ofService.

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Downtime in a paper mill or any 24/7 facility is very expensive in maintenance costs, but even more so inthe impact to prot because of production loss. In this article we will explain the Shock Pulse Method, whyits a good choice for frontline vibration measurement and show the resulting savings that the Hallsta Mill inSweden realized from utilizing it as the primary component of its Condition Based Maintenance Program.Hallsta personnel determined these calculations when they looked at the number of incidents in which theywere able to perform maintenance in a planned shutdown, instead of taking the equipment (and productionline) down.

Condition monitoring should always start with a list of machine faults, specic for each machine. Only if

you know exactly what you expect from the monitoring method, can you apply it efciently and correctly.Otherwise, there is a danger that you will simply be collecting data. And data is of no use unless it isconverted to useful inforrmation that you can act upon to reaalize your true goal of maintaining plantequipment in good working order.

When we look at the rotating component that gives us the most concern, it usually comes down to thebearing. I think its fair to say that 70-80% of rotational problems are bearing related. Whether the causesare due to under or over lubrication, contamination, installation faults, secondary forces or just plain fatigue,we need to know the operating condition of bearings most frequently. So its very important to determine thebest technique for identifying your particular bearing problems. The other rotational problems certainly needto be identied as well, so again, choose the most cost effective, efcient technique to accomplish that.

How do you run a cost efcient, effective Condition Based Monitoring program? Start by selecting theappropriate technique for the application and for the type of answers needed. As a general rule, you can

apply the 80/20 rule in many facilities. That is, around 80% of equipment needs to be monitored without theneed of spectral data and large amounts of data collection. You could then utilize spectrum anaalyzing onlyon the equipment that needs it. For those pieces of equipment that are so critical that periodic monitoring isnot enough, then continuous monitoring needs to be considered.

The Shock Pulse Method (SPM) is the front line technique the Hallsta paper mill chose to quickly manageinput from its 800 rolls, with 4000 machines and 1 6,000 measurement points. With 8 inspectors, they needa quick method to know whether bearings need to be greased or not, or that damage is present and needsto be monitored more frequently.

What is Shock Pulse?

What we loosely call machine vibration is a very complex form of movement that has many differentcauses and that can be described and measured in many different ways. Vibration exists in all machineswith moving parts, because some of the force, which makes the machine work, is directed against themachine structure and tries to shift it from its position. Thus, vibration is normal up to a degree, and allmachines are constructed to withstand a certain amount of vibration without malfunctions. In order to usevibration monitoring to diagnose machine condition, we have to:

* Find a suitable way of measuring vibration, and

* Decide what normal vibration is and what excessive vibration is for any particular machine.

All vibration measurement starts with a time record, a registration of vibration over a length of time. Atransducer converts the movement into an electric signal, which an instrument quanties, displays andstores. The signal can then be evaluated in terms of good or bad.

One way of looking at vibrations is to dene the type of force, which causes it. Most industrial machinesare rotating, so the main force is rotational, operating on masses which are imperfectly balanced. Thisaccounts for approximately 99% of the total vibration energy. Rotational forces are continuous and cyclic the force does not stop while the machine is running under power) and the movement is repeated onceper revolution of a part. About 1 % of machine vibration is due to shock. Shock forces are not continuousbut can be repeated, either at regular or irregular intervals. The remaining small amount of vibration, about0.1 %, is attributed to frictional forces.

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Measuring Shock Pulse 29

Even bearing damage can be detected through vibration analysis. A bearing produces a group of peaksin the vibration spectrum, caused by the rolling elements passing, at different speeds, over the inner raceand the outer race, and by spinning around their axis. A further peak is caused by cage rotation. Given thesmall mass of the bearing in relation to the large mass of the machine, these peaks normally have very lowamplitudes and many times are difcult to pick up with a spectrum before there is severe damage.

A shock pulse transducer contains a reference mass (m) and responds with a dampened oscillation when hitby a shock wave. Attached to the reference mass is a piezoelectric crystal which produces a voltage whencompressed by the movement of the reference mass. This voltage is proportional to the amplitude of theoscillation and thus to the energy of the shock wave. The principle is the same as used in accelerometersfor vibration measurement. There is, however, an important difference.

When a mass is excited at its resonance frequency, it will oscillate with much greater amplitude than atany other frequency. For vibration measurement, one normally stops measuring far below the resonancefrequency of the transducer. On the other hand, shock pulse meters are mechanically and electrically tunedto operate exclusively at their resonance frequency of 32 kHz (fm), where the resulting signal is strongest.This gives us a very sensitive transducer for shocks only, but which will not react to normal machinevibration frequencies.

When a ball hits a damaged area in the raceway, it produces a shock wave. Shock waves are transients or

short-lived waves starting with relatively high amplitude that quickly dampen out. In a time record displayedby an oscilloscope, these transients are often clearly seen, superimposed on the continuous wave producedby shaft rotation (see Figure ). When the distance between transients is constant and corresponds to theball pass frequency, this is clear evidence of bearing damage.

In the spectrum, however, peak amplitude is determined by the energy contents of the vibration at anygiven frequency. In relation to the energy at the shaft frequency, the energy of the shocks produced by thedamaged bearing can be negligible. Thus, the ball pass frequency line has low amplitude and is easily lostamong the noise, as shown in Figure 2. In the area around the resonance frequency, we can record a timesignal, which clearly shows the transients produced by the damaged bearing. Each shock is a single event,but is also repeated at a regular rate, the interval being the time between one ball passing the damageand the next. The signal is treated by rectifying (which cuts off the negative amplitudes) and by enveloping(which produces well-dened peaks). Figure 3 illustrates this process.

The enveloping technique used by vibration analysis attempts, by manipulating the signal, to make shocksvisible and measurable in the frequency domain, simply because frequency analysis is the general techniqueused to detect machine faults. The main strength of the Shock Pulse Method is its specialization on shockdetection. The transducer and measuring instrument are designed to measure the magnitude of shocksdirectly in the time domain. All generations of shock pulse meters give readouts of both the magnitudeof the peaks (maximum value dBm) and of the signal level between peaks (carpet value dBc). Together,these two values can be directly translated into bearing condition information by utilizing the bearing borediameter and rpm.

Fig 1 Transients superimposed on wave from shaft rotation. What is the Shock Pulse Method?

Many years ago SPM took the Shock Pulsetechnology and developed it into the Shock

Pulse Method. Through actual testing in bearingtest labs, empirical data was developed byusing the bore diameter and rpm. With this infoa dBi value is determined, which positions thenormalized condition color alarm scale onto thedynamic range of the shock pulse transducer.This enables users to utilize a standardizedalarm scale, regardless of the rpm or bearingbore diameter (see Figure 4). The dBm isthe maximum value, the measured valueof the strongest pulses detected during themeasuring interval. While the bearing surfacesare undamaged, the difference between dBmand dBc (decibel level Carpet) is small. A highdBm and a large difference between dBm anddBc are caused by surface damage or foreignparticles between rolling element and raceway.

Figure 2 Ball Pass Frequency lost i

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