Case Studies Australia

The Importance of Maintenance - Perrier

In the late 1980s, a light bulb in a control panel warning light in the Perrier plant failed and went undetected for over six months.

The result was that operators were unaware that the filters that removed impurities (including benzene) from the gas used to put the "fizz" into the mineral water had become clogged and were no longer functioning.

World wide, Perrier was forced to literally pour $200 million of contaminated products down the drain.

The erosion of consumer confidence saw their market share fall from over 55% to less than 25%.

For Perrier, the end cost of the failure of that single light bulb is incalculable.

They didn’t have the protection given to public utilities, however we need to consider ourselves as a ”commercial business” to best manage these valuable community assets and not hide behind the cloak of ‘”public good and legal indemnity”.

Slighting Maintenance Can Increase Costs

Several years ago, a study of Australian maintenance practices in underground coal mining was undertaken to benchmark it against international standards.

One of the findings was that Australian coalmines spent about half the amount on maintenance for a particular major equipment item compared with their American counterparts. But further investigation revealed that while Australian mines struggled to achieve better than 35% availability, the Americans were routinely achieving 90%. The net result was that maintenance cost per ton of production in America was about half of that in Australia! That meant greater profit and competitiveness. In this case, reduced costs led to reduced asset performance, which led to reduced profits!

Editors note: when benchmarking maintenance, it is vital to normalize the data and compare like assets with like assets and like practices with like practices. The condition of a certain type of asset, its location with respect to the maintenance depot and about 12 other factors need to be normalized to get to the truth. For more information on these issues read the section on benchmarking in the Review and Continuous Improvement Guideline.

Maintenance Costs Reduced by Better Design of Sewer Access Chambers

A value management study was conducted by Yarra Valley Water to determine what was required of their sewer access chambers.

The confined space of entry requirements in old sewer access chambers made it an expensive exercise when access was necessary.

Yarra Valley wanted access to the sewer in both directions, for:

• Closed circuit television inspection
• Cleaning sewers
• Tree root cutting equipment
• Stopping sewer flow
• Limited debris removal
• Testing equipment during construction.

They wanted a solution that was:

• A low cost alternative to a concrete material
• Manufactured in one piece to eliminate infiltration
• Exempt from confined space regulations
• Compatible for use with UPVC, Polyethylene and Vitrified Clay pipe
• Installed by pipe layers as pipes are laid
• Light and easy to use.

The end result – the SAIF-T chamber - won an Excellence Award in the International Asset Management Competitions in 1997-98. The final chamber met the criteria laid down by the value management study was narrow and could be laid in the trench during construction of the pipe system, whereas a standard concrete access chamber required the trench to be widened. They are now in use across Australia.

PS. If you visit Bath in England you should visit the Roman Baths. If you are lucky you can even go down into the sewer/ stormwater drains under the baths, still operating complete with manholes. If you then go to the history museum you can read about the legionnaires who were responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure and how they constructed steps down into these manhole because “it was dangerous for staff to get access to the sewer in the dank conditions” (translated from the Latin by an Aussie). How far have we come in sewer collection systems?