Implementation

Training

Training can be effectively achieved by considering specific examples of the ways in which this approach is applied to assets. The training should be given to all those who are involved in the day to day operations and maintenance of assets, and to all of those who are involved in the economic analysis or a long term strategic planning for assets.

In general terms all staff of service authorities should have an awareness of ORDM, and the ways in which it can be applied to their specialist functions within the organization.

Decision Support Tools

In addition to training programs the organization needs to provide decision support tools, for example:

• Simple process descriptions for manual evaluation
• Interim point score systems
• Sophisticated economic analysis models.

These enable staff to produce the true cost benefit to the organization by determining the cost of the service against the service it provides.

By using advanced asset management systems to determine the true physical condition of assets the probability of failure can be determined with a reasonable degree of confidence. The computer system should then manipulate these two ingredients to produce a current risk cost for that asset and that risk cost can be used to derive priority programs for maintenance, condition monitoring and renewal decision making.

The general arrangement of the necessary modules for advanced asset management including risk is shown below:

For each option the following applies:

Implementing ORDM Studies

Once an organization has elected to implement advanced asset management practices, they will have instigated an improvement program in terms of the acquisition of the necessary asset data and knowledge and the storage of that data in an appropriate asset management information system.

Once sufficient data has been collected the organization can complete a detailed renewal analysis or ORDM using either hard data or where appropriate experienced estimates or valued judgments.

The key data and knowledge that is requires includes:

• Planned and unplanned costs.
• Asset performance histories and predictions.
• An assessment of the current and future risk exposure in both direct and indirect terms.
• Other relevant data.

Filtering process

Optimized renewal decision analysis or risk reduction strategies can involve significant inputs and it is vital for organizations to optimize this activity by using appropriate processes to filter the work required and identify those projects that offer the most appropriate returns.

Prior to the completion of the ORDM the asset management staff will need to have completed the initial risk assessment and compilation of the relevant data to identify the failure modes and the risks associated with the asset.

Once this has been done a "sanity check" should be completed to filter out any extraneous data such as failures caused by external sources rather than the mortal structural failure of the asset.

The asset management team then needs to determine whether or not these costs are likely to exceed trigger points warranting the additional evaluation and from this develop a list of the assets warranting further analysis.

Process variables

The analysis process adopted will be dependent on the level of sophistication or inputs required for the different business cases.

Some analysis will require little effort. The data and knowledge available (even value judgments and assumptions) may be sufficient to identify significant cost benefits and decisions can be made effectively with little detailed analysis.

In other cases a restricted analysis will be required for reasonable amounts of data of appropriate accuracy.

The next level of analysis may involve significant numbers of assets in which the cost benefit appears justified but to develop a business case with an appropriate confidence level will require:

• A significant data acquisition of a high quality or accuracy
• The completion of a detailed analysis including all costs, benefits and options
• The development of significant sensitivity analysis sufficient to ensure an appropriate confidence level.

This type of analysis can be described as detailed analysis. This level of detailed analysis is usually applicable to individual assets or facilities, which have a high criticality to the business and the detailed individual or group analysis can be justified.

For many assets the impact of the business risks may not warrant a detailed analysis. However the large number of these like assets can justify significant inputs when the asset types are considered as a generic whole. In this case the detailed analysis can be completed on a generic asset, which can then be applied to the asset group as a whole and in some cases varied to suit the individual asset characteristics or situation.

The degrees of effort or resources required to undertake the analysis vary significantly within these categories.

Estimating the workload

At this point in the process it is important for the asset management team to gain some idea of their future workload, from which they can develop an appropriate business plan for carrying out the necessary analysis.

By understanding the amount of work required for each of the above activities and identifying the number of analyses that will be required to meet the various business objectives or milestones, the asset management team can then clearly identify the amount of work they will be required to complete.

In the following example the Hydro Electric Commission of Tasmania in Australia developed their workload for a sub-regional area based on the key business outputs required:

• Strategic civil assets review (SCAR)
• Strategic mechanical, electrical assets review (SMEAR)
• Total asset management plan version 2.0 (TAMP 2).

By analyzing the number of analyses required, the group were able to identify the workload for this sub-region which amounted to approximately 190 work days:

ORDM – Workload Management

If these resources exceed the organization's ability, then other resource options need to be considered or the work plan needs to be reduced to suit the available resources by the use of further process filters.

Generic models

In developing detailed generic models for individual asset types, it is important to try and set up the model to cater for the different variables that will be encountered across the asset group such as the:

• Actual condition of assets
• Probability of asset failure
• Consequence of failures to the business.

If the ORDM process has developed a generic renewal strategy for assets of this type, the strategy can then be varied to suit the individual nature of the asset and the stage of its life as determined by the above factors.

Generic guidelines need to be developed taking into account these variables so that they can then be applied cost effectively to individual assets.