Optimizing Maintenance with Planned Outages and Data Visibility

December 17, 2024

Maintenance and reliability teams are facing mounting pressures in today’s industrial environment. Many teams have experienced significant staff reductions, mostly due to the retirement of experienced personnel. Furthermore, the challenge of finding new experts to fill these gaps has intensified, resulting in numerous teams operating with skeleton crews. Often, these smaller crews consist of workers with limited experience. The stark reality is that even as these teams dwindle in numbers, the need for efficient and effective maintenance keeps increasing.

A significant tool that maintenance and reliability teams are leveraging to navigate this complex scenario is planned outages. Planned outages offer maintenance teams an opportunity to improve the operational efficiency of their assets at a lower cost compared to unplanned outages. Furthermore, planned outages typically last for a shorter duration than unplanned ones, enabling teams to achieve more without significantly disrupting operations, provided they are well-prepared.

The Importance of Data and Visibility

The Role of Sensors in Data Collection

For a planned outage to be executed properly and for operations to run efficiently until that outage, both data and visibility into that data are paramount. Over the past decade, plants have incorporated a vast array of sensors throughout their operations, making data more readily available. However, the challenge lies in accessibility. The variety of sensors providing different measurements in proprietary formats can result in an overwhelming amount of unwieldy data scattered across different systems. This fragmentation leaves the data virtually unusable, as no one has the time to find, sift through, and standardize it.

Sensors transmit extensive data from various parts of the plant, including temperature, pressure, vibration levels, and fluid flow rates, among others. While this influx of data holds the potential to paint a comprehensive picture of plant health, it often becomes lost in translation due to incompatible systems. The lack of standardized data formatting and integration pathways leaves maintenance crews with fragmented and unusable data. This situation makes timely, effective decision-making all but impossible, compounding the operational challenges already faced by the skeleton crews.

Automating Data Infrastructure

Forward-thinking reliability teams have realized the importance of automating their data infrastructure. They employ seamlessly integrated tools that automatically deliver highly contextualized data on demand. This data enables planners and management teams to schedule and coordinate more effective and efficient planned outages.

Automating data infrastructure involves deploying advanced software systems that collect, aggregate, and analyze data from different sensors and machinery across the plant. These systems translate raw data into actionable insights through real-time analytics, providing a clear view of the health and status of various plant assets. Consequently, maintenance teams can prioritize tasks more effectively, ensure timely procurement of parts, and contact external service providers well in advance, if necessary.

Challenges in Executing Planned Outages

Ensuring Asset Health

However, executing a planned outage is not without its challenges. Proper execution relies on two core competencies that may not be present in every plant. First, reliable teams must ensure that their assets are healthy enough to avoid unexpected failures before the planned outage window. An unanticipated failure can force an unplanned outage, impacting safety, profitability, and reputation.

Ensuring asset health demands meticulous, ongoing monitoring. The status of critical machinery must be continuously assessed to predict potential failures before they occur. This preventive approach hinges on data accuracy and timeliness, achieved through robust data collection and analysis systems. In the absence of such systems or when data is manually collected, the risk of missing signs of asset degradation surges, potentially leading to unexpected breakdowns and costly unplanned outages.

The Need for a Dedicated Planning Team

Second, a dedicated planning team is essential for executing an effective planned outage. Once a planned outage commences, the team needs full knowledge of what needs fixing, and what tools and equipment will be necessary. This preparation could involve ordering specialized equipment, like cranes, which could have long lead times. The team must also ensure that all the necessary parts are in stock before the outage begins.

The planning team must have a clear, detailed understanding of the plant’s operational landscape, including the condition and requirements for each piece of machinery. Effective planning often requires coordination across multiple vendors and internal departments, demanding a seamless exchange of information. Furthermore, organizing a planned outage calls for a strategic overview of maintenance priorities, balancing immediate needs with long-term operational goals. This multifaceted effort underscores the importance of having a well-trained, dedicated team that fully understands the unique demands of the plant’s operations.

Identifying and Understanding Asset Needs

Fragmented Data Systems

Identifying which assets need attention and understanding the exact nature of the required repairs is crucial for planning. Although the necessary data likely exists within the plant, it is often fragmented across various systems. Different functional areas use different tools that generate data in varied formats, stored on different servers, workstations, or mobile devices.

The fragmentation of data sources poses a significant hurdle for maintenance teams aiming to streamline planned outages. Various functional areas, such as production, quality control, and maintenance, often operate independently, each with its set of data-generating tools and systems. These systems rarely communicate, resulting in isolated data pockets where crucial information remains trapped. The lack of a centralized data repository means maintenance teams struggle to access a holistic view of the plant’s operations and asset health, impeding effective planning and decision-making.

The Importance of Collaboration

Collaboration between the plant’s functional areas appears to be a logical solution. However, this is easier said than done. Like data, personnel are often siloed in their functional areas, and the increasing responsibilities due to staff reduction leave less available time for collaboration. Furthermore, the myriad of asset management tools built up over time from different manufacturers do not integrate easily. As a result, planners might have to collect data manually from different areas, which can be time-consuming, and by the time data collection is complete, the earliest data may already be outdated.

The complexity of integrating diverse systems and fostering collaboration necessitates adopting new strategies. Advanced enterprise-level software solutions promise enhanced data sharing and workflow coordination capabilities across different functional areas. Implementing such a solution can facilitate real-time data aggregation and analysis, turning fragmented data into actionable insights. The ability to see a consolidated view of the plant’s operations allows team members to collaborate more effectively, ensuring that all parties remain informed and prepared for scheduled outages.

Enhancing Visibility for Better Planning

Top-Down Approach to Data Visibility

To streamline planning and increase efficiency, better visibility is crucial. This starts with a top-down approach that allows every plant member, including outage planners, to quickly see the overall health of the plant and its individual assets. Many forward-thinking teams are achieving this through enterprise-level reliability software that integrates seamlessly with their asset management tools. This software collects data from different plant tools, uses built-in analytics to translate raw data into intuitive overall health scores, and displays these scores on a single, easy-to-use dashboard.

By adopting a top-down approach, companies can create a more transparent and cohesive maintenance strategy. The dashboard acts as a central hub where relevant information is presented strategically, revealing the plant’s overarching health status and pinpointing areas that need immediate attention. This visibility ensures that outage planners and maintenance teams can prioritize their actions effectively, minimizing downtime and optimizing resource allocation. By integrating historical data and predictive analytics, these software solutions can also provide foresight into potential issues, allowing preventive measures before problems escalate.

Real-Time Data and Actionable Insights

With this system, planning teams no longer need to chase down data manually. Instead, they can view everything, including the health scores of individual assets, in real-time from a single dashboard. The dashboard simplifies data visibility, showing critical assets needing immediate attention in red, assets with flaws but not at immediate risk in yellow, and healthy assets in green.

Furthermore, users can click through these health indications to understand the precise issues with failing assets. For instance, clicking on an indicator for a failing bearing could reveal that it is under-lubricated, while clicking on a valve issue might show that the valve is blocked or there is low pressure. This actionable advice empowers teams to prioritize and plan more effectively, ensuring they have the right personnel, tools, equipment, and parts ready for every repair before the outage begins.

Real-time data and actionable insights help streamline maintenance efforts, enabling teams to respond swiftly and effectively. The visual representation of asset health provided by the dashboard means maintenance crews no longer waste time interpreting complex data or seeking information buried in disparate systems. These systems also prioritize critical tasks, ensuring no vital maintenance activities are overlooked. Implementing a sophisticated, real-time monitoring system thus represents a significant step toward optimizing planned outages and improving overall plant reliability.

The Core of Successful Planned Outages

Maintenance and reliability teams are grappling with increasing pressures in today’s industrial environment. A major issue is the significant reduction in staff, largely due to the retirement of experienced personnel. Compounding this problem is the difficulty in finding new experts to fill these critical gaps. Consequently, many teams are operating on minimal staff, often with workers who have limited experience. The stark reality is that, despite shrinking team sizes, the demand for efficient and effective maintenance continues to rise.

To successfully navigate this challenging scenario, many maintenance and reliability teams are turning to planned outages. These planned outages provide a strategic opportunity to enhance the operational efficiency of assets at a lower cost than unplanned outages. Additionally, planned outages typically have shorter durations compared to unplanned ones, allowing teams to accomplish more tasks without significantly disrupting overall operations. When well-prepared, these planned outages can greatly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of maintenance efforts, even with reduced personnel.

Subscribe to our weekly news digest.

Join now and become a part of our fast-growing community.

Invalid Email Address
Thanks for Subscribing!
We'll be sending you our best soon!
Something went wrong, please try again later