The Big Interview

Expert Interview with David Lenden, Director of RPmatters Can you give me some background on your company and what it does?

We are a small business based in the South West of the UK (specifically Plymouth) that has been operating for over ten years. We provide general radiation protection advice and support across numerous sectors; including, but not limited to, Radon measurement. As an accredited Radiation Protection Advisor and Chartered Radiation Protection Professional I can, and do, provide advice and support to individuals, housing associations, companies and schools etc. for compliance with legislation relating to ionising radiations; this includes Radon. Although this is not unique, we do provide a service that has been identified by our clients as much more approachable, pragmatic and comprehensive than others. A company supplying detectors doesn’t usually have an RPA, the legal appointed professional, required to comply with UK occupational regulations above 300 Bq/m3.

A FEELING FOR WHAT’S LIKELY TO FAIL.

Whilst the adage that ‘prevention is better than cure’ is well known and respected within the industry, particularly where plant equipment is concerned, standing by these words requires walking the fine line between suffering the occasional failure of a machine and overmaintaining equipment.

As assets become smarter and CMMS/EAM packages become more integrated across various asset classes within a manufacturing company, responsibility for facility management (including facility maintenance) has become spread over multiple departments. Historically, facility and plant maintenance were the sole responsibility of the Maintenance Department which ultimately reported to the Plant Manager or Works Manager.

It is common knowledge that a range of Condition Monitoring (CM) techniques are available such as Vibration Analysis, Oil & Wear Debris Analysis, Thermography and Acoustic Emission. Each of these techniques has its own particular areas of strength and in this regard the Acoustic Emission (AE) technique has the noted advantage of giving real time information with early sensitivity to faults and applicability to a wide range of rotational speeds including slowly rotating (source : ISO 22096).

A very important part of a cost-effective preventive maintenance program is what I call the route-based activity. These are activities that are easiest to do, and to administer, if they are presented in a list. This list can be presented in electronic format or in a paper format and includes such activities as lubrication and inspections by maintenance craftspeople and equipment operators. There are two major things that surprise me regarding these basic preventive maintenance activities:

With the very good return on investment (ROI) you get from these programs, I am surprised at how many plants lack these programs or perform them very poorly.
All major computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) lack the capability to administer these routes in an efficient manner.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT. We use cost avoidance analysis as a tool to measure the return on investment (ROI) from route-based activity programs (exclusive of lubrication). In the last year we have verified the ROI to be between five to 10 times the initial investment and, after that, 10 to 30 times the cost to run the program. Even if such a good ROI can be verified, the inspection program is very poor in most plants and, if one exists, it is not executed with the highest priority.

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) SHORTCOMINGS. All CMMS providers we talk with say their systems can produce inspection lists to support inspection and lubrication routes. We must understand that, in the computer world, the answer is always, "Yes, our system can do that.