When it comes to asset management, having enough data isn’t the issue. There are so many software solutions out there and they each have the key elements you need to monitor. “But software isn’t a strategy -- you decide the strategy,” according to Oswaldo Rodriguez, product manager, Asset Performance Management, Lloyd's Register. Lloyd’s Register is a technical and business services organization wholly owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK charity dedicated to research and education in science and engineering.
Rodriguez was the presenter at Chemical Processing’s most-recent Best Practices webinar -- Asset Performance Management: Creating an effective strategy that delivers. The webinar drove home the point that whether you implement risk-based inspections (RBI) or reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), the methodology that you follow is only one part of developing an effective asset performance strategy. More often than not, it is the commercial imperatives that can dictate and drive how organizations implement their strategy.
Rodriguez presented an interesting look at maintenance over the last 100+ years. In the 1900s it was reactive: fix it when it breaks. In the 1930s it was preventative: Maintain it before it breaks and perform regular, time-based maintenance routines. In the 1980s it was proactive: RCM, expert judgement, predictive maintenance, online condition monitoring and enterprise systems. In the 2000s it’s risk based: Dynamic risk-based maintenance plans, predict the condition of the asset to the end of life, perform “what-if” analysis and predict, repair or replace based on “acceptable” risk.
At a time when operators are looking to achieve more with the same, or less, maintaining a level of robustness and flexibility in your asset performance management strategy is essential. And Rodriguez notes, “You don’t have to adapt to the tools -- the tools need to adapt to you.”
