OMDEC - Optimal Maintenance Decisions Inc.

EXAKT Plus

Engineers and reliability analysts are discovering that EXAKT is more than a software analysis tool, but that it is really a revolutionary maintenance information and knowledge management approach. They recognize the need to re-engineer their work order process (very slightly) to accommodate two basic living RCM capabilities needed by EXAKT and by all reliability analysis techniques - namely, the ability of each significant work order to:

1. reference a RCM record, and to
2. record the Event type (usually one of FF, PF, or S).

A maintenance department strives to deepen its knowledge of failure behavior so that it can build and implement effective maintenance decision policies. Such knowledge based policies precede reliability improvement. Maintenance personnel draw upon knowledge largely from the analysis of the collective experience.

Maintenance events documented in compliance with OMDEC's living RCM process contribute to the reliability knowledge base. OMDEC has extended EXAKT's capability by integrating it with a data mart platform (called BI-Cycle). Effective analysis requires a living RCM process and practical tools with which maintenance personnel perform the following activities related to significant work orders:

1. Planner, Technician
   1. locate and examine a relevant knowledge record (including the effects and consequences, and all available information related to the failure mode in question),
   2. generate a proposed RCM record, or a proposed revision to an existing RCM record,
2. Maintenance Engineer
   1. exercise rigorous quality control on knowledge record updates and insertions.
   2. interface with all relevant data sources,
   3. enhance the practical analytic functionality of existing BI systems, such as Business Objects, CorVu, RCMCost, and others,
   4. update reliability and decision models (rule based, Weibull, PHM) with respect to each significant knowledge record,
   5. retain a knowledge audit trail of the date, the proposer, the verifier, and each change in the RCM record itself,
   6. manage current alarms (warning limits) and report their true predictive performance, even where no EXAKT (or other, e.g. rule based) decision models exist.
   7. list and examine all instances (occurrences) of a failure mode defined by a knowledge record,
   8. report the performance of decision policies and models in any time window.
   9. report and dissect key performance indicators relative to failure mode occurrences and their (consequence) mitigating policies.
3. Analyst
   1. build EXAKT decision models
   2. exclude histories not desired in the model,
   3. include other (i.e. non-rejuvinating) events that are known to alter condition monitoring data,
   4. track the true working age of each significant failure mode in equipment and in serialized components,
   5. automate (marginal + combined) EXAKT model execution.
   6. assign or reassign work orders to knowledge records as a result of knowledge base changes in order to maintain relational integrity,
   7. perform data analysis ,
   8. run EXAKT directly on the displayed data in order to test variables for significance,
   9. apply data reduction and dimension reduction techniques,
   10. generate the Events table in any time window and for any combination of failure modes and groups of equipment across the fleet,
   11. analyse the Events table for missing beginning or ending events,
4. Supervisors, Managers
   1. recognize individual contributors (technicians, operators, planners, supervisors, managers, and engineers) to the knowledge base,
   2. note, acknowledge, and encourage the growth of the knowledge base,
   3. note, acknowledge, and encourage the increase in the number of links between the work orders and the knowledge base,
   4. implement policy changes suggested by reliability analysis. Note and acknowledge the results of those changes highlighted by analyses (e.g. jackknife) in sequential time windows.

In the final analysis, success in reliability boils down to how seriously maintenance and operating personnel perceive the content of work orders. When the IT department delivers a software solution, there will often be disinterest or even mistrust regarding the information required on the work order. But, going the other way, beginning with a simple form of reliability analysis accessible to all, we can inspire and motivate good work order documentation.

The vendors of BI software often imply that their products prepare the groundwork for reliability. In actuality, traditional KPIs and work management have little to do with reliability analysis. Given the importance of this new approach and its obstacles, OMDEC is so confident that your company will realize significant gains even in the short term, that we offer a low cost conference room pilot, during which Murray Wiseman and Dr. Daming Lin will assist and guide your engineers, managers, and IT personnel in executing the extended EXAKT functionality, in particular, the following living RCM activities:

1. integrate EXAKT with existing and planned systems and ensure that the work order process meets EXAKT's data requirements,
2. configure ETL (extract, transform, load) procedures for integration of EXAKT with all related systems,
3. include all relevant condition monitoring data (such as oil analyis, NDT, vibration, and real time data systems such as PI, VIMS, Contronic, etc).
4. include all relevant maintenance information sources including CMMS, real time and other relevant data systems
5. set up systematic data cleaning procedures
6. set up and automate data reduction procedures
7. set up and automate dimension reduction procedures
8. transfer technology and procedures to maintenance engineers.