OPTIMIZING YOUR

MAINTENANCE STRATEGY
IN LESS TIME
Authored by Allen Garcia, CMRP
Reliability Engineer
ARMS Reliability

www.armsreliability.com
INTRODUCTION
Companies gain a competitive advantage by
implementing optimized maintenance strategies
for their capital assets, thereby maximizing the
return on investment.
Creating optimized maintenance strategies
is not a one-and-done effort but a continual
improvement process that must take into
account changing business needs, new
inspection technologies, and empirical data from
completed work orders. This activity can be
daunting, especially when the number of assets
in your CMMS is in the thousands.
To make this process less intimidating, start
creating your maintenance strategy with the end
in mind – what content will be contained within
the CMMS and executed by the maintenance
personnel.
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Accessibility of that information is the next
consideration. Even if you have the optimum
maintenance strategy in place, it won’t be
effective unless it’s easily accessible and visible
to users and management.
Wouldn’t it be ideal if with one click all your team
members could view a summary of the strategy
being performed on an asset? What if they could
not only view the strategy but adapt it to their
own particular application in a different plant?
This paper will explore how to use an enterprise
reliability software solution to create an overall
asset management strategy that is responsive
to the ever-changing realities of your company’s
specific assets and is easily shared between all
stakeholders.
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TRADITIONAL GENERIC
MAINTENANCE VS NEW PARADIGM

We’re going to look at how best to apply generic
strategies across multiple assets, but first let’s
examine how generic maintenance strategies
have traditionally been applied in the past.
Current industrial asset strategies are almost
always based on either the wrong information
or incomplete information, including “gut feel,”
expert judgment, and the blind use of original
equipment manufacturer (OEM) maintenance
manuals.
According to Moubray’s maxim 11, “generic
policies should only be applied to identical
assets whose operating context, functions, and
desired standards of performance are also
identical.” 2
By contrast, the common way of doing things
assigns a generic maintenance strategy that
assumes the approach to one asset type is
mostly true across all asset types. The missing
piece here? The asset’s operating context.

Not much has changed since 1973 when
A.K.S. Jardine wrote that “…many preventative
maintenance schemes are put into operation
with only a slight, if any, quantitative approach to
the scheme.” 1
To combat these missteps, begin by assigning
generic strategies, but subsequently perform
variations to accommodate the physical asset’s
operating context.

For instance, very little evidence exists to

support the task frequencies that were chosen
in the past, but those strategies continue to be
applied today.

Another example of building a foundation on the

wrong information is an asset strategy based on
production schedules and geographical plant
layout rather than actual equipment reliability
requirements. Under this scenario, it is no
wonder that maintenance personnel would have
little ownership over the asset strategy. This may
be part of the reason why asset strategies have
remained stagnant.

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METHODOLOGY
Contrary to traditional RCM studies where each
asset is evaluated and a strategy developed,
building generic strategies then subsequently
adjusting according to the asset’s operational
context is a much more efficient process.
It is important to note that this methodology
can be applied to virtually all industries where a
maintenance program is required.
FIGURE # 1 PROCESS FLOW STRATEGY RAPID DEPLOYMENT
Before building generic strategies, you must
define your equipment classes. These can
include categories such as: pumps, motors,
transmitters, switches, breakers, etc.
Sometimes it is ideal to break out equipment
classes beyond just basic equipment types.
Equipment classes could be further broken
down into size, such as small motor (e.g. <50HP),
medium motor (e.g. 50-150HP), and large motor
(e.g. >150HP).
Creating generic strategies raises the question:
how generic is generic? For this methodology, a
generic strategy is defined by maintenance that
is common amongst that particular equipment
class. For example, when it comes to motors,
generic strategies would include tasks such as
lubrication and vibration analysis tasks.
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Real Life Example
One Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility
concluded that it would take 90 days using a
traditional RCM approach to develop an optimum
maintenance strategy. Using the methodology
discussed here instead, they developed optimum
maintenance strategies for 3,650 assets based
on 122 unique equipment classes in half the time.
Nomenclature is also important when defining
equipment classes, as these terms will later be
applied to specific assets. A good practice is
to abbreviate classes into four characters, e.g.
the ID for a pump can be PUGN, specifying
it is a general (GN) pump (PU). Note that the
abbreviation of PUMP was not used here as
there are several types of pumps (hydraulic,
diaphragm, submersible, etc.). This practice
should be considered for all other equipment
classes.
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 FIGURE # 2 GENERIC STRATEGY FMEA EXAMPLE

Once the generic strategies have been built,
the next step is to define the asset hierarchy.
Each organization should establish a hierarchy
that reflects the different areas of the plant.
Depending on the CMMS, these locations have
a different nomenclature. For example, for
SAP the hierarchy locations are the Functional
Locations (FLOC).
There is no universal ratio of equipment classes
to assets, just bear in mind the multiplicity
factor your equipment classes could have. For
example, let’s say an equipment class for a
pump can be multiplied across 10 assets in the
plant, whereas a transmitter can be multiplied
times 1,000 asset tags in the plant. This thought
process can help guide you when it comes to
defining the equipment classes.

Real Life Example

In the case of the LNG facility, it had 3,650 assets
broken up into a hierarchy of six levels.

Figures 2, 3, and 4 are images from Isograph’s Availability Workbench™.

ARMS Reliability is an authorized distributor of Isograph’s products, and a trainer in respect of their use.

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 FIGURE # 3 FUNCTIONAL HIERARCHY EXAMPLE

In Figure 4, we used the enterprise solution tool to link the equipment classes to their corresponding
assets. All the data that was contained in the generic strategy (equipment class), including functions,
functional failures, failure modes, failure and repair data, are now assigned to the physical asset.

FIGURE # 4 LINK OF GENERIC STRATEGY TO PHYSICAL ASSET

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After the generic strategies are deployed to their corresponding physical assets, the next step
is to generate variations on the maintenance strategies. This means that failure and repair data
previously established in the generic strategy can be modified to reflect the physical asset’s
operating context.

In addition to varying failure and repair data, other data such as functions, functional failures, failure
modes, and consequences can be modified. It is important to keep track of what was changed and,
sometimes, who has changed it. The centralized database then becomes a great tool for change
management, as it can notify the user about variations that are made on their strategies. Moreover,
there is now a sense of governance of the maintenance strategy from inception to implementation,
with the maintenance and reliability program becoming increasingly more collaborative.

Lastly, tasks are packaged to facilitate planning and scheduling. At this stage, planners are involved
to unify the strategy, most typically, by frequency and trade. Most strategy development exercises
live and die within the reliability/maintenance team, not often involving planners and schedulers.
By broadening the borders of these teams, maintenance planning becomes a part of the reliability
framework. This stage can help alleviate data migration pains, as an enterprise solution can
integrate directly with any particular CMMS. Having a link between the enterprise solution and the
CMMS bridges the common gap between reliability analysis and implementation.

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 FIGURE # 5 TASK PACKAGING EXAMPLE

As with any scientific method approach, we An enterprise solution eases process

identify and track continuous improvement by
what we can measure. Work orders will provide
feedback on the maintenance strategy to help
determine whether it is indeed optimum or if it
still needs modification.
improvement and makes everything more
visible to stakeholders. It allows management to
measure progress on strategy development in
real time, and allows them to act as gatekeepers,
authorizing changes that might affect different
areas across the organization.

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CONCLUSION

At the beginning of this paper, it was stated

that the way to create an effective strategy
is with the end goal in mind. Not only have
we met our goal by equipping the end user
with an optimal strategy, but along the way
we created a company-wide set of strategies
that is housed in one central location, readily
available for use and continuous improvement.
Real Life Example
An LNG facility plagued by missing and outdated
maintenance strategies across 3,650 assets
was able to leverage generic strategies for
122 equipment types in just 44 days. They now
have a path to further optimize and adapt these
strategies going forward, saving a great deal of
time and money.

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About ARMS Reliability

Since 1995, ARMS Reliability has helped companies around the world - and across a broad range of
industries - to get more from their assets, avoid unplanned downtime and reduce operating costs.
Find us at www.armsreliability.com

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REFERENCES
[1] J ardine, A.K.S. (1973). Maintenance, replacement and reliability. Pitman. London.
[2] Moubray, John M. “Maintenance Management: A New Paradigm”. Aladon Ltd, UK, pp.7 – 11, 2000.
[Online] Available: http://www.maintenanceresources.com/RCM/Maintparadigm, July 12, 2016.

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