pwr_february-2025 - 32

PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE
Tracking Performance
Quantifying the value of a PdM program
presents a unique paradox, that is, its
success is measured by the absence of
events, specifically, equipment failures
that never happened. While traditional
maintenance metrics can count repairs
made or man-hours worked, PdM's true
value lies in invisible victories-the bearing
that didn't fail during peak demand,
the transformer that didn't overheat during
summer, or the turbine that didn't
require emergency maintenance (Figure
2). This makes building a business case
simultaneously essential and difficult,
but not impossible. Key performance indicators
(KPIs) offer a good place to start.
" The most important KPIs for our deployments
are event identification and
confirmed events, " explained Tuttle. " If or
when an event occurs, did the PdM program
identify it? And for each identified
event, did the subsequent or recommended
maintenance effort confirm it was accurately
identified? The goal is, of course,
that all events are accurately identified. "
In the end, this is really just confirmation
that the system is reliable and
effective. From there, when all the supporting
information is provided, tracking
cost and manpower savings is what
provides users the confirmation that
they've made a good choice in deploying
the system. However, Tuttle agreed
that it's always difficult to characterize
" what didn't happen, " so this can take
some time to accurately develop.
" If ever a customer receives a recommendation
or an event is identified, but
the customer doesn't act on it for whatever
reason and eventually a failure takes
place, the potential cost savings had the
event been acted upon is much more
readily and precisely determined, and
this is tracked, " Tuttle said. " Maintenance
costs for an organization can be reduced
20% to 30%, basically shaving off the
big maintenance costs due to failure, and
stretching the preventative maintenance
windows to lower the average. Equipment
reliability increases, and unplanned
downtime can be dramatically reduced,
as much as 75%, " he added.
Taking the analysis a step further involves
estimating a return on investment
(ROI). " Many factors go into ROI on
these PdM programs, things like scale of
deployment, nature and age of the process,
current maintenance program, and
others. When the system is deployed at
a site as the first real effort to establishing
a good maintenance program, often
times this is a place that's been experi32
encing
several supporting equipment
failures in a year, and the ROI lands in
the neighborhood of one year for a large
site, maybe two years for a smaller site
simply due to scale, " Tuttle supposed.
" However, if that site is 30- or 40-plusyears
old, we've seen instances that
several
long-developing problems are
immediately identified, and the system
has effectively paid for itself out-of-thegate
in identifying these and avoiding a
looming major failure. "
For a site that is very active with a
PdM program, the benefits come from
reducing disposables cost and labor time
(Figure 3). " This takes longer to add up
and may be several years, " Tuttle presumed.
" That said, if that same site is
preparing for an overhaul or major outage
and would typically spend a great
deal on preventative maintenance, again,
our system can provide confidence in
forgoing some of the more costly efforts
that aren't necessary, and again, this can
result in rapid ROI. "
Real-World Losses
To get an idea of how much money can
potentially be lost through inaction, Tuttle
gave an example without mentioning
names. " The closest example is from
a site where we were consistently indicating
air heater performance issues, "
he said. " Unfortunately, because the
site was nearing end-of-life, for several
years no maintenance was performed
to address this, being considered by
some levels of the organization to be an
unwarranted cost. The unit was forced
to derate at full load by an ever-increasing
amount, at its worst, by more than
5% consistently. "
Ultimately, conditions changed and the
maintenance was performed. " The air
heater's condition was atrocious, just as
the system had indicated for those several
years, " explained Tuttle. " Simply in
direct lost generation, millions of dollars
went unrealized. When this is coupled
with greater fan power consumption,
reduced heat transfer performance, and
other efficiency and process effects, it is
very likely that not performing this maintenance
cost tens of millions of dollars. "
Innovation Continues
Tuttle said one of the best things about
Taber's process and deployment platform,
the Griffin AI Toolkit, is its inherent
open system design. " This tool and
our approach are, by design, fluid and
adaptable to evolving industry demands
and technology availability. We make a
www.powermag.com
3. Part of the value of a successful PdM
program comes from eliminating unnecessary
time-based inspections, which frees up
workers time to do those jobs that are truly
important. Source: Envato
point to almost immediately integrate
technological advancements as soon as
they're demonstrated as more reliable
than simple theory, and to be familiar
with and comfortable as a team with
the industry and changing demands. So
be assured that as advancements in approaches
are available, they'll be a component
within our program, and that as
the industry evolves, we'll be there to
support it, " he said.
Getting started with a usable PdM
program is not an intensive effort.
Even if a facility simply wants to " test
the waters " and consider a single
piece of equipment, that's a good first
step to evaluate the approach and performance
of such a system and gain
the experience that is often necessary
to proceed further with system
and scope expansions. " We all know
how much maintenance costs, and
since maintenance is a sure thing,
any steps that can be taken to reduce
those costs by simply adjusting procedures-effectively,
no hardware or
major system changes-are beneficial
across the board, " Tuttle argued.
" At the end of the day, for us it's about
supporting our customers through fully
customized systems. Whether this is
through a simple single component system,
or an enterprise-wide platform and
program that integrates real-time data
signals, personnel logging interfaces,
maintenance and workorder system communication,
and automated reporting and
tuning. At whatever level a solution is
needed, we have the capability and tools
to turn it into reality, " he concluded. ■
-Aaron Larson is POWER's
executive editor.
POWER | February 2025
http://www.powermag.com
pwr_february-2025

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