Foreward It’s not possible or necessary for all equipment in a plant to receive equal attention. The key is to focus on the most critical assets—whatever that means to an operation. Applying the principles of asset criticality can facilitate your decision-making and generate a number of other valuable benefits in the process. Your site’s critical-equipment determinations should be based on business goals and objectives, says manufacturing consultant and MT&AP Contributing Editor Bob Williamson. Identify your most critical assets and rank them on a scale based on risk (probability and consequences) or other impact they might have on business goals and values. In this process, you’ll also identify your least critical assets and those somewhere in the middle. “Focused improvement on the most critical few that you ultimately move into a ‘maintenance fast lane’ will lead to enhanced performance,” says Williamson, “and possibly free up reactive maintenance resources to perform more planned/preventive maintenance work.” Modern asset-management methods call for proper attention to be paid to equipment systems throughout their
life cycles: from design and procurement through installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance to renewal and/or decommissioning. This is not something a site can just add to its wish list and forget: The new International Asset Management Standard (ISO-55000, issued in January 2014) requires asset risks to be identified and appropriate risk-management practices put in place. It’s important to remember that “critical equipment” not only includes production-related processes, utilities, facilities equipment and the automated systems that run them, but also health, safety and environmental-related equipment. Often, your most critical assets may also be the most at risk if they fail to perform reliably. The following story by PotashCorp’s Matthew Fenwick makes a good case for how establishment of sound criticality determinations can set the stage for a variety of payoffs. In this first-person account, Fenwick discusses improvements in alert-monitoring-device strategies that, among other things, allow his team to save time and better manage an increasing workload.
PotashCorp of Saskatchewan operations, in Penobsquis, New Brunswick, Canada
MARCH 2014
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