This article will define a business case for achieving significant rotating equipment maintenance and energy cost reduction at industrial and municipal facilities.
Traditional maintenance methods currently employed achieve some results, but far greater results are possible. Educating the customer is one of the greatest challenges because significant cost reduction cannot be achieved without the customer modifying current maintenance philosophies and investing in the technology necessary to ensure success. The good news is that the investment payback is extremely short, and the overall savings are dramatic.
We live in a global economy. U. S. industrial companies compete globally for market share and profitability. In many cases, net earnings can only be achieved by manufacturing more efficiently and at a lower cost. While labor rates, costs of medical insurance, pension costs, other legacy costs and tougher environmental standards normally place mature U. S. companies at a distinct disadvantage, these same companies must continue to look for other ways to reduce costs and become more competitive.
U.S. municipalities typically have strained budgets but an increased demand for their service. Modernization and upgrading of old, inefficient systems and technology are priorities, but are usually not affordable without political intervention. Maintaining and operating the equipment used to process water, wastewater and sewage is costly, adding to the budget strain.
Whether we concentrate on industrial or municipal facilities, the only difference from an equipment reliability standpoint is the source of the money for maintenance and repair activities. Industrial facilities budget their own money, and municipalities rely on public funding. In both cases, significant savings can be achieved when equipment reliability is increased because the amount of money spent every year on rotating equipment maintenance is staggering. Remember, the cost of maintenance is the sum of many costs, such as actual equipment repair costs, the cost of labor, lost production (revenue) costs and environmental clean-up costs, among others.
Traditionally, industrial and municipal plants (customers) have employed similar tactics to offset maintenance costs. These tactics include:
- Driving manufacturers to continuously reduce prices on replacement parts
- Using non-OEM, cheaper priced parts
- Running damaged equipment until it fails completely before addressing repair (band-aid approach)
- Organizing reliability teams/departments to address equipment reliability
- Upgrading materials and equipment specifications to"toughen up" the equipment
- Integrating process control schemes to better control equipment
- Using failure prevention technology and predictive maintenance services sporadically
Despite taking these measures and gaining some varying success, plants are rarely satisfied, and customers rarely achieve enough cost reduction. Why?
- Manufacturers need to stay in business, too. Parts and service business is a necessary revenue source. Prices have decreased significantly in many cases. Since customers rely on manufacturers for newer, more efficient, more reliable and technologically advanced products to meet changing requirements and tougher standards, manufacturers cannot afford to invest in extensive research and development if all profitability is driven out of their products.
- Use of non-OEM, cheaper parts can reduce some initial cost, but most of these parts have been reverse engineered. Parts that look good on the surface may have significant flaws when it comes to material integrity, efficiency (power consumption) and other engineering variables that directly affect the part's reliability. Is a part really cheaper if it costs less initially but fails more often or consumes more energy when in use? True cost reduction does not come as a result of using cheaper parts, as an example below will show. True cost reduction comes as a result of not needing to purchase the parts in the first place.
- Running damaged equipment until it fails is not a good idea for two main reasons. First, the magnitude of the repair cost is much greater when equipment is allowed to catastrophically fail. Second, environmental cleanup costs and lost production costs are typically higher because the equipment usually fails at the worst times, and catastrophic failures usually result in the most leakage or exposure to the environment.
- Many customers have organized reliability departments, hired reliability engineers or maintenance personnel or addressed reliability using cross-functional teams. These teams address "bad actors," using the traditional 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of all failures are typically caused by only 20 percent of the equipment. Customer reliability efforts are often thwarted when they are not properly funded or supported by senior management. Reliability functions are often collateral duties and do not receive the proper attention. If targeted results are not achieved quickly, many reliability personnel are reassigned or let go in an attempt to reduce personnel costs. This happens often, especially when failure prevention or predictive maintenance technology is not being used, making troubleshooting operations more lengthy and netting fewer wins per unit of time.
- Modifying equipment is necessary sometimes, typically when the equipment was not initially specified correctly or when process parameters change. Not upgrading equipment will result in increased failures. Once the upgrade is completed, other reliability measures are still required to prevent future equipment failure.
- Some customers are investing in integrated process control systems. These systems integrate many of the critical control equipment in process systems, so they "work together" to provide a specific process result. The systems are a major investment and, in many cases, they may not specifically address equipment reliability. Process control is the future of modern manufacturing, however, and many later recommendations are applicable to process control schemes.
- Some companies are beginning to use newer, emerging failure prevention technologies or are employing predictive maintenance practices. However, most of these companies only use these technologies sporadically and miss the opportunity for better results.
Many companies view maintenance and repair as a necessary evil. It does not have to be this way. If there was a way to prevent equipment from failing, it would dramatically affect maintenance costs.
First, one needs to understand why equipment fails. In a poll of more than 1,200 engineers, operators and maintenance personnel in both industrial and municipal facilities, the causes for rotating equipment failure were simply quantified.
According to the results from this poll, very few pieces of equipment fail because they were improperly applied or
