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RE: equipment criticality

This month's topic is "equipment criticality" and using OEE to evaluate it. This topic is in respond to our reader Davie's inquiry.

Hi everyone, and welcome to November's issue of our Feed Forward Newsletter! My name is Don Fitchett, the author of "The Maintenance War Newsletter". This first area of the newsletter is for introductions and commentary. I would like to comment on how the new Feed Forward Publications company is doing and then tell you a little about the new resources we have added to our Feed Forward Publications website.

If you are reading this newsletter after someone forward you a copy, you can find an online version on the newly redesigned website www.feedforward.com.au This newsletter and the new website have met with great acceptance and success. I first and utmost want to thank the 1000 plus newsletter subscribers and our customers who purchased over 70 ebooks and CDs in October (not including the sales that our affiliates made!).

We know that success could not have come without our subscribers and customers spreading the word. We have strived not only to improve customer service within our own company, but our affiliates too. I would like to personally thank a few of our affiliates who have worked extra hours last month to update our product listings on their websites.

Affiliate: Sutton Technical Books has worked with us throughout the month updating and listing our new products. Sutton Books specializes in a more detailed, engineering and theory type books. If you have need for these type publications, please give them a visit. (Sutton Titles on our site: Operating Procedures for Process Plants, Fault Tree Analysis)

Affiliate: Perspective CMMS (PEMMS) has also updated and list some of our new products. A very valuable aspect of PEMMS is that their material is non CMMS vendor biased. You get the expertise of a CMMS consultant without a particular software vendor being promoted. (PEMMS Titles on our site: The CMMS Selection KIT, The CMMS Insider's Guide)

Besides adding new titles for you to download, we have added many free resources. In line with this month's topic "equipment criticality and using OEE to evaluate it." we present the newly published article "OEE - Overall Equipment Effectiveness".

 Also in our Resources: Articles area we have our first Technical Writing "Finite Element Analysis in Structural Design" graciously donated by ARTECH engineering. If you have a 2-5 page technical brief you would like to donate, please contact us.

We have also added many new free downloads in our Resources: Downloads area. Too many to mention here. hope you enjoy and profit from all the resources we found for you this month.

Management Help:

Equipment Criticality

The maintenance manager while face with the task of adopting a standard methodology to assign equipment criticality, is faced with a world of solutions to sift through. Many have opted for the oldest and least effective method...

"Who ever screams the loudest"

Although I am may be subconsciously biased, I honestly believe Mike Sondalini's advice to be a sound and down to earth method. I found the section "Equipment Criticality" in his book The How to SMASH Maintenance Advisor, to be simple and logical. I like simple. :>)

Before I present an excerpt from Mike's book, I would like to answer our readers question of how OEE should be used in the criticality formula. Have you ever seen the show "The weakest link"? That is what your equipment/area with the lowest OEE percentage is. 

If you take my advice in this month's highlighted article and calculate corresponding monetary values (TDC) with each cost center's OEE, you will know which equipment/area will be burning the most money up. The true cost of downtime should be a high factor in assigning criticality.

Actually OEE measures the main factors of production and quality, but does not measure the number one factors of hazards, environmental and safety. Those need be factored in separately and given the extra weight they deserve.

Below is an excerpt on the subject from Mike Sondalini's book...

The How to SMASH Maintenance Advisor

"The two approaches often used to determine criticality is either Reliability Centered Maintenance or Risk Based Maintenance. Both methods determine the consequences of failure and then address the appropriate response to prevent the failure. One other way of determining equipment criticality is to consider knock-on effect of a failure and the severity of the consequences. It is the same intention as the previously mentioned methods but it arrives at the rating and the response
in a quick four-step process.

People from operations and maintenance work through it together, equipment by equipment, using the simple flow chart
below. Those failures that cause safety and environmental risks were not allowed to happen and either the parts were carried as spares and changed out before failure or the plant item is put on a condition monitoring program. Those failures that caused production loss or affect quality is also not allowed to happen or put into a condition-monitoring program. And those failures that didn’t matter are treated as a breakdown.

The flowchart lets one arrive at a rating and a corrective action for each piece of equipment and component. If an equipment or component loss produces dangerous situations, or if the failure stops production or affects quality, it is either changed out before the end of its working life or put on a monitoring program."

(You can find the flowchart Mike refers to on page 159 of his book "The How to SMASH Maintenance Advisor" the  flowchart simplifies and standardizes the criticality decision making process. If you would like to download the book today for US$20 you can use this buy it now link http://payloadz.com/go/sip?id=27749) 

A more colorful representation of the criticality flowchart can be found in Mike's book "The Japanese Path To Maintenance Excellence". Below is an excerpt from page 10 of this book explaining the Japanese criticality rating scale.

"The SABC is the criticality rating scale. On the chart you notice that equipment gets an ‘S’ rating when it is never permitted to fail because of serious danger to life and the environment from a failure. Under the ‘S’ rating parts are replaced before they reach the end of their working life.

An ‘A’ rating also requires parts to be changed before the end of their working life but that is because of the production problems a failure would cause. A ‘B’ rating required condition monitoring. And a ‘C’ rating meant breakdown maintenance was acceptable. The SABC chart is both a criticality scale and a maintenance strategy decision tree."

If you would like to download the book today for US$12.50 you can use this buy it now link http://payloadz.com/go/sip?id=27750) 

The World Wide Web:

Below are some of the best resources to help you with deciding equipment criticality scores.

Criticality Analysis - Use it to optimize your plant's four key drivers—product quality, production volume, safety and finished goods inventory. (By David Berger, Contributing Editor to Plant Services)

Work Order Prioritization - this article has a basic recommendation for determining Equipment Criticality and has been posted on several popular maintenance sites. (By Daryl Mather, Australia :>)

Using risk and reliability based methods to score criticality - touches on an important factor in determining criticality. The probability of failure. (Capstone Engineering Services, Inc.)

Balancing downtime cost, maintenance cost and criticality - While this is not an endorsement of their product, I do think it's fine example of accounting for all factors in the decision making process. (Zentech International Ltd.)

Best regards and thanks for being a subscriber to this newsletter,

Don Fitchett
Managing Editor
Feed Forward Publications
http://www.feedforward.com.au
Tel : (573) 547-5630

www.feedforward.com.au teaches your maintenance crew engineering and asset care knowledge so that they can solve more problems, become more knowledgeable, make better decisions and your plant runs more reliably!

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