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This month’s newsletter is from Ben Stevens and is a result of a request I received regarding wanting more articles on CMMS / EAMS systems. Ben has been involved with CMMS / EAMS systems for longer than anyone else I know, and I am sure you will find the article insightful. This is the third of a series of articles that go back to the CMMS / EAMS basics. Ben can be reached at Ben@OMDEC.com.

To keep this newsletter relatively short, this is intended to be a broad overview of issues for physical asset management, rather than a comprehensive discussion of the topic.

So What’s a CMMS/EAM Supposed To Do? Part 2

Back at the beginning of this past summer, we started to describe what a CMMS (or an EAM) was all about. We defined the basic modules, raised the question of what is the purpose of the CMMS and what are the factors that limit the achievement of objectives. In this note, we’ll focus on the internal functions and structure of the CMMS – starting with the work request and the work order. So…. back to basics.Origins of Work – Where Does Work Come From?

Fundamentally all work executed through a CMMS finishes up on a work order. The question is, how does it get there? First, let’s define the work order as a document (paper or electronic) that provides a set of instructions to a person to do a job. Most frequently the “job” relates to a specific piece of equipment or group of equipments. But as we will see later, equally it could apply to a facility, grounds or even a planning or analysis task. Furthermore the expression “instructions” will cover a multitude of different things (such as a materials list, or a drawing), and the “person” may be a team, an individual or a contractor. It’s this inherent flexibility of the Work Order that is at the same time, its strength and its weakness. More later…

At the beginning of the process, the need for work to be done stems from three main starting points - a work request, a regular or routine activity, or a breakdown or need for a correction. Each of these needs a little elaboration:

1. A Work Request is exactly what it says – it is a request by someone to have some work done. This may come as an email, a phone call, a verbal request, a formal Work Request form, the result of an inspection or maybe the output of a special analysis. In all cases, the work request fulfills a number of needs – identifying the requestor, the equipment (or equivalent) on which the work has to be done, the nature of the task and the priority. (yeah, yeah, I know that many requests are really demands, and that the priority is always Urgent/Immediate – but that’s what we want to fix!). When these work requests arrive at the maintenance department, their job is to screen and validate them – screen them to ensure there are not multiple requests for the same job, and validate them to ensure that the details match what actually needs to be done. Plus assign a priority.

2. A Regular or Routine Activity is a job that is set up to be done every so often, usually involves the same set of tasks or steps, and may be timed according to a calendar date or an external activity or the condition of an equipment. These can be PM’s (Preventive Maintenance) activities, PdM’s (Predictive Maintenance) activities, inspections, routine cleanings, fillings etc. Most CMMS’s do a good job of automatically releasing the work via a work order when required; however, many users treat these as a type of work request and release it only when approved by the planner or supervisor.

3. Breakdowns occur when something goes wrong – but “breakdowns” is a common expression that is poorly used by many organizations. One example occurred in a huge integrated steel mill (from coal and iron ore to billets, rod and sheet) – where they claimed breakdowns were the inverse of uptime, which according to their data was 98%. Their definition of a breakdown was when the production came to a total halt. It’s better to use the RCM definition of a Functional Failure instead of a breakdown – i.e. a breakdown occurs when equipment no longer delivers the function (and level of performance) it is desired or required to do. Hence a pump that is required to pump 100 litres per minute has failed if it only pumps 99 litres per minute. When a breakdown does occur, specific work is normally required to be done – hence we can regard a breakdown as a form of Work Request.

Each of these three ways in which work can be initiated should lead to a Work Order. In other newsletters we have stated that all maintenance improvement is based on only two factors – improving the skills of the technicians doing the work, or providing them with better quality instructions through the Work Order. Everything else feeds into one of these two. This shows the real importance of ensuring that the work order contains the best information that a company has about the equipment, the job, the tools and materials etc. So let’s look a bit more closely.The Work Order

Most CMMS systems have a task library (or job library) – this is a collection of templates for work orders that can be used as the basis for developing the new work order that is to be issued. By developing and maintaining templates of work orders, the planner can readily access the information related to the last time the work was planned or executed – thus saving the time and frustration of having to develop the work order again from scratch. This is a key point when it comes to consistency – re-inventing the wheel means that spokes get left out; using the previous iteration of the work order means that the lessons learned from previous usage don’t get forgotten.

Thus, before a completed work order is put away, we should ask a few questions….

1. Does this represent our best understanding of the equipment and the work?

2. Can we improve it?

3. Are there corrections to be made in the activities or tasks, materials, permits data to be gathered, etc?

This constant review of the work order quality is the simplest and most effective way to start the process of continuous improvement. It also means that over time, the CMMS becomes the repository for the organization’s best maintenance practices.

Of course, folks will say that they don’t have the time to do this on a regular basis; to which the answer needs to be – it’s not a question of time, it’s a question of priority. And there is a simple way to ensure that it does get done. Prepare a work order for the task to “review and upgrade “X” work orders per week”. By preparing a work order, it is assigned to a person, the priority is assigned and resources are scheduled. Then if it does not get done, the backlog meeting will sort it out.

Work Orders come in many shapes and sizes – increasingly companies are creating them electronically and downloading them to a PDA or other hand held device. But mostly we are still in the paper age.Some Questions

We get posed many questions about Work Orders – here are the most common ones:

1. Do we need a work order for everything? Certainly for every “significant” task – that is, any task that consumes more than a minimal amount of resources, has an effect on the health or operating condition of the equipment or has an impact on the future reliability of the equipment.

2. Are “inspections” work orders? Yes – the “work” that is being done is to examine the equipment for possible deterioration that will lead to later problems. This is done by measuring the condition of the equipment as evidenced by the degree of vibration, the operating temperature, number of machine cycles, the quality of the oil etc. Inspections will often lead to further work to repair (a corrective work order) or undertake adjustments (preventive maintenance work orders).

3. Do we need work orders for emergencies and breakdowns? Yes – especially for these. There is strong evidence linking emergency responses to later breakdowns and safety issues – both caused by the imperative to get the problem fixed ASAP. This is exactly the time when a set of clear instructions is needed as to what actions to take (and not take).

4. But if there is an emergency, how can I have time to prepare a work order? The slick answer of course is that you have time to fix it incorrectly…. But in reality, most emergencies are predictable as to what goes wrong, and therefore what the fix should be – only the timing is uncertain. Thus templated work orders covering all predictable emergencies should be prepared. In fact we came across a case in a tea factory in the highlands of Kenya where emergency work orders covering most of the known problem conditions were laminated and pinned to the wall beside the equipment!

5. Should we charge time taken and materials used to the work order? Yes – that is the easiest and best way of tracking where the maintenance expenses are actually incurred. In that way we can see which are the real “bad actors” – i.e. not those that cause the most problems, but those that cause the most expensive problems.

6. Can I use a work order where there is no equipment – for grounds maintenance for example? Yes – in this case, we designate the “ground” (or the road, or the room) as equipment (or asset), and define it in the equipment list with the attributes that separate it from other grounds. This could be done, for example, by relating it to a grid reference on a map. The work to be done is related to that piece of real estate, and the costs associated with it are charged to it exactly as if it was a standard piece of equipment.

7. Can I attach a drawing or a specification to a Work Order? Yes – in most CMMS’s if it is an electronic document it can be attached to the electronic work order and printed out at the same time. Or alternatively it can be handled as a separate document, cross-referenced in the work order and simply stapled to the paper copy.

The work order has become the central document in maintenance; doing it right will materially improve the quality of maintenance in your organization. We’ll continue to explore the CMMS in a later newsletter – the next subject will be the work approvals process. As always your feedback is appreciated…

Ben Stevens ben@omdec.com

Upcoming

Please advise me, if there are other topics on maintenance management, project management, or physical asset management issues that would you would find of interest.

PEMAC (Plant Engineering and Maintenance Association of Canada) is holding its MainTrain 2007 conference on November 26 to 29, 2007 in Toronto. For more information on the conference, see the MainTrain web site at: http://maintrain.ca/. For more information on PEMAC, please check their web site at: www.pemac.org.

Conscious Asset Management is holding a 3 day RCM2 (Reliability-Centred Maintenance) Introduction course in the Toronto area, on December 4 to 6, 2007. For more information on RCM2 and the course content, please see: http://www.consciousasset.com/documents/CAM%20RCM%20Services%20Sheet.pdf

Contact Us

To provide feedback on this newsletter, including comments on past articles, ideas for future articles, or to remove your name from distribution of this newsletter, please e-mail me at len@asset-management-solutions.com.

Please feel free to contact us to discuss any of your physical asset management requirements. For more information on how we can help you, please contact me directly. See our web site at: http://www.asset-management-solutions.com for other information on Asset Management Solutions, including asset management issues and solutions.