Maintworld 4/2019

4/2019 www.maintworld.com 

maintenance & asset management 

Machine Learning – 

Not a Gold-Plated Silver-Bullet 

Solution to Operational Woes p 16 

A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO ONLINE MONITORING OF ROLLER BEARINGS PG 8 USING ULTRASOUND TO ENHANCE ENERGY EFFICIENCY PG 18

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weighted scoring system decides the best technician for the 

job based on their schedule, availability, location, and skill 

level. CFSWorX learns about your workers from popular ERP 

and CRM systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, 

Azure Active Directory, and more. We deliver guaranteed 

notifications through our convenient mobile app, and take 

the guesswork out of sending exactly the right responder to 

exactly where they need to be. 

Experience CFSWorX in action 

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iconics.com

EDITORIAL 

Women on top 

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS after the Russian cosmonaut 

Svetlana Savitskaya was the first 

woman to take a spacewalk, a new historical 

event took place above our heads on 18 October 

2019. Two Nasa astronauts took the 

first all-female spacewalk. It was not just for 

fun, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir were 

responsible for replacing defective equipment 

from the International Space Station 

(ISS), and in that way also formed the first 

female maintenance team in the space. 

Construction of the International Space 

Station began in November 1998 and was 

put into service two years later by the first 

crew. Keeping this gigantic facility operational 

is not easy (*). There were major 

problems with an air leak in 2004, smoke development by the oxygen generator in 

2006 and life-threatening computer problems in 2007 caused by condensation in 

some electrical connectors. Some repairs require extra-vehicular activities (EVAs). 

For example, in 2010 and 2013 there was a problem in an ammonia cooling circuit, 

which required several space walks to replace a defective pump unit. So far, there 

have been more than 1,000 hours and almost 200 space walks to perform modifications 

and repairs on the outside of the station. 

Congratulations from the Big Chief 

Koch and Meir had to replace a defective battery charging and discharging unit 

(BCDU) mounted on a truss on the outside of the ISS. BCDUs control the amount of 

energy stored from the solar panels in the batteries. The defect was caused by a previous 

replacement of a set of lithium-ion batteries. Because of the weightlessness 

and absence of friction, working in space is not easy. The entire mission was meticulously 

prepared and the general public could follow a lifestream of the astronauts, 

dangling at 420 km above the earth’s surface, carrying out the repairs. 

During the works, the NASA astronauts received a phone call from President 

Donald Trump, who congratulated them on the historic spacewalk: “What you do is 

incredible”. As far as I’m concerned, a lot of CEOs could take Trump as an example 

and give their maintenance workers more often a pat on the back for their valuable 

work. 

Feminize the technical world 

After the mission there was a lot of praise for the historical spacewalk. However, 

there was also criticism because it took more than 44 years after the first space walk 

before two women could go on a spacewalk together. This apparently had to do with 

the fact that the space suits were made to measure for a man’s body. During an interview 

before the space walk, Christina Koch put her finger on the wound: “In the 

past, women have not always sat at the table...”. 

We urgently need to get rid of the stereotypical image that only men are suitable 

for technical work. Let’s all work on this consciously. For example, by actively looking 

for female technical talent. However, this will not be enough to get more female 

maintenance technicians and engineers on the shop floor. After all, the image of 

typical female or male professions starts at a young age. Specialists point out that it 

is important to consciously avoid stereotypes from childhood onwards. And you can 

do something about that too. Maybe YOU can start in the upcoming holiday season 

by asking Santa Claus to bring your (grand)daughter a cool set of tools and matching 

tool belt? A valuable present that could launch her future career to the top... 

6 maintworld 4/2019 

Wim Vancauwenberghe 

Maintenance Evangelist 

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station_maintenance 

16 

To 

understand why your 

business is not achieving 

peak potential we need 

to consider all the sources 

of waste, including the 

reliability of the equipment.

IN THIS ISSUE 4/2019 

42 

Many 

forward-thinking 

companies are taking 

advantage of the huge 

opportunities offered by 

equipment rental. 

44 

Autonomous systems are 

revolutionizing many 

industries, resulting in 

safer and more efficient 

processes. 

8 

12 

14 

16 

A Data-Driven Approach to Online 

Monitoring of Roller Bearings in 

Wind Turbines 

Siemens Asset Performance 

Management for Power Plants 

Proves Its Value 

Team of One Can Get 

Things Done 

Machine Learning – Not the Gold- 

Plated Silver-Bullet Solution to 

Operational Woes You May Think 

18 

Using Ultrasound to Enhance 

Energy Efficiency 

20 

24 

30 

32 

Asset Performance 4.0: New 

Technologies Bring New Solutions 

An Ultrasound Solution to Grease 

Bearings Right 

How the United Nations (UNO) of 

Automation will Influence your 

Business? 

Leaders in Maintenance: 

Part I 

36 

40 

A 12 Step Program to Stop the 

Reorganization Insanity 

The Swedish Maintenance Society 

Celebrated its 50th Anniversary 

Why Equipment Rental Makes 

42 

Long-Term Sense 

44 

48 

Automation and Digitalized Asset 

Management Increase Safety and 

Productivity 

Cross-Fertilization of 

Asset Management with 

Resilience and Reliability 

Issued by Promaint (Finnish Maintenance Society), Messuaukio 1, 00520 Helsinki, Finland tel. +358 29 007 4570 

Publisher Omnipress Oy, Mäkelänkatu 56, 00510 Helsinki, tel. +358 20 6100, toimitus@omnipress.fi, www.omnipress.fi 

Editor-in-chief Nina Garlo-Melkas tel. +358 50 36 46 491, nina.garlo@omnipress.fi, Advertisements Kai Portman, Sales 

Director, tel. +358 358 44 763 2573, ads@maintworld.com Layout Menu Meedia, www.menuk.ee Subscriptions and 

Change of Address members toimisto@kunnossapito.fi, non-members tilaajapalvelu@media.fi Printed by Painotalo Plus 

Digital Oy, www.ppd.fi Frequency 4 issues per year, ISSN L 1798-7024, ISSN 1798-7024 (print), ISSN 1799-8670 (online). 

4/2019 maintworld 7

PARTNER ARTICLE 

A Data-Driven 

Approach to Online 

Monitoring of 

Roller Bearings in 

Wind Turbines 

Text: Dr. Edwin Becker and Dipl. Ing. Michael Dietl, 

PRÜFTECHNIK Condition Monitoring GmbH 

8 maintworld 4/2019


As highly stressed components, roller bearings in the drive train of wind turbines 

are subject to countless influences from ‘manufacture, assembly, and operation.’ 

BEARING-SPECIFIC CHANGES in state can 

be detected at a relatively early stage 

through traditional structure-borne 

noise-based methods of roller bearing 

monitoring and diagnosis. In the context 

of large-scale monitoring, various 

data-driven procedures help to prioritize 

irregularities by extracting characteristics 

from measured overall readings and 

diagnostics, assigning them to defined 

roller bearing conditions based on standards 

and guidelines. However, there are 

powerful continuous measuring CMS 

systems, which work as edge devices 

while support IIoT relevant protocols, 

such as MQTT. The costs associated 

with repairs on planetary stage bearings 

in the main gear and with rotor blade 

bearings are elevated. Please refer to 

Figure 1 to see the correlation between 

the frequency of bearing damage and its 

financial implications. 

How does this happen? 

Sporadic patterns in wind speed force 

the components within wind turbines 

to be highly dynamic, allowing them to 

adapt to variating load ratios and running 

speeds. These substantial fluctuations 

result in elevated vibration, effectively 

causing high levels of stress to the 

roller bearings and making them susceptible 

to being the most common cause of 

damage to the drive train. Historical evidence 

would suggest that roller bearing 

on the gear outlet of the fast drive train 

side is the component in wind turbines 

that experiences the most frequent premature 

damage. 

3 Factors of mechanical service life: 

All mechanical components are heavily 

impacted by three factors: Manufacturing, 

Assembly and Operations. 

Manufacturing encompasses all factors 

determined in the bearing’s production 

phase from dimensional accuracy to the 

radial clearance. Assembly relates to the 

installation of the bearing, errors made 

in the fit and inclination of the bearing 

can lead to severe distortion. Lastly, operation 

pertains to the overall usage of 

bearing, Figure 2 summarizes the factors 

at play and their corresponding criticality 

levels. Please note that as apparent 

in many instances of mechanical failure, 

the causal factors of the damage all prove 

to be interconnected. 

Traditional vibration methods 

for roller bearing condition 

diagnostics 

Rotating roller bearing components 

generate measurable, high frequency, 

and structure-borne sound vibrations as 

a result of rolling, friction, and impact on 

the roller bearing. During roller bearing 

diagnostics, structure-borne noise measurement 

methods can be used to detect 

roller bearing damage at early stages. 

The critical metrics to monitor include: 

envelope spectra, and time signals with 

their respective derived amplitudes and 

pattern. 

In the early phases, the excitation 

areas in the high-frequency acceleration 

spectrum (greater than 10 kHz) are rather 

broad. This is because structure-borne 

sound signals only become more apparent 

with declines in raceway quality. 

In stages where roller bearings are still 

discreet, the generated pulsed shock excitations 

with bearing-specific ball pass 

frequencies stem from the: external race, 

inner race, rolling element, and the cage. 

However, because the envelope method 

is particularly sensitive to damage it 

proves effective in early-stage detection 

by sensing amplitude changes. In the later 

stage, these mechanical damages can 

be understood through frequency deviations. 

Once a bearing’s defect frequencies 

are discovered, the defect’s location 

can be pinpointed. In addition, highly 

dynamic time signal of the acceleration 

offers added security in the diagnostics 

process. This occurs because the characteristics 

of rolling kinematics often are 

reflected within the roller bearing. 

Table 1 provides an overview of additional 

criteria for the damage diagnosis 

of roller bearings according to VDI 3832. 

Note that though diagnostic experts 

trust the VDI 3832, it proves to be one 

of the most time-consuming diagnosis 

models. When employing continuous 

roller bearing monitoring, it is more 

efficient to process measured time signals 

into scalar overall readings and to 

engage in deeper diagnostics only when 

experiencing substantial changes in the 

overall trends. 

Data-driven methods for roller 

bearing condition diagnosis 

As a result of growing trends towards 

predictive maintenance models, more 

and more data-driven analysis methods 

are being brought to light. (see Figure 3). 

It is crucial to these “big data” methods 

to collect the most comprehensive data 

volumes, enabling the extraction of characteristics 

using data mining methods. 

Ultimately, this model leverages event 

probability to predict future mechanical 

ALL MECHANICAL COMPONENTS ARE HEAVILY 

IMPACTED BY THREE FACTORS: MANUFACTURING, 

ASSEMBLY AND OPERATIONS. 

Figure 1: Some factors influencing the service life of rolling bearings 



failure. The challenges of this application 

are (1) mastering large volumes of 

data, (2) understanding complex analysis 

processes, and (3) generating transparent 

forecasts. Therefore, this model has 

not yet become prevalent in roller bearing 

condition diagnostics in the wind 

industry. 

With that being said, “Smart data” 

applications aim to extract useful characteristics 

from large data volumes 

using often similar analysis methods, 

which users can understand and use as 

a starting point for additional analyses. 

There are statistical methods for extracting 

characteristics, which transfer 

overall reading trends from the time 

domain into the frequency domain. Ultimately, 

determining the representative 

parameters from this information. 

This statistical processing model offers 

a high level of added value for wind turbines 

with highly transient operating 

behaviour. 

However, in order to implement 

a large-scale cost-effecting system 

to monitor roller bearings, it makes 

sense to prioritize the characteristics 

extracted as an irregularity. This can 

be done by prioritizing limited values 

of the DIN ISO 13373-3 (broadband 

overall values) or characteristics of the 

VDI 3832. 

Figure 4 depicts the sequences of 

data-driven condition monitoring. The 

CMS act as an additional data supplier 

for overall readings and diagnostic 

characteristic values. If large scales or 

varieties of bearings are to be monitored, 

the classification is followed by 

a weighted process that assigns predefined 

meanings to extracted features 

depending on their characteristics. 

These predefined weighted parameters 

are put in place by knowledgeable experts 

and experience. 

For this procedure to function, the 

CMS must quickly and synchronically 

collect measurements across various 

channels. Allowing it to issue frequencyselective 

and order-selective overall 

readings and diagnostic characteristics. 

An incredibly powerful online CMS is 

the VIBGUARD IIoT from PRUFT- 

ECHNIK. The VIBGUARD IIoT gains 

its edge in its ability to offer its users 

data reduction options while supporting 

IoT-relevant protocols, such as MQTT. 

Ultimately, enabling the evaluation of 

vibration and diagnostic priorities in the 

control center. 

Roller bearing 

monitoring 

Approach 

Monitored 

characteristic 

Diagnostic 

procedure 

Figure 3 Approaches to data-driven condition monitoring not only on rolling bearings 

Data collection 

Broadband overall readings 

Narrow band overall readings 

Diagnostic characteristic 

values amplitude spectrum 


values envelope spectrum 


values time signal 

Traditional 

Exceeding limit values 

for characteristic value 

amplitudes 

Diagnoses in the 

case of exceeding 

Preparation and 

extraction of 

characteristics 

Rotor blade bearings 

“Big Data” 

Characteristics in the 

time / frequency range 

Statistical methods / 

Machine learning 

Classification 

DIN ISO 13373 

& VDI 3832 

Gearbox bearing PCS 

Figure 4. Diagram for the data-driven condition monitoring process 

Main bearing 

Generator bearing 

Damage frequency 

“Smart Data” 

Gearbox bearing 

HSS 

Figure 2. Connection between frequency of roller bearing damage in wind turbines with 

gears and the resulting financial expenditure caused 

Pre-processed 

characteristic values 

Hybrid diagnosis and 

criticality assessment 

Vibration priority number 

prioritization level 1 

Diagnostic priority number 

prioritization level 2 

Other diagnosis according to 

priority 

Table 1: Relationship between diagnostic features and damage stages (criticalities) of a 

roller bearing based on VDI 3832 


CASE STUDY 

Siemens Asset Performance 

Management for Power 

Plants Proves Its Value at 

the San Gabriel Power Plant 

First Gen Corporation, 

through its subsidiaries, 

is as an independent 

power producer in the 

Philippines. The company 

owns natural gas-fired 

power and hydroelectric 

power plants, and 

generates power through 

geothermal, wind, and 

solar facilities. 

FIRST GEN’S wholly owned First NatGas 

Power Corp. (FNPC) owns the 414-megawatt-rated 

San Gabriel natural gas power 

plant located in Batangas City, Philippines. 

Siemens has been the facility operations 

and maintenance provider since the commercial 

operation started in November 

2016. San Gabriel utilizes Siemens SCC6- 

8000H combined-cycle gas turbine, which 

is designed to have a combined-cycle efficiency 

rating greater than 60 percent and 

high operational flexibility. 

Keeping the power flowing while 

maintaining a high level of efficiency is 

critical for power plants. The San Gabriel 

plant is one of Siemens’ most upto-date 

and highly efficient designs, deploying 

extensive advanced sensors and 

instrumentation. The state-of-the-art 

facility is the first to implement the new 

Siemens Asset Performance Management 

(APM) for Power Plants, a solution 

co-developed by Siemens and Bentley. 

The APM solution is populated 

with proprietary models derived from 

Siemens’ extensive OEM and domain 

expertise as a power plant designer, EPC 

contractor, operator, and maintainer. 

The models were developed specifically 

for the combined cycle gas turbine and 


CASE STUDY 

Industry: Utilities / Power Generation 

Location: San Gabriel Power Plant 

Product: Siemens APM for Power Plants 

Powered by Bentley AssetWise, 

ContextCapture 

User: Siemens Energy Inc. Gas and Power 

Country: Philippines 

Siemens APM for Power 

Plants is solving the 

data problem, pulling 

information together 

to analyze it and make 

it understandable 

so operators and 

maintenance can make 

timely and accurate 

decisions. 

other critical equipment and plant assets. 

Prior to the development of APM, 

Siemens used human interpretation 

of maintenance and condition data as 

the main mechanism to determine the 

health of most components in the plant. 

APM for Power Plants fundamentally 

changed that dynamic by automating 

the process, interpreting condition 

data, trending patterns and finding 

abnormalities, and then comparing 

results against the predictive models 

in real-time. The system analyzes asset 

performance history and uses advanced 

analytical models to detect patterns or 

behaviors to predict equipment failure, 

visualizing real-time operating and 

condition data to make faster and more 

informed decisions. 

The joint Bentley-Siemens solution 

automates the process of proactive daily 

inspections and maintenance, prioritizing 

work based on the current condition 

and risk profile of the asset. The 

predetermined, reliability-centered 

maintenance recommendations focus 

on the minimum work that is required 

to meet performance requirements. 

Real-time view of asset health, based 

on accurate condition data, facilitates 

timely and informed decisions and immediate 

action. 

The experience and lessons learned 

from this first installation are slated 

to be incorporated into the worldwide 

deployment of APM into many of the 

thousands of power plants powered by 

Siemens gas or steam turbines. The solution 

will be available for other OEMbased 

facilities as well. Since the software 

runs in an open, connected data 

environment it can be adjusted quickly 

and easily for the operating context of 

the unit. Combining the reliability program 

framework of Bentley’s AssetWise 

with the Siemens’ asset models, the 

team can optimally schedule planned 

outages and reduce the duration of unplanned 

outage events. 

– We take seriously that we want 

reliable plants, and implementing APM 

is our strategy for the future, said Jan 

Janssen, head of asset management in 

operations and maintenance, with Siemens 

AG. 



Team of One 

Can Get Things Done 

For a maintenance 

technician, sometimes 

responding to a job/call/ 

ticket can make you feel 

like you’re “on you own”, 

especially in instances 

where you might not 

be immediately familiar 

with the given situation. 

This can be due to 

responding to a certain 

location for the first time, 

accessing new equipment, 

maybe performing new 

procedures with new 

tools, etc. 

MELISSA TOPP 

Senior Director of Global 

Marketing 

ICONICS 

THAT ISN’T TO SAY that you haven’t been 

well-trained or aren’t capable of getting 

the job done on your own. It just might 

make things a bit easier on you if you felt 

you had some reinforcement in those 

instances. That doesn’t necessarily mean 

only responding to calls with at least a 

team of two. Sometimes that kind of perceived 

backup can be provided through 

technology. 

Connected Field Service 

Right off the bat, it would probably instill 

a bit of confidence in your abilities if you 

knew that each time you were assigned 

to a call that your organization was certain 

of that decision. 


ICONICS CFSWorX is a software 

solution designed to streamline the 

efficiency of field service organizations 

through intelligent scheduling 

and reliable notifications. With an 

easy-to-use map overlay, the software 

allows organizations to see exactly 

where their field service workers are 

at all times. When an alarm or fault is 

triggered at a nearby site, CFSWorX 

then calculates the proper worker 

for the job based on their location, 

schedule, availability, and skill level. 

The software can be easily integrated 

into an organization’s existing Enterprise 

Resource Planning (ERP) and/or 

Customer Relationship Management 

(CRM) systems, utilizing existing contact 

information, schedules, and field 

workers’ catalogued skill sets. 

IIoT Connectivity and Fault 

Detection & Diagnostics 

Once you’ve been selected for a maintenance 

call, you’ll be equally reassured by 

the scope of connectivity via the Industrial 

Internet of Things. 

ICONICS IoTWorX software is 

the bridge between your enterprise and 

ICONICS proven HMI/SCADA, analytics, 

and mobile solutions running in the 

cloud. Via ICONICS’ solution, buildings, 

facilities, and equipment can be connected 

through secure TLS encryption


and Microsoft Azure. Data in the cloud 

can be accessed from anywhere through 

a publish/subscribe architecture for 

real-time visualization of KPI data at the 

edge. IoTWorX delivers an efficient, secure 

connection to the cloud through bidirectional 

AMQP for Microsoft Azure, 

as well as MQTT, REST, and WebSockets 

for third-party cloud providers. With 

ICONICS in the cloud, data is more accessible 

than ever. 

ICONICS Fault Detection and Diagnostics 

(FDD) tools help organizations 

get out of the break/fix cycle by proactively 

detecting and diagnosing faults. 

The technology incorporates a standard 

library of fault rules that can be customized 

to predict equipment failures and 

advise personnel of preventive actions. 

Before the emergence of FDD software 

solutions, many organizations relied on 

institutional knowledge in order to fix 

or maintain their wide variety of equipment. 

This type of info (symptoms, 

causes, and recommended actions) may 

have only existed in the heads of senior 

WITH ICONICS, YOU MIGHT 

BE THE ONLY MAINTENANCE 

TECH ON SITE, BUT YOU 

CERTAINLY WON’T FEEL LIKE 

YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN. 

personnel or, if lucky, in print or electronic 

archives. ICONICS FDD software 

integrates that level of information into 

algorithms to help organizations move 

to more modern, more cost-effective 

predictive maintenance. 

Holographic Machine Interface 

(HMI) and Remote Expert 

Mode 

So you’re trusted enough to be selected 

for the job. You’re connected by modern 

networking technology and informed 

through facility-based analytics. What’s 

left? Newly emerging technology can 

make individual maintenance technicians 

feel like they’re part of a larger onsite 

team. 

ICONICS has recently further developed 

its Holographic Machine Interface 

(HMI), which extends HMI/SCADA and 

visualization technology for use with the 

latest hands-free, wearable computing 

devices. Augmented reality allows for 

uses such as on-screen documentation 

for the equipment being maintained. But 

that’s only one possible aspect. 

Augmented reality also allows users 

to benefit from Digital Twins, where 

data from sensor-connected equipment 

can be accessed anywhere (often 

over the Internet of Things) to create 

a real-time, virtualized model for 

monitoring and control. Digital Twins 

provide new mechanisms for training 

by projecting a simulation of the task at 

hand alongside the physical equipment. 

It also improves collaboration and enables 

‘virtual’ access to physically hardto-reach 

areas. Using this concept, 3D 

schematics of connected equipment 

could allow technicians to see into the 

inner workings of a machine in order 

to analyze its current operating condition, 

as well as how to resolve any associated 

faults. 

Using similar wearable technology 

(a head-mounted display running software 

visualization tools such as those 

offered by ICONICS), a technician could 

also invoke a ‘Remote Expert’ mode. A 

live video feed from the headset can be 

streamed to a different off-site technician; 

one who may have more experience 

with the equipment in question and can 

assist the on-site technician through any 

required repair steps. 

It is this integration and combination 

of ICONICS automation software 

solutions that provides maintenance 

organizations, and their individual 

workers, the modern tools to get the 

job done. With ICONICS, you might be 

the only maintenance tech on site, but 

you certainly won’t feel like you’re on 

your own. 

Visit ICONICS at SPS 2019! 

Come experience the latest automation 

software solutions to assist maintenance 

organizations at SPS (Smart Production 

Solutions) 2019 at Nuremberg Messe, 

Nuremberg, Germany, from November 

26 – 28, at Hall 5, Stand 360 


ASSET MANAGEMENT 

Machine learning is not 

the gold-plated silver-bullet solution to 

operational woes you may think 

There is a lot of hope and hype associated with 

machine learning, data analytics, and the IIoT. To 

understand why your business is not achieving 

peak potential we need to consider all the sources 

of waste, including the reliability of the 

equipment, and the reason why that 

waste exists. 

JASON TRANTER, 

ARP-III, CMRP, 

Mobius Institute 

EVERY DAY, decisions are taken (and 

opportunities missed) that ultimately 

result in waste, poor equipment availability, 

sub-par utilization, poor quality 

and production throughput, and 

ultimately, safety/environmental 

incidences. If you think of your plant as 

a person, we shoot ourselves in the left 

foot during the design and acquisition 

phase, and in the right foot during the 

maintenance phase. We operate in silos, 

so the left hand does know what the 

right hand is doing, and we thus make 

poor decisions. The brain does not know 

where the 

opportunities exist, and the heart does 

not really care. The result; we limp 

along in frustration. 

We could replace the brain with the 

latest intelligent software, thus making 

better operational decisions. But 

ultimately all we can do is optimize our 

limping, uncoordinated, largely uncaring 

body that continues to make many of the 

same mistakes. 

So, what is the answer? 

We need an approach that resolves the 

root cause of all these issues. At the heart 

is the leadership and culture of everyone 

from the senior executive to the operator 

and maintainer. With a focus on business 

performance, and a culture of mutual 

benefit and contribution, everything is 

possible. 

Crystal clear understanding 

of our goals 

We must start with a clear focus on 

what the business is trying to achieve. 

Every future action must be aligned 

with those goals. 

Assess the business case 

Next, we must assess the current and 

desired state whilst recognizing 

where we have existing strengths, and 

converse ly, opportunities for improvement. 

It is that gap that forms the 

business case for this initiative. 

Fix the heart 

After developing a strategy that is aligned 

with those goals, we must begin the 

process of changing the culture. People 

make decisions every day that affect the 

costs, efficiency, and performance of the 

organization. They need the desire, skills, 

and mandate to change their behaviours. 

Stop shooting ourselves in the left foot 

Future purchases and use of service 

providers must seek to achieve the 

lowest lifecycle costs and peak perfor- 



mance; we must prioritize reliability, 

operability, maintainability, and safety 

over the up-front cost. And we need a 

gatekeeper to keep problems out of the 

plant. 

Stop shooting ourselves 

in the right foot 

We must develop a disciplined approach 

to everything we do. All maintenance tasks 

must be performed as if lives depend on it. 

Just one way to do everything. 

Care for the equipment 

Our precious assets must be started, 

operated, maintained, and shut-down 

so as cause minimal stress, whilst also 

achieving peak output. 

Data driven decisions 

Now we apply data-driven intelligence to 

our process. By monitoring asset health, 

process performance, and key operational 

metrics, we can optimize our maintenance 

and operational decisions and eliminate 

waste. Continual operational improvement 

enables continual performance 

improvement. 

AT THE HEART IS 

THE LEADERSHIP 

AND CULTURE OF 

EVERYONE FROM THE 

SENIOR EXECUTIVE TO 

THE OPERATOR AND 

MAINTAINER. 

Leadership, value, and culture 

And now we circle back around to the 

core element that makes or breaks our 

process. With a constant focus on mutual 

benefit, peak performance will be 

sustained. If not, you will be back to the 

limping, uncoordinated, uncaring plant 

you have right now… 

Much more can be said about the 

proposed approach, but the key is to 

broaden your scope. Data intelligence 

will enable optimal performance, but 

only if the other elements are also 

addressed.


Using Ultrasound to Enhance 

Energy Efficiency 

Text: Christopher Hallum, 

Regional Manager, UK & Ireland, 

uesystems.com 

One of today’s greatest challenges for maintenance & reliability teams is to improve 

energy efficiency - high energy prices and global competition dictate a need to 

reduce energy waste and improve system efficiencies whenever possible. A major 

contributor to energy waste is leaks --both in compressed air systems and steam 

traps. Ultrasound inspection instruments can easily detect these leaks, leading to 

potential energy savings. 



CONTRARY to what some might think, 

compressed air is not free. In fact, it is 

estimated that more than 50 percent of 

all compressed air systems have energy 

efficiency problems that should be corrected. 

These losses can be quite costly. 

Around 30 percent of all industrial compressed 

air is usually lost to leaks, resulting 

in huge losses. A leak that is just 1mm 

can cost a plant upwards of €1500 per 

year if it goes undetected. 

Ultrasound instruments detect 

the turbulent flow produced as the 

compressed air moves from the highpressure 

side to the low-pressure side 

of a leak. Using the characteristics of 

Ultrasound, locating leaks is fast and 

easy because of: 

• Directionality of sound waves 

makes locating the source easy 

• Intensity of signal: the closer 

you get, the more sound you 

detect 

• Fixed frequency, making it effective 

to locate even in a loud 

factory environment 

Using an ultrasound inspection 

instrument, one can implement an air 

leak detection survey. Compressed 

air leaks are bound to crop up at some 

point, but by having a system in place 

that is designed to identify them before 

they become a large problem, you can 

save time, money and energy. 

traps can increase operating expenses by 

as much as 33%. For this reason, energy 

conservation programs should start with 

a steam trap survey. Even the smallest 

steam trap leak can cost up to €7000 per 

year. 

Testing steam traps with ultrasound 

is a structure-borne or contact application. 

Physical contact between 

the steam trap and the ultrasound 

instrument is necessary, to “hear” 

how the steam trap is performing. If 

made, adjust the sensitivity/volume on 

the instrument until the sound of the 

trap can be heard. 

Reporting Steam Trap 

Inspections 

Findings from a steam trap survey 

can also be documented with UE Systems 

Ultratrend DMS software, or the 

SteamTrap Survey app for mobile devices. 

The report will outline the potential 

economic loses due to the faulty steam 

ONE OF TODAY’S GREATEST CHALLENGES FOR MAINTENANCE 

& RELIABILITY TEAMS IS TO IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY. 

Reporting & Documenting 

Compressed Air Leak Surveys 

Besides repairing the leaks, the success 

of the survey largely relies on proper 

reporting and documentation. Reports 

can be created easily using software like 

Ultratrend DMS from UE Systems, or a 

mobile app as the LeakSurvey app. The 

cost of the compressed air leaks is based 

on the decibel level once the leak has been 

located; the cost per kilowatt hour of electricity; 

and the pressure at the leak site. 

Several independent studies compared an 

ultrasound leak survey report with the actual 

energy savings, and it has been found 

that an ultrasound leak survey is within 

20% of the actual savings - when done correctly, 

an ultrasound compressed air leak 

survey can have tremendous payback in a 

short period of time. 

Inspecting Steam Traps with 

Ultrasound 

Steam leaks are also among the most 

wasteful, and therefore, expensive issues 

found in a plant. In fact, leaking steam 

using an ultrasound instrument that 

has frequency tuning, adjust the frequency 

to the recommending setting of 

25kHz. Regardless of the type of trap, 

the placement of the contact probe or 

stethoscope module attachment on the 

ultrasound instrument will always be at 

the discharge orifice of the trap. Turbulence 

is created on the outlet side of the 

steam trap when it releases condensate. 

Therefore, placement of the contact 

probe will always be at the discharge 

orifice side. Once contact has been 

traps. In order to generate a Steam Loss 

Report, the inspector will need to know 

the following information for each steam 

trap: Type of Trap, Orifice Size, Inlet 

Temperature, Outlet Temperature, Operating 

Condition (OK, Leaking, Blowing, 

Plugged, Not In Service), and how 

much it is costing to generate 1000 lbs. 

of steam. If you are using UE Systems’ 

Ultraprobe 10000 or Ultraprobe 15000 

instruments, you can enter this information 

onboard the instrument as the 

steam trap survey is taking place. 


INDUSTRY EVENT 

Asset Performance 4.0: 

New Technologies 

Bring New Solutions 

Maintenance is teamwork - always and everywhere – and because of this, Bemas 

no longer considered it opportune to honour a single maintenance manager. That is 

why the emphasis this year was on ‘projects’. 

THE BRAND NEW ‘Asset Performance Awards’ were awarded to 

interesting maintenance initiatives in three categories. It is no 

surprise that ‘4.0’ was an important topic. After all, the global 

evolution towards digitisation, Industry 4.0 and new technologies 

open the doors to solutions that the maintenance world 

has never thought possible. – 

ArcelorMittal took home the Asset Performance 4.0 Award. 

We embraced technological evolution from the outset, says 

Andy Roegis, manager of industrial digitalization. The potential 

for production as well as quality, maintenance and logistics 

became clear fairly quickly. 

Certainly, for our division, numerous new possibilities are 

opening that allow us to carry out maintenance in a more focused 

and efficient way, maintenance engineer Pieter Van den 

Branden continues. 

The achilles heel of production 

At ArcelorMittal, the digital transformation revolves around, 

among other things, increasing production reliability. The top 

priority was the hot strip mill in the Ghent plant, a machine 

that fulfils a crucial role. 

It rolls slabs of steel of 23 cm to slabs of 1.5 mm thickness, 

which are then transported to the rewinding zone via a conveyor 

belt. There they are wound up into steel coils, says Pieter 

Van den Branden. 

Unfortunately, the hot strip mill is the Achilles heel of the 

production. This sub-installation has 340 AC motors, each of 

which controls a transport roller. And that’s where things often 

go wrong: failures in the motor or the universal joint regularly 

cause an unforeseen machine standstill. This causes the entire 

production to come to a standstill. In addition, the plates are 

often scratched and have passed over a defective transport 

roller. In short, there is both a downtime and a quality cost! 

Bringing together data sources 

A logical answer to this problem was predictive maintenance. Yet 

for years it proved impossible to put this idea into practice. 

Ordinary periodic vibration measurements did not provide 

enough data to define specific maintenance actions. In the 

end, we resorted to current and voltage measurements. In addition, 

we opened up the digitisation register further with the 

intelligent (self-learning) SAM4 software from SemioticLabs. 

This solution detects anomalies and generates warnings, even 

weeks before the breakdown will occur. And our efforts are 

paying off, because in the meantime the availability of the 

roller has increased considerably, said Andy Roegis. 

It is important to note that all monitoring systems are integrated, 

Pieter Van den Branden continues. 

The data from the ERP system are used to optimise the 

planning of the maintenance teams. Conversely, the SAM4 

software returns all data from monitoring and maintenance to 

the ERP system. This is not so much about big data, but rather 

about bringing together different data sources. In order to gain 

additional knowledge to plan maintenance even better, he adds 

Unseen opportunities 

For Infrabel, the manager of the Belgian railway infrastructure 

who also competed for the Award, Industry 4.0 is a strategic 

necessity. 

Although we are very active on the labour market, we have 

been faced with a shrinking workforce for several years now, 

project manager Sandrine Rauwoens states. 

The influx of technically trained people is too small to cope 


JOIN THE ASSET PERFORMANCE 4.0 

CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 

The Asset Performance 4.0 Conference & Exhibition 

offers a unique opportunity to learn how new 4.0 

technologies and fundamentals in operations, maintenance 

and asset management reinforce each other 

to achieve higher equipment reliability and cost performance. 

Do you have a project that will inspire your colleagues? 

Or do you want to share first-hand experiences 

with disruptive technologies? Let us know 

your presentation idea on www.assetperformance.eu. 

with the outflow of pensionable employees. The message is 

therefore to work more efficiently. And digitisation is one 

of the ways to achieve this. In addition, we naturally want to 

keep up with the changes in society. New technologies, such 

as artificial intelligence and IOT, will determine the future. 

This also applies to the railways, and therefore also to Infrabel, 

which is responsible for the maintenance, renewal and 

expansion of the infrastructure. However, we are happy to 

go down this road. In the field of maintenance in particular, 

unprecedented opportunities are opening up. Measuring is 

knowing. Digitisation and new technologies allow for better 

planning and more efficient execution. 

Faster and safer 

A good example of this can be found in the ‘Prodigis’ project. 

In short, it concerns an optimisation process to secure 

the tracks for maintenance work. 

This is a complex and highly regulated process, Sandrine 

Rauwoens explains. 

Several procedures must be followed, each with different 

parties. The procedures vary according to the location 

and the work to be carried out. Until ‘Prodigis’, everything 

was done with paper forms and telephone communication, 

so that securing the tracks could take up to several hours. 

Prodigis’ is a textbook example of digitisation. We replaced 

a 100 percent paper-driven process with a 100 percent 

digital process in which process optimisation and userfriendliness 

are the main idea. Because the administrative 

part has been completely removed, we save a lot of time and


the error rate is zero. This also benefits the safety of railway 

employees. Although ‘Prodigis’ is only a pilot, the end users are 

already very enthusiastic. They were also closely involved in 

the realisation of this digitisation project. Now a few extra procedures 

need to be added, after which we will roll out ‘Prodigis’ 

geographically throughout Belgium from next year. 

Added value for clients 

SPG Dry Cooling was also one of the competitors for the 

award. This engineering company is known for its Air-Cooled 

Condensers (ACCs), which are used worldwide in power stations 

with a power cycle. 

As an innovative leader, it is our job to help customers optimize 

their systems, aftermarket manager Frederic Anthone 

says. 

In doing so, we aim for maximum performance of the ACCs 

in particular. After all, optimal capacity utilisation has a tremendously 

positive impact on the electrical output and the 

overall performance of the assets. However, ACCs do not always 

perform in the same way because they react quite strongly 

to the specific circumstances of the moment. Wind direction 

and speed, ambient temperature, cleanliness of the heat 

exchange surface, ... influence the operation. Throughout the 

total lifecycle many fluctuations occur, so many power plant 

users and operators have no idea what the maximum performance 

of the ACC’s actually is. In order to solve this problem, 

we needed a technique that could process gigantic amounts of 

information using advanced analytics tools. This made it possible 

to determine patterns and relationships in data, both in 

steady axis and in transient operation. 

Increased operational reliability and efficiency 

With the surge of IoT and machine learning, SPG Dry Cooling 

realised what seemed impossible before. 

We built a dedicated IoT ecosystem that provides actionable 

Want to win an Asset Performance 

Award in 2020? 

You can participate in three categories: Asset Performance 

4.0, Best Improvement in Maintenance & Asset 

Management, and Technical Team of the Year. Present 

your case during the Asset Performance 4.0 Conference 

and participate in a fascinating award night. 

Send in your case via contest.assetperformance.eu 

insights to the power plant operators about the performance 

of the steam cycle, innovation and technology manager Christophe 

Deleplanque explains. 

The ACC360 combines the thermo-physical modelling with 

advanced analytics. With the processed information, clients 

can now optimize the net electrical output and net plant heat 

rate. Above that they can forecast accurately the electrical output 

based on the actual asset condition. With this project we 

bridge the gap between operational performance and reliability, 

which allows us to provide the customer with a total asset 

management tool. 

Thanks to the use of advanced analytics and machine learning, 

we can develop a specific digital twin for each installed 

asset. This is a virtual representation of a physical product or 

process, used to understand and predict the physical counterpart’s 

performance characteristics. With this solution, we 

offer our customers real added value: we guarantee a better 

operational reliability and an optimisation of the return on 

investment. This gives us an excellent example of how rapidly 

evolving technology formulates answers to challenges that 

previously seemed unsolvable, Frederic Anthone concludes. 


OPTIMIZE LUBRICATION 

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UE Systems Europe - Windmolen 20, 7609 NN Almelo, The Netherlands 

T: +31 546 725 125 | E: info@uesystems.eu | W: www.uesystems.eu


An ultrasound solution 

to Grease Bearings Right 

Today, SDT Ultrasound 

Solutions announced 

significant updates to its 

award-winning LUBExpert, 

a solution that guides 

lubrication technicians to 

grease bearings right. 

LUBEXPERT employs expert logic to overcome 

the many challenges that threaten 

Lubrication Excellence. The recipient 

of Plant Engineering’s Maintenance 

Product of the Year in 2017, the solution 

is globally praised as the best companion 


for lube-techs tasked with performing 

machinery lubrication. 

This latest release includes a long list 

of enhancements that further position 

LUBExpert as a “must have” tool for precision 

machinery lubrication. Embedded 

artificial intelligence thinks with, and 

for the lube tech at all steps of the grease 

replenishment task. 

» Our development team remains committed 

to our vision to explore new 

ideas, improve existing ones, and create 

new applications that solve real 

problems for our customers, extolls 

SDT’s Managing Director, André 

DEGRAEVE. 

While only one person squeezes the 

grease gun trigger, it takes a team to 

grease bearings right. LUBExpert masters 

the workflow of grease replenishment 

from a team perspective by managing 

integrated databases for: 

• Grease type 

• Grease gun database 

• Physical assets 

• Bearing types/sizes 

• Alarms 

• Workorders 

• Shopping lists 

• Missed tasks 

• Field messages 

• Outcomes 

• Reports 

• Free/Guided Modes –


» Lubrication Excellence is something 

we all strive for, but few organizations 

can prepare a winning strategy the 

whole team can execute, states Field 

Support Manager Haris Trobradovič. 

» LUBExpert Generation 3 interweaves 

elements of discipline and control 

that holds all stakeholders accountable. 

With LUBExpert, you really feel 

the pulse of your machine. 

Existing LUBExpert users will receive 

the latest updates and enhancements 

free of charge. Watch your email for release 

and instructions notes or contact 

your local distributor to Hear More. 

About SDT 

SDT provides ultrasound solutions that 

help our customers gain a better understanding 

about the health of their factory. 

We help them predict failures, control 

energy costs, and improve product 

quality while contributing to the overall 

reliability of their assets. 

LUBExpert is a keystone element of 

our products and solutions portfolio. To 

Hear More please contact SDT Ultrasound 

Solutions hearmore@sdtultrasound.com 

Why Lubricate? 

It seems a simple question, yet when 

asked, the answers are not always similar, 

or simple. 

Some say, “to fight friction” and that 

is true. We do add grease to an asset’s 

moving parts to reduce friction. But 

there’s more to it than that. 

Some say, “to reduce heat” and that is 

also true. The right amount of lubricant 

does help keep moving parts from getting 

too hot. But some lube techs, thinking 

more is better, take it to the extreme. 

They add more grease -- thinking they 

are doing good -- and instead choke the 

machine’s ability to disperse heat. 

The real reason to lubricate assets is to 

form separation between surfaces. This 

logic applies to not only motor bearings. 

The pistons in an engine, chains on a chain 

drive, gears in a reducer, even linear bearings 

that do not rotate, but slide back and 

forth. The primary purpose to lubricate 

physical assets is to keep moving surfaces 

from coming into contact with each other. 

Because when they do, failure modes are 

initiated, and lifecycle is shortened. 

Friction is a force which opposes 

movement between surfaces. Friction 

increases wear between surfaces, increases 

system temperature, and dramatically 

increases power consumption. 

The right amount, and type of lubricant 

creates a thin film between two surfaces. 

For as long as that film is maintained, it 

protects the asset from wear and heat 

while allowing it to produce in an energy 

efficient way. 

Some lubricants offer the additional 

benefit of controlling corrosion. They 

contain additives which prevent rust 

from acid and water attacks. 

Grease must be kept free of contaminants, 

but the very nature of the thickener 

allows it to pick up dust and grit. 

Proper storage is therefore crucial, and 

clean grease applied properly can actually 

shield machines from the ingress of 

contaminants. 

The science of lubrication continues 

to evolve for over 4000 years. But the 

principles remain the same; to maintain 

separation of two or more surfaces, thus 

prolonging the reliability of the entire 

asset. 

What is Grease? 

Tremendous science goes into engineering 

the many grease formulations that 

keep physical assets working their best. 

The sheer number of grease types 

available is as varied as the applications 

where they are used. Yet their composition 

remains a simple mixture of base 

oil, thickener, and in most cases some 

additives. 

The Base Oil is the key ingredient of 

grease. Its job is to form the thin, hydrodynamic 

film that separates metal 

components from one another. When 

functional separation between elements 

is maintained, the bearing has what we 

term a functional grease mechanism. 

Base oil is the key ingredient when 

matching grease types to specific applications. 

Thickeners are the matrix of the 

grease. Base oil cannot resist gravity 

on its own. It relies on the thickener to 

hold it in place. The thickener makes 

grease effective regardless of a machine’s 

orientation. For instance, in a vertically 

oriented shaft, the base oil would seep 

away from the bearing making a sustainable, 

functional grease mechanism 

improbably. In addition to keeping base 

oil where it’s needed, thickener has the 

added benefit of shielding the base oil 

from particle contaminants. 

Additives are a double-edged sword. 

On the positive side, they enhance the 

lubricating properties of the base oil. Additives 

increase the lubricity of the base 

oil making grease even more slippery. 

They help fight oxidation, corrosion, and 

extreme pressure conditions. 

On the negative side, they are a consumable. 

They deteriorate over time, so 

their effectiveness is not linear for the 

life of the grease. Additives can also have 

adverse effects on the thickener. 

Additives add an unknown function 

to the mad science of calculating timebased 

grease replenishment intervals. 

Most departments working on calendarbased 

lubrication don’t factor additives 

into the equation, further compounding 

their errors. 

While considerable science goes into 

formulating grease types, what the lube 

technician needs to know is that the 

grease he or she injects into the bearing 



actually reaches its intended destination 

and works to form an effective greasing 

mechanism. 

Greasing Myths 

Once you understand how grease actually 

works to lubricate a bearing, it becomes 

obvious why over-greasing causes 

so much trauma to both bearings and the 

grease itself. 

Remember, all we want from our lubricant 

is to provide a little separation 

in the war zone. Nothing more… nothing 

less. 

If you’re reading the term “war zone” 

for the first time, we use that term to describe 

the region of the bearing where all 

the wear and tear occurs. 

Now let’s dispel three myths about 

greasing bearings. 

Myth #1: if some grease is good, then 

a lot more must be great. 

WRONG! Most bearing manufacturers 

like SKF, FAG, NTN, KOYO, all recommend 

that the bearing housing cavity 

only be filled to 30% capacity. Lube 

departments using a time-based approach 

to grease replenishment almost 

always leave their assets in an overgreased 

state. 

ONCE YOU UNDERSTAND HOW GREASE ACTUALLY WORKS 

TO LUBRICATE A BEARING, IT BECOMES OBVIOUS WHY 

OVER-GREASING CAUSES SO MUCH TRAUMA. 

Myth #2: More grease will provide 

better cooling for the bearing. 

WRONG! Grease doesn’t provide cooling, 

air space does. Filling every void with 

grease chokes the bearing’s ability to dissipate 

heat generated by even normal friction 

levels. 

Myth #3: If there is a grease nipple 

on the bearing housing it must be 

greased. 

WRONG! Some motors come with 

“sealed-for-life” bearings installed. These 

are meant to be never greased… EVER. 

Yet someone thought it would be clever 

to install a grease nipple anyways. You 

have to know what’s inside your motor 

because grease is like tooth paste. Once 

you squeeze the trigger you can’t stuff the 

grease back inside the tube. 

Enough bad practices please. We need 

a greasing strategy, but more than this, we 

need a greasing culture. Bad greasing culture 

eats good greasing strategy for lunch. 

It only takes one bad actor, often wellintentioned 

– to destroy an asset. 

Grease guns don’t kill bearings… people do. 

How Grease Works 

We know bearings need grease; both to 

perform well and to last a lifetime. But do 

we really understand where that grease 

goes and how it performs its function? 

There are two states that grease lives 

in when a bearing is lubricated. We refer 

to them as the Bleeding Phase, and the 

Churning Phase. Let’s review so we can 

better visualize what’s happening in each 

phase. 

Remember that grease is made up of 

oil, thickener and additives. The thickener 

is the vehicle which delivers base oil to the 

war zone, where the rolling elements meet 

the races. These contacts points are kept 



separated by the oil film that lubricates 

the contact point interface. There are 

two distinct phases or conditions that 

can exist. 

The Churning Phase describes the 

phase or condition when thickener is 

present within the war zone. 

The Bleeding Phase describes the 

phase when only the base oil is present 

in the war zone. 

Let’s concentrate first on the churning 

phase. When there is thickener in 

the raceway, higher friction levels are 

present. The rolling elements must 

“plough” their way through this media. 

The result is higher temperatures from 

the bearing, and ultimately the motor. 

The motor consumes more electricity 

and the excess heat accelerates lubricant 

deterioration and consumption of additives. 

When we over grease a bearing we 

cram thickener into the war zone; and 

we force that thickener to stay in the war 

zone. And that is a huge problem. It’s 

stuck there. That means the thickener 

sits there and get run over by the rolling 

elements millions of times a day. 

Two significant problems come from 

this: 

1. The fibers of the thickener get 

crushed to the point where it can no 

longer hold the base oil where it’s 

needed. The grease ages prematurely, 

adding more inaccuracy to your timebased 

re-greasing regimen. 

2. The fibers of the thickener, now 

crushed to smaller sizes, become suspended 

in the base oil. This changes 

the lubricant’s viscosity to the extent 

that it no longer matches the required 

lubricity of the application. 

By crushing the thickener in the churning 

phase we’ve completely altered the 

properties of the lubricant and dramatically 

reduced its lifespan. 

It is quite normal for the bearing and 

grease to be in the churning phase for a 

few seconds. This happens during grease 

replenishment, with each injection of 

new grease. The time for new grease to 

enter the bearing and settle to the grease 

cavity is called a stabilization period. Depending 

on the RPM of the bearing, this 

can be a few seconds or several minutes. 

What lube techs must know is that 

their job is to transition the bearing from 

the churning phase to the bleeding phase 

as quickly as possible. This happens when 

a planned strategy for re-lubrication is in 

place, and they don’t exceed the calculated 

grease replenishment quantity. 

The bleeding phase describes the 

optimum condition where the right 

amount of grease resides outside the war 

zone, and the movement of the bearing 

allows only the base oil, infused with 

additives, to sufficiently bleed from the 

thickener to the space between the rolling 

elements. 

The only way to confidently know the 

bearing has reached an optimal churning 

phase is to measure its friction levels 

with an ultrasound instrument accurate 

enough to deliver repeatable, reliable 

data. 

Time-based vs Conditionbased 

lubrication 

Until now industry was content to satisfy 

their asset’s lubrication needs based on a 

calendar and a calculator. 

“Add this many shots after this many 

hours in service” instructs the motor 

plate. And away went the lube tech, 

blindfolded, grease gun in hand, oblivious 

to the destructive potential of his 

actions. Don’t blame him. He’s doing his 

job the best way he can. 

The problem is not the lube tech, it’s 

the philosophy that gave birth to his bad 

practices and the less than excellent culture 

that allows them to continue. 

Why complicate lubrication with 

calculators designed to estimate 

grease replenishment quantities, and 

calendars designed to estimate grease 

replenishment intervals? Especially 

when these calculations return invalid 

answers that destroy assets and profits. 

Let’s review what Goldilocks discovered. 

• Add too much grease, and bearings 

enter a churning phase that produces 

high friction. 

• Add too little grease, and there’s no 

separation of components, also producing 

high friction. 

• Add just the right amount, and bearings 

enter the bleeding phase where 

friction levels are low. 

The common denominator in these 

three scenarios is FRICTION. 

And we now know that the best technology 

to monitor, measure, and trend 

friction is ultrasound. 

Training cannot overcome poor, or 

lack of tools. Good procedures are not 

enough. Lube technicians need the right 

tools, and they need to be trained on how 

those tools interact with their organization’s 

goal to achieve precision lubrication. 

Yesterday, the best they might have 

had is a calendar and a calculator. Are 

these the best tools to achieve precision 

lubrication? They might have been at 

one time. This might even have passed 

for leading edge thinking. But it wasn’t 

right then, and its surely wrong today. 

When a trained lube tech measures 

the effect every shot of grease has 

on the friction levels in a bearing, he 

knows when to start, when to stop, 

and exactly what quantity of grease is 

required to restore optimum friction. 

When a trained lube tech achieves 

lubrication excellence, he becomes a 

LUBExpert. 



How the United Nations 

(UNO) of Automation will 

Influence your Business? 

If you are a regular reader of Maintworld magazine, 

you will no doubt be familiar with many of the new 

technologies that are permeating the enterprise 

business world today. Sometimes it is hard to figure 

out their value – which of them are just based on 

great marketing and which will have impact on your 

business. So, let’s look back at our promises made in 

articles published in Maintworld magazine over the last 

years. This might help you trust future predictions of 

the OPC Foundation, as it will impact all markets. 

Text: Stefan Hoppe, President 

OPC-Foundation, stefan. 

hoppe@opcfoundation.org 

IN NOVEMBER 2015, we described not 

only the DREAM: “It would be ideal, 

however, if all devices and services were 

able to communicate independently 

with one another, irrespective of the 

manufacturer, the operating system, the 

hierarchy and the topology. The offered 

functionality of devices should be readable 

– but not for everyone. That requires 

security functions with authentication 

and encryption directly in the device. In 

case of failure of the data link the data 

should not be lost, but automatically 

buffered for a while.“ 

We also gave you insides of the 

Reality! ”All of these wishes exist in 

reality. As long as hard real-time requirements 

are not concerned today, this demanded 

interoperability can already be 

achieved today with the assistance of the 

OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA). 


In 2015, we also predicted the Future 

with the initiative started by KUKA 

about evaluating and implementing 

the usage of IEEE 802.1 Time Sensitive 

Network (TSN) technologies as an additional 

underlaying IT infrastructure 

enabling OPC UA for deterministic data 

transfer. 

In 2017, we predicted the “Trend: 

Information models” to save money 

when we asked the question “OPC UA 

provides secure transport of data via diverse 

and expandable protocols. But who 

defines the data’s meaning? We reported 

about the start of the robotics standardization 

group and their efforts to 

standardize semantic now, agreeing on 

the same interfaces for data and services 

based on OPC UA! 

Let’s see the results from the 

2019 perspective: 

Status: Information models 

• The robotics group under the roof of 

VDMA has published the “OPC UA 

for Robotics Companion Spec” agreeing 

on data and interfaces including 

their meaning and behaviour. For the 

Microsoft Azure dashboard, it was 

easy to integrate live data from robot 

companies like ABB, Beckhoff, KUKA, 

Siemens, Engel, KEBA, Mitsubishi 

Electric Kraus Maffei and Yaskawa as 

all of them provided semantic identical 

data and interfaces. 

• AutoID devises from Balluff, Harting, 

Leuze, Sick, Siemens and Turck have 

been available already for a while – 

their vendor association “AIM” standardized 

again data and interfaces for 

AutoID devices: Even the devices 

offer different signal types like 1D, 2D, 

HF- or UHF-RFID, OCR or RTLS they 

offer one set of interfaces and data to 

communicate with all of them! A huge 

reduction in costs! 

• Multiple more groups have finalized 

their work: “MDIS” in the world of 

Oil&Gas but also “MachineVision” for 

intelligent cameras or “EuroMAP” for 

Plastics and Rubber machinery. 

You will find a complete list on the OPC 

Foundation Web. 

Status TSN & safety 

At the end of 2015 the TSN (Time Sensitive 

Network) working group started 

under the OPC Foundation with 85+ 

members: Based on this mapping, de-


terministic data exchange between UA 

applications will be possible once TSN 

has been finally specified and operational 

by IEEE/IEC. In February 2018, 

a new group “Safety over OPC UA based 

on PROFISafe” was formed to enable 

functional safety over OPC UA via Client/Server 

and PubSub communication. 

Today, Safety is an integral part of OPC 

UA and it has been moved under the 

roof of the sub group Field Level Communications 

(FLC) initiative, which 

was launched in November 2018 and is 

now supported by 25 companies providing 

additional financial and human 

resources. The aim of this initiative is to 

extend OPC UA to all relevant industrial 

automation applications for process and 

factory automation, including deterministics, 

safety and motion. 

Looking toward the future 

The OPC UA roadmap is not only listing 

“OPC UA over 5G” to be on the radar – 

today, over 52+ groups from the areas 

of Factory- and Process-Automation, 

but also from the fields of Energy, 

AS A MEMBER YOU 

GET MUCH EARLIER 

INSIGHTS AND HAVE THE 

POSSIBILITYTO INFLUENCE 

THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF 

THEFOUNDATION. 

Engineering and even Industrial Kitchen 

Equipment are working together with 

OPC Foundation to standardize the 

interfaces for devices, machines and 

services in their industries. Some of 

these interfaces will overlap as machines 

from different markets will provide the 

same basic functionality such as Power- 

Asset, OEE-data etc -management, 

firmware updates etc. to name 

but a few. To avoid multiple 

solutions the OPC 

Foundation has already 

started a cross-domain 

harmonization group. 

Trust us! 

The OPC Foundation published their 

roadmap on OPC UA – in addition, all 

working principles and workflows are 

transparently documented on the web. 

It is easy for you to look into the future 

and get early signals on how your business 

in your market will be changing. 

All this should help you trust the 

announcements of OPC Foundation 

predicting the future. To get published 

specifications, implement or certify OPC 

UA into your product you do not have 

to be a member of the OPC Foundation! 

As a member however, you get much 

earlier insights and have the possibility 

to influence the future direction of the 

foundation.


Part I 

Leaders in 

Maintenance 

TORBJÖRN 

IDHAMMAR , 

President of IDCON 

Mahatma Gandhi was 

once asked what he 

thought of Western civilization. 

He replied that 

he thought it would be 

a good idea. The same 

thought comes to mind 

when considering management 

skills in maintenance 

departments. 

MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL often become 

leaders by a touch of “the magic 

wand.” The wand works in a mysterious 

way. The wand magically transforms 

a person who has never held 

a leadership position into a leader. 

It converts the person into a leader 

seamlessly without any training, 

coaching, job description or direction 

from peers. Its use usually takes place 

around 5:30 p.m. on Fridays and magically 

(hence the name) transforms the 

person into a maintenance leader by 

6 a.m. on Monday. The wand just may 

be the best maintenance tool on the 

market! 

Examples of magically born leaders 

are young engineers taking supervisory 

positions, senior engineers becoming 

maintenance managers, craftspeople 

becoming maintenance planners 

and purchasing people becoming 

maintenance spare parts managers. 

In this article, I will share some 

thoughts on maintenance leadership, 

especially for all the people out there 

who have crossed paths with “the 

wand.” 



If you are a maintenance or plant 

manager, consider if you have set up a 

clearly defined “place to go” for your 

maintenance and reliability efforts 

and define best practices. IDCON does 

this work for many organizations and 

usually divides the checklist into these 

categories: 

• Maintenance leadership and organization 

• Preventive maintenance 

• Planning and scheduling 

• Spare parts management 

• Root cause problem elimination 

• Engineering’s interface with maintenance 

• Technical database 

• Skills improvement for hourly and 

management 

• Facilities, tools and workshops 

You may want to consider using this 

categorization as a start for your list. The 

idea is to make a checklist within each 

category that is very clear to the organization. 

In the PM section, you may state 

“we will store lubricants properly”; or, in 

spare parts management, “we’ll have an 

inventory record accuracy of 95 percent 

or higher.” 

Regardless if you are a corporate 

manager, plant manager, maintenance 

manager, planner or a supervisor, ask 

yourself if you have a set of beliefs to 

lead toward. If not, I suggest you make a 

list together with your organization. 

Suggestion No. 2: Understand 

the role of a maintenance 

leader 

Many people believe that the role of 

a maintenance leader is to tell other 

people what to do. I think this is wrong. 

Other people feel that the role of a 

maintenance leader is to motivate and 

encourage other people. I think this is 

somewhat misguided as well. Let me 

explain. 

The role of a maintenance leader is 

simply to get other people to do what 

you want them to do. Encouragement, 

motivation, group decisions and much 

more are tools that steer people in the 

right direction. But at the end of the day, 

a leader is trying to make other people do 

what he or she wants them to do. Again, 

if a leader is successful, we hope the 

company they work for has defined in 

simple terms, where to lead. 

How can maintenance leaders make 

people do what they want them to do? I 

think this is an art that few can master 

but that many can improve on. Let’s expand 

on that. 

To get people to do what you want 

them to do, you must continuously build 

business processes that enable them to 

perform at their best. As a maintenance 

leader, you must realize that people can 

never be more effective than the system 

they work in. 

In a survey of 442 maintenance lead- 

Graph: Survey respondents were asked, “How much time do your maintenance planners 

spend on actual planning of maintenance work?” 

Suggestion No. 1: A leader 

must first know what to lead 

toward 

The whole idea of being a leader falls 

apart if the leader does not know what 

beliefs to lead toward. What is the longterm 

purpose of reliability and maintenance 

management in your company, 

plant, area or department? Hopefully, 

your company has documented and 

disseminated beliefs for reliability and 

maintenance management. If not, the 

company, plant, area and/or department 

have set up its leaders to fail. 



ers, IDCON asked: “How much time 

do your maintenance planners spend 

actually planning maintenance work?” 

60 percent of the respondents stated 

that less than 30 percent of their planners’ 

time is spent on planning work. 26 

percent said planners plan less than 10 

percent of the time. 

In a follow-up survey, we asked, “Why 

do planners not plan?” Given eleven 

THE WHOLE IDEA OF BEING 

A LEADER FALLS APART 

IF THE LEADER DOES NOT 

KNOW WHAT BELIEFS TO 

LEAD TOWARD. 

choices, the respondents said the top 

three reasons are: 

Too many emotional priorities (work 

that could wait breaks schedule). 

Too many “do-it-now” jobs due to 

equipment breakdowns. 

Operations do not support the planning 

process. 

In this example, leaders must help set 

up roles and responsibilities for planners 

and people involved in the planning and 

scheduling process and then make sure 

the processes are followed. They should 

work with operations, stores and engineering 

to agree on work order priority 

rules, schedule cut-off times, identify 

critical equipment and spares, and much 

more. 

The chance of getting people to do 

what you, as a leader, want them to do 

increases drastically if enablers are instituted 

in the plant. 

“Talk the talk and 

walk the walk” 

Realize that your people follow your 

lead. Employees do what you do, not 

what you tell them to do. It is critical 

to “walk the walk” by following up and 

sticking to the plans, best practices and 

enablers that you, as a leader, have put 

in place. 

A leader that constantly starts meetings 

late will have a very hard time 

instilling good scheduling practices in 

the organization. A leader cannot expect 

quality work order plans if he or she 

constantly asks for completion of unnecessary 

last-minute work. A leader 

cannot expect world-class craftsmanship 

if craftspeople are not trained, or if there 

is a lack of financial support for repairs, 

no time given to complete jobs, no standards 

or no detailed expectations. 

If you are a true maintenance leader, 

make sure that each attempt at improvement 

has substance behind it by producing 

a solid plan where cost and benefits 

are considered before involving the 

whole organization. It is very common to 

see a plant sign up for the project of the 

month only to have it replaced by a new 

effort a few months later. 

While visiting a plant a few years ago, 

I mentioned that reliability improvements 

should go on forever. It is a continuous 

process. A craftsperson in the 

audience said, “In this plant, forever is 

eight weeks, and the yield for reliability 

improvements in eight weeks will most 

likely be fairly small.” Not understanding 

quite what he meant, he further 

explained, “All started improvement efforts 

are announced to last forever. The 

average life of a new improvement initiative 

in the plant is about eight weeks. 

Therefore, forever in this plant means an 

eight-week project.” 

Even though the statement was 

meant partly as a joke, he was right on 

the money for this particular plant. 

Look for the second part of this article 

in the next publication. 


Results Oriented Reliability and Maintenance 

Management Consulting and Training 

Run your plant. Don’t let it run you! 

Improving reliability and reducing cost is achievable. 

Remove the pressures 

of unreliable equipment 

Find a clear path 

to achieve reliability 

Reach the organization’s 

maintenance goals 

Are you tired of constant call-ins and reactive maintenance? 

It's time for a sustainable approach. 

A reactive environment leads to poor quality repairs and higher safety risks. 

Poor repairs lead to re-work and an even more reactivity...we call this the "Circle of Despair". 

IDCON coaches your plant how to break this vicious cycle and be more effective. 

+1 919 847-8764 

www.idcon.com

MANAGEMENT 

A 12 Step Program to Stop 

the Reorganization Insanity! 


MANAGEMENT 

How many reorganizations (reorgs) has your company gone through in 

the past five years? Some will say too many to count. It is not uncommon 

these days to see companies have one to three reorgs per year in various 

departments and even the corporation as a whole. 

ALAN WARMACK 

Energy Services 

Director and Partner 

Marshall Institute 

BELOW IS A 12-STEP program to assist 

you in improving your company’s 

operational effectiveness. Let’s stop the 

insanity and build a plan that will be successful! 

1. Admit you have a problem! 

a. Many times, we know we have problems, 

but we don’t start the improvement 

process by clearly defining them. 

We wind up taking a “shotgun approach” 

and shooting in the dark, hoping to 

hit the mark. This rarely works. When 

leadership is ready to undertake an initiative 

as large and impactful as a reorg, 

ensure that it will be one of the solutions 

and not become just another part of the 

problem. 

2. Understand the “true” 

problem and its source 

(Assessment) 

a. If you want to truly get to the bottom 

of your issues, you must recognize all the 

gaps inside your company, departments 

and business units, etc. 

b. An assessment provides a “cold 

eyes review” of your current situation 

and should be compared to industry best 

practices in order to build a gap analysis 

c. Here is where another mistake 

can be made if you are not careful. Assessments 

can be too high level. We 

don’t ask the Subject Matter Experts 

(SME). Who is that, you ask? It is the 

personnel that live in the poor processes 

currently. It’s the operators that 

(struggle to) run your process every 

day. It’s those maintenance technicians 

that are forced into a reactive process, 

so we only have time to “fix it when it 

breaks”. It’s their supervisors that are 

many times, handcuffed into working 

with sub-prime workflow processes 

and systems. 

d. If you want to understand the 

problems, you simply must ask the right 

people. They know what’s wrong and 

many times they have great ideas on how 

to make it better. We simply don’t ask 

them because “we know what needs to 

be done”. 

3. Build strategies so people 

can be successful 

a. Align to the mission of the organization 

– If you have done a good job of 

producing a successful assessment and 

now have a detailed gap analysis, you 

are on a much better path to addressing 

your opportunities for improvement. 

As part of this step, you should take the 

time to prioritize all the opportunities by 

performing a risk analysis on each item 

in order to properly prioritize them. 

Once again, mistakes can be made at this 

point. You take the proverbial “shotgun 

approach” and try to hit everything all at 

LET’S STOP THE INSANITY 

AND BUILD A PLAN THAT 

WILL BE SUCCESSFUL! 

once. We call this being “a mile wide and 

an inch deep.” Prioritize your list and 

ensure that your plan is aligned to the 

company’s mission. If you can ensure 

your plan is designed with these things 

in mind, your chances of improving the 

right things at the right time is beginning 

to have a chance at success. 

b. Design department goals and objectives 

that support the company mission. 

So, you have a high-level mission for the 

company. You have goals and objectives 

defined by Corporate leadership. We 

must now ensure that the plant, and or 

the departments being affected will use 

the information from the assessment 

gap analysis to set their own goals and 

objectives. In order to properly prioritize 

the improvement activities, they 

should align their plans in support of the 

company mission, goals and objectives. 

Key stakeholders should begin designing 

their improvement plans using a risk 

benefits analysis in order to assist in prioritization 

of activities. 

c. Development of Work Process 

flows to support daily functions of 

the department. One of the key activities 

will be design of the workflow 

process(es), dependent on the function 

of the department in the overall scheme 

of the plant. This should have started as 

part of the assessment to determine the 

“as is” current process, in which many 

opportunities are identified during this 

exercise. Once this is designed, reviewed 

and gaps clearly identified, you can then 

use this “brown paper” to design a “to 

be” process. Then a “white paper” exercise 

should be designed to address all of 

the issues identified in the current way 

of doing business. Once designed by the 

SMEs, it is best practice to have others 

review it, using team members from the 

exercise to “walk” the reviewers through 

the process. This begins to build buy in 

as now it’s their process. Getting feedback 

from others gives them an opportunity 

to contribute and hopefully gain buy 

in as well, making the process rollout a 

little less stressful. It won’t be the first 

time they have seen it and they helped to 

build it. 

d. R & Rs designed to support Dept 

processes and meet goals and objectives. 

Once the new process flow(s) is built, the 

next step will be to design a RACI chart. 

»» 

R – Who is Responsible for performing 

the activity? 

»» 

A – Who is Accountable for ensuring 

the task is completed? 

»» 

C – Who should be Consulted to 

ensure the task is performed properly? 

»» 

I – Who should be kept Informed 

on the status of the task? 

»» 

e. To start understanding the work 

process flow and the RACI, start at 

the beginning and ask: 

• Who is in the box? 

• What is their role in the box? 

• What level of training is required 

to provide adequate knowledge of 

the task(s) and the skills required 


MANAGEMENT 

to perform them? 

• What level of live coaching in the 

field may be required to ensure 

they not only have knowledge, but 

also that their skills are adequately 

developed? 

• What work aids can be produced to 

ensure consistency of process? 

• What are auditable points that can 

be developed to ensure sustainability 

of the process step? 

After determining the RACI and answering 

the questions above, you have just 

provided a serious level of information 

needed to build the formal Roles and Responsibilities 

for each position! 

4. NOW, you can consider 

organizing to better 

support the company and 

departmental mission 

a. Once you have successfully started 

closing gaps and implementing the new 

processes as designed, you will have a 

much better idea of what your organization 

should look like, but… 

• Be careful not to cut and move 

personnel too quickly, as you may 

still have further changes to the 

process as you get things working. 

This could have a direct effect on 

what you do with personnel. 

• You may find that as you reduce 

your organization through attrition, 

as the improvements will 

not happen overnight. You make 

improvements this year, some personnel 

retire, and you determine 

“We don’t need to fill the position”, 

as you are running much more efficiently 

now. You can continue this 

process over multiple years. 

You are NOT finished! You’re only on 

Step four! 

5. Ensure all personnel are 

properly trained to the new 

improved processes 

a. Based on the bullets Step 3d & 3e, you 

can now design the appropriate training 

matrix in cooperation with Human Resources 

(they will be very happy that you 

are designing this). This will be required to 

ensure everyone inside the workflow process 

and sub-processes are appropriately 

trained. Included in the training matrix 

should not only be the process training, 

but all competencies and skills required to 

perform their work in their position daily. 

b. As information – World Class 

companies provide between 80 and 120 

hours of skills-based training annually. If 

you think you can’t afford training, how 

expensive is ignorance? 

c. Be sure and start by letting each 

person provide a self-assessment in order 

to determine what they think they 

are good at and where they think they 

need help. You must ensure they are encouraged 

to be honest on the assessment 

as this is the time to say you need more 

training, coaching, etc. so it can be added 

into your training plans. Telling us you’re 

great at everything will help no one. It 

delays training you might have received 

earlier if known. 

6. Build internal expertise to 

drive change, constancy of 

purpose and communications. 

a. Identify your coaches. As the new processes 

are designed and being prepared 

to be rolled out, it will be important to 

set up personnel in each area that have 

been instrumental throughout design, 

testing and now rollout. They will help 

drive performance to the new standards 

in each area and help make the processes 

sustainable. 

b. These positions can be full time 

or part-time. They need designated 

time for coaching as part of their daily 

activities. This is easier said than done, 

especially when you are on the front end 

of implementation. It takes time and 

commitment on the part of leadership to 

allow resources time to get the processes 

embedded. Otherwise, it will fall apart 

and be the next “flavor of the month”. 

7. As you begin to close the 

gaps for each dept based 

on assessments, find quick 

wins to show personnel that 

this new way of business 

can be effective, and build 

excitement for things to come 

a. Everyone is watching, in whatever you 

do (or don’t do). How you present new 

processes and systems is as important 

as what they are supposed to achieve. 

Any time you can take the ideas and 

suggestions from the SMEs and others 

and make positive, quick improvements 

that are visible to everyone, it will go 

a long way with the masses. For one, it 

shows you listened. It also gets people 

excited to see what else might improve 

given time. You will need these types of 

wins, as a lot of the improvements will 

be behind the scenes and take longer to 

implement. The trick is to keep coming 

up with quick wins when you can to help 

keep momentum over time. 

8. Align your systems to 

support the company’s and 

departments missions, goals 

and objectives 

a. Don’t let the system dictate how you 

work. Too many times we see companies 

buy new CMMS systems or other 

tools and then adjust their processes to 

the tools shortcomings. We don’t work 

the way we want or need to because the 

tool “won’t do that”. This should not 

be acceptable. If you have performed 

thorough due diligence before deciding 

on a new tool or system, you should have 

a very thorough design specification 

which will “weed out” those who cannot 

provide you with something that can 

support your processes as designed. 

9. Recognize that you have 

many of the answers to 

making these changes and 

improvements in the palm of 

your hand (SMEs on the floor) 

a. Use your Subject Matter Experts! As 

mentioned throughout this article, there 

is a group of people at all our sites that 


MANAGEMENT 

to work orders, etc. These activities 

are best designed through the 

use of pictures with short step 

procedures. They can depict good 

vs. bad conditions. They can show 

sequencing steps and many other 

things. Once again, use your SMEs 

to help design these plans. 

would love to be heard. You as a leader, 

do not have to have all the answers. A 

good leader recognizes this point and realizes 

that a good leader utilizes his people’s 

expertise to drive improvements. 

They have the answers if we will just 

listen. We simply need to provide the vision 

and guidance as needed. Otherwise, 

give them the opportunity and get out of 

the way. 

10. Embed the improvements 

a. Set up standards. In many cases, you 

have expended huge amounts of time 

and resources to make these improvements 

which will hopefully bring you to 

the “best in class” status. Now you need 

to ensure these processes get embedded. 

b. What happens if we still decide to 

reorganize? Your people now work to 

standardized processes. If a manager 

moves to a new department, it is part of 

our process to ensure they are properly 

trained on the processes for that department 

and their roles and responsibilities 

inside of those workflow processes. It 

is NOT their place to come in and kill 

all the efforts you have expended just so 

they can leave their mark and then move 

on to bigger and better things. They are 

welcomed to learn their place and then 

help us continuously improve, but not 

to totally disrupt all of the hard work 

and start all over again going down some 

totally different way of working. This is 

very demoralizing to the staff when this 

happens. We also have practices in place 

for people that change positions through 

promotions and other reasons. Same as 

the manager, they will be trained in their 

new position, not left to figure it out on 

their own. 

11. Sustain the improvements 

a. To assist in sustainment, there 

are many ways to use various audits 

throughout your processes. One way 

to identify these audit points is to keep 

them in mind when building out the 

white paper for the new process steps. 

Always ask is this a point in the process 

that should be audited. How will we 

measure and track it? Is it important 

to drive the process to be sustained or 

maybe improved? 

b. Set up Standards. There will be opportunities 

throughout the processes to 

institute standards on the floor. 

• 5S – Organize your workplace and 

set up standards which show how 

it should be maintained 

• Single Point Lesson Plans – 

Standards which can be placed 

on equipment, in shops, attached 

• Planner’s checklists – Ensure 

planners are as efficient and effective 

as possible when going to the 

field to walkdown job requests to 

determine scope. This helps standardize 

expectations of quality work 

packs across planner personnel. 

• Standards used on PMs - Good vs. 

bad condition checks. Wear conditions, 

Adjustment procedures. 

12. Celebrate! 

a. As you begin to perform all of the activities 

discussed in this article, you must 

remember to communicate well, and 

also, acknowledge key milestones, which 

when achieved, there is some form of 

congratulatory effort made dependent 

on the scope of the accomplishment(s). 

You must know your people and what 

“makes them tick” so you understand 

what these celebrations might look like. 

• Individual recognition – This can 

be very different from one person 

to the next. One might simply 

appreciate a pat on the back and 

“good job”, while others would 

appreciate group recognition, 

monetary, gift card, etc. Make sure 

you know your people to give them 

something that is meaningful to 

that person. 

• Group or department recognition 

– This can be just as tricky when 

determining what works on average 

for the whole group. It may 

be grilling steaks for everyone. It 

could be a family picnic for the 

department. The importance of 

this section is this. We tell people 

to do things. We should also tell 

them how they are doing and when 

they achieve the improvements we 

expect, show your appreciation for 

the hard work. 


EVENT 


Celebrated its 50th Anniversary 


(SvUH) hosted a two-day conference 

in October offering a slew of inspiring 

industrial maintenance-related presentations 

to follow as well as excellent networking 

opportunities. The event was 

organized to celebrate the society’s 50th 

anniversary. Text: Nina Garlo-Melkas Photo: SvUH 

AT THE EVENT several speakers from the business and academic 

worlds alike focused on how artificial intelligence (AI) is 

influencing maintenance operations of the future. Discussion 

especially centred on how the collection and analysis of massive 

amounts of data is transforming the ways maintenance 

operations are performed. Predictive maintenance (PdM) was 

a key theme: above all, how technological advances are increasing 

the possibility of predicting when it is time to perform 

maintenance operations. 

Jerry Johansson from Astra Zeneca explained in his presentation 

how the pharmaceutical company has tested AI in 

their production facility in Södertälje, Sweden. The company 

began by analyzing historical data collected from three machines 

during a period of two years. Next the company plans to 

start using the methodology with real-time data. 

– Initially, I was hesitant and thought we would only see 

quality deviations, but I was wrong. It worked well and it is 

great to see what we can do with relatively little effort. Many 

believe that artificial intelligence completely changes maintenance 

work and that it is the solution to many problems. But it 

is not so easy to get started and get good results. 

Education a key theme 

Education was another important theme. Philip Tretten from 

Sweden’s Luleå University of Technology lectured on how his 

employer works to train future maintenance engineers for the 

challenges they will face in the future. He also admitted that 

despite the industry’s need for highly qualified maintenance 

workers, finding students can be tough. This is a potential 

future threat that requires swift measures in order to help 

boost the image of maintenance professions among potential 

students. 

Project Manager Tomáš Hladík at Logio s.r.o. introduced 

in his presentation eight rules for effective spare parts management. 

These included the needs to go for preventive maintenance 

practices, segment your spare parts portfolio, evaluate 

spare parts criticality and the requirement to consider the 

whole life cycle of your equipment. 

For fifty years, The Swedish Maintenance Society has helped 

the Swedish industry, suppliers of products and services and 

academies to develop and improve maintenance, reliability and 

physical asset management. 

These things, when considered, can result in reduced carrying 

costs, reduced performance interruption, and improved 

overall efficiency. 

Finance and maintenance were the focus of steelmaker Ovako’s 

maintenance manager Charlotta Backman. What does 

an unplanned maintenance stop cost? It can cost huge sums 

that you do not necessarily see, ranging from technical inaccessibility 

and delayed deliveries to the worst that can happen 

with accidents. Ovako uses a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis 

(FMEA) specially focused on maintenance. With this tool they 

can prioritize maintenance and get a better picture of what 

their maintenance operations really cost. 

In addition to lectures, the conference also included a minifair 

with several exhibiting companies. The event took place at 

the Munich Brewery in Stockholm on 3–4 October. 


The Uptimization Experts. 

The Uptimization Experts. 

What does 

DOWNTIME 

mean to you? 

marshallinstitute.com 

marshallinstitute.com

MARKET 

Why Equipment Rental 

Makes Long-Term 

Sense for Your 

Business and 

the Environment 

MICHEL PETITJEAN, 

Secretary-General of 

the ERA 

The ‘access to goods’ 

model is key to creating 

a more sustainable economy 

– and long-term 

success for those who 

seize the opportunity. 

MANY FORWARD-THINKING COMPANIES 

are taking advantage of the huge opportunities 

offered by equipment rental. 

In fact, in the ERA Market Report 2019 

there was growth in all 15 countries covered 

by the report (representing more 

than 95 percent of the EU-28 and EFTA 

countries’ total rental turnover) and 

equipment rental companies and other 

companies providing rental services 

generated a total rental turnover of more 

than 26.0 billion euros. 

ERA, the European Rental Association, 

is the representative association of 

the equipment rental sector in Europe, 

where we promote the shift from the 

“ownership of goods” to the “access to 

goods”; where the industry can reduce 

resources and make better use of equip- 

ment throughout its lifecycle. 

By renting equipment you have access 

to the right product when you need 

it, you avoid the burden of excessive 

investment and maintenance and you 

outsource the product responsibility and 

legal compliance costs. 

But more than that, renting equipment 

reduces carbon emissions. 

Renting is fundamentally 

sustainable 

The objective of a circular economy is to 

maintain the value of products, materials 

and resources in the economy for as long 

as possible, while minimising the generation 

of waste. 

For us at ERA and the rental companies 

we represent – over 5,000 of them 

throughout Europe – we see sustainability 

not only as a way to address the significance 

of green issues in construction, 

but also to increase customer value. 

Increasing value comes not just 

through performance, but also through 

efficiency. Standing out from the crowd, 

for all the right reasons, gives them a 

healthy competitive edge. 

And renting equipment, instead of 

buying it outright, gives our members’ 

customers an excellent opportunity to 

showcase their environmental credentials 

to their end customers. 

The ERA recently undertook a project 

to identify and confirm the sustainable 

benefits of renting equipment. Three 

specialised, independent research com- 

panies - Climate Neutral Group, CE Delft 

and SGS Search - all researched and calculated 

the CO2 emissions during the a 

life-cycle of ten pieces of equipment representative 

of the portfolio of European 

Rental Association (ERA) members. 

The research concluded that efficient 

use lowers the total carbon footprint 

of the pieces of equipment and that the 

rental business model stimulates efficient 

use. Depending on specific user 

practice, we estimate that this can lead to 

significant reductions, in the range of 30 

percent and sometimes over 50 percent. 

Key drivers of the 

environmental credentials of 

renting: 

1. Shared usage 

Construction companies can access 

equipment when required, rather than 

deal with purchase costs, maintenance, 

depreciation and expensive equipment 

cost lying unused – or being in the wrong 

place for a particular project. 

Centralised ownership leads to more 

frequent and efficient use of equipment, 

driving down costs. 

2. Repairability 

It’s logical that rental companies contribute 

to product design – after all, they 

need the confidence to reassure customers 

that the equipment is fit for purpose. 

Their experience can also help make 

maintenance and repair faster and less 

expensive for all concerned. 


MARKET 

At the same time, shifting the emphasis 

on spare parts management purely 

from OEMs to rental companies ensures 

that spares are available to customers 

when and where they’re needed. 

Arming rental companies with increased 

information on product repairs 

can also make the difference between 

bringing the job in on time and to budget, 

or running over and risking penalty 

clauses. Needless to say, that matters to 

customers. 

3. Resource use 

Equipment that is designed, built, 

operated and maintained in the most 

environmentally-sensitive way can make 

a substantial difference to the use of precious 

resources over time. 

That’s something that will increasingly 

be taken into account; when rental 

companies have the choice, they offer 

the most sustainable option to their customers. 

Being able to provide virtual and 

practical training to optimise the use of 

equipment is also of great value to rental 

companies and their customers. 

4. Reusability 

In the past, it may have been cheaper or 

easier to scrap whole pieces of equipment. 

Today, with improved design, 

build and quality of materials, components 

from dismantled construction 

equipment can be reused. 

5. Recyclability 

Rental companies take care of their 

equipment by: 

Repairing it, when that is still an option. 

Better understanding of the equipment, 

plus better information regarding 

repairs, and access to the necessary 

parts, can keep equipment alive longer – 

physically and economically. 

Recycling equipment at the end of its 

life when repair is no longer possible, 

or financially viable, to save energy and 

reduce waste. 

Selling it to second-hand markets, 

provided it still complies with regulations. 

Rental companies are also able to use 

their bargaining power to demand that 

equipment suppliers invest more in research 

and development to limit the use 

of non-recyclable material, and take responsibility 

for end-of-life of equipment 

by collecting, reusing or recycling. 

BY RENTING EQUIPMENT YOU HAVE ACCESS 

TO THE RIGHT PRODUCT WHEN YOU NEED IT. 

Rental can mean ownership. 

If that sounds like a contradiction, consider 

this. Taking ownership of – or, if 

you prefer, responsibility for – sustainability 

puts you in the driving seat of an 

entire industry. 

Our own recent research found that 

rental companies are increasingly insisting 

that original equipment manufacturers 

(OEMs) become trusted, sustainable 

suppliers. 

That means taking measures to 

reduce energy consumption through 

monitoring technologies and hybrid 

power systems. The use of low-emission 

vehicles and improving the recycling of 

waste and end-of-life equipment are also 

priorities. 

These are important developments 

and show a welcome change in thinking 

– by the OEMs and the rental companies. 

What they highlight is the growing demand 

for eco-friendly equipment – and 

an eco-friendly market place. 

Reasons to Rent 

FINANCE 

Minimise the size of your 

equipment fleet 

Improve your cost controls 

Lower your maintenance 

costs 

Reduce your transport fleet 

The right product when 

you need it” 

EQUIPMENT 

A vast range of equipment 

at your fingertips 

State-of-the-art products 

SERVICE 

Availability: equipment 

when you want it 

Flexibility: short, mediumor 

long-term rentals 

Proximity: rental suppliers 

close to your work sites 

Equipment delivered to 

where you need it 

Expert advice, not just 

equipment 

SAFE & SECURE 

Equipment that complies 

with regulations 

Safety checks before each 

delivery 

Well maintained products 

Source: www.erarental.org 



Automation and Digitalized 

Asset Management Increase 

Safety and Productivity 

Text: Toni Ahonen, Jari Ahola, 

Timo Malm, Pekka Isto and Aki 

Aapaoja, VTT Technical Research 

Centre of Finland 

Autonomous systems are revolutionizing many industries, resulting in safer and 

more efficient processes. New technologies, services and data are generating new 

business opportunities while the mobile machinery industry is currently driven by 

increasing customer needs for automatization, electrification and digitalization. 

ANOTHER RISING ISSUE is improving 

safety in hazardous areas. There is a 

market for remotely-operated and/or 

automated work machines. While the 

current sources of sensory data are not 

sufficiently reliable in harsh conditions, 

technology is continuously evolving and 

the opportunities are increasing daily. 

Towards autonomous mobile 

machines 

Safety, quality, cost-efficiency and 

traceability of work processes can be 

improved by automation and remote operation. 

Figure 1 introduces a roadmap 

towards autonomous mobile machines 

where the development phases from 

Figure 1. Roadmap towards autonomous mobile machines. 

manually operated machines towards 

autonomous operation are presented. 

As the level of automation of manually-operated 

machines increases, the next 

development phase is typically a machine 

with enhanced manual operation. 

Assisted manual operation requires the 

operator on site to control the machine, 

or speed and position is under control 

without specific operator actions for 

each actuator. 

The next step up from enhanced manual 

operation is to develop automatic 

features or to extend the machine with a 

teleoperation interface. The chronological 

order of introducing automatic and 

teleoperation features depends on the 

machine type, business environment 

and machine builders’ strategic choices. 

In the mining industry, teleoperation 

of machines improves ergonomics and 

safety, as operators do not need to enter 

or stay for long periods in hazardous 

areas. When the automatic machine is 

extended with a teleoperation interface, 

the remote operator can connect to the 

machine via a low latency network and 

monitor the machine via a real-time 

video stream. Machines with automatic 

or teleoperation features, or both, currently 

exist. 

Total data integration is a prerequisite 

for remote autonomous mobile machines. 

In total data integration, all available 

data from the machinery is collected 

and integrated into a single data model 

for further processing and analysis. The 

final development phase of the roadmap 

is remote autonomously operating 

machines that are connected via a low 

latency network. In the future, autonomous 

machines will be capable of accomplishing 

more complex tasks than their 

automatic predecessors. Furthermore, 

autonomous machines are able to react 

to unexpected events. Due to robust automation, 

remote autonomous machines 

are capable of operating long periods 

without direct user intervention. However, 

remote autonomous machines also 

include a fail-safe mode in case of unexpected 

breakdowns or failures, which can 

be conveniently handled by the remote 

operator via a teleoperation system. 



Safety strategies and 

concepts for autonomous 

and semi-autonomous mobile 

work machines 

Strategy for improving the safety of autonomous 

mobile machine systems is 

essential. The three strategies described 

here are: 

Rules for automated area and supporting 

technology, like traffic lights, 

warnings, guidelines and augmented reality. 

Economical, but additional means 

are often needed to ensure safety. 

Isolated area. Access control for isolated 

area(s). 

Safe separation distance. Tracking 

and distance sensors. 

Each strategy can be associated to 

several safety concepts, which are applied 

to achieve adequate safety. Figure 

2 shows some examples on how to apply 

the strategies in autonomous areas. 

With current technology, isolation 

is the best-understood means of ensuring 

the safety of an autonomous mobile 

machine system. For relatively small 

systems, machine area isolation is a 

Figure 2. Safety concepts to achieve 

adequate safety. Top: rules for automated 

area, next below: autonomous area is 

divided to several isolated areas, which 

each have access control. Middle: all 

machines and persons are tracked and 

controlled by supervisory system. Below: 

on-board system is detecting objects 

mainly in front of the machine. 

practical way of achieving adequate safety. 

In large open systems, however, barriers 

become unfeasible due to the length of 

barrier required. Isolation is therefore not 

a sufficiently scalable strategy and can become 

expensive. 

Applying rules to an autonomous system 

is a scalable and economical strategy,


but the safety of rules-based solutions is 

considered relatively low. The strategy 

entails some investment costs in the 

form of traffic lights, traffic signs and 

road markings, as needed, as well as personnel 

training. 

The safe separation distance strategy 

has a clear technological orientation, 

as the distance between personnel and 

moving machines must be measured. 

Currently, all sensors have certain weaknesses 

depending on the operating conditions 

or environment; however, sensor 

technologies are improving constantly 

and prices are coming down. Sensor fusion 

can also tackle some weaknesses of 

individual sensors. Indoor safety can be 

usually addressed by applying low speed 

limits and appropriate safety sensors. 

Outdoor safety is more problematic as 

sensors are less reliable in rain, fog or 

muddy conditions and longer driving 

distances require relatively high speeds 

(manual driving vs. automated driving 

speed). The separation distance strategy 

is to some extent scalable, but each 

object in the area requires technology, 

which raises the costs. Outdoor safety 

strategies are thus much more exposed 

to demanding operating and environmental 

conditions. 

In all of the three strategies, the challenge 

is how to deal with uncertainty. In 

the ‘rules’ strategy it is uncertain whether 

all personnel will obey the rules. In 

the ‘separation distance’ strategy sensor 

performance in outdoor applications 

is unreliable and highly dependent on 

environmental conditions. In the ‘isolation’ 

strategy the means of isolation 

may vary. Locked doors and high fences 

guarantee good isolation, but there are 

situations when people need to enter the 

area. Complete isolation is not practical. 

Keys or rules for entering the system 

can be applied, but then uncertainty 

also increases. Designers of autonomous 

mobile machine systems need to accept 

some degree of uncertainty, but the risks 

AUTO NOMOUS SYSTEMS ARE 

REVOLUTIONIZING MANY INDUSTRIES. 

must be carefully controlled. Currently, 

there are very few good examples of 

safe and practical autonomous mobile 

machine systems. More examples are 

needed, and the standards also need to 

evolve in order to define more clearly the 

acceptable levels of uncertainty and risk. 

Services for asset 

management 

Increased automation and also the increased 

amount of data have enabled and 

increased the significance of data-based 

services for ensuring the cost-effective 

and productive management of the industrial 

assets. Increasing demand for 

efficiency, quality, capacity and availability 

performance of the systems call for 

new technologies and implementations 

of the asset management standards (e.g. 

ISO 55000) that utilize the opportunity 

to utilize data, learn from wide machine 

Figure 3. Utilization of data analytics based services in asset management. 

and component fleets and to integrate 

expertise of OEM’s and process experts. 

The use and value of predictive analytics 

need to be understood in a wider 

value context, as depicted in Figure 3 

(adapted from Ahonen 2019). Three 

focal topics of asset management are 

addressed, namely maintenance, operations 

and investment decision-making. 

Furthermore, for equipment manufacturers, 

one of the main drivers of databased 

solutions is the feedback loop to 

R&D and product development. This is 

particularly important in the transition 

to new business models with performance-based 

contracting. Thus, since 

equipment manufacturers may have 

new incentives for stressing different 

‘design for X’ aspects in product development 

and gathering experience from the 

field is of increasing significance. 

ISO 55000 defines asset management 

as activities that support the realization 

of value while balancing financial, environmental 

and social costs, risks, quality 

of service, and performance related to 

assets. Analysis of these tasks from the 

viewpoint of more effective use of data 

for supporting key decision-making 

situations may open up new opportunities 

and support the quick technology 

experiments carried out by a number of 

companies related to development of 

digital services. 

Conclusions 

The demand for automated and remotely-operated 

machines arises from 

the need to improve the safety, quality, 

cost-efficiency and traceability of work 

processes. Ecological issues and sustainable 

development require minimizing 

resource losses while maintaining or even 

improving quality standards. However, 

the level of automation affects the safety 

requirements. The more automated system, 

the more requirements there are for 

the system, and the more the manufacturer 

needs to take responsibility. Thus, 

one needs to thoroughly understand the 

optional strategies and related concepts 

for different operational environments. 

At the same time, there is an identified 

need for a transition from transaction 

and sub-contracting based collaboration 

models towards more integrated practices 

in company ecosystems. Customers are 

expecting more holistic service offerings 

and, as the complexity increases, companies 

are not able to hold all the required 

expertise and knowledge in-house. 

Information on recent developments 

in the technology and discussion on 

the current trends and how to answer 

them is provided in more detail in the 

research report “Advanced technologies 

for productivity-driven lifecycle services 

and partnerships in a business network” 

available at: 

www.vtt.fi/sites/tecnetwork/. 


Scan me 

International Conference & Exhibition 

June 10 -12, 2020 

Antwerp, Belgium 

Call for speakers 

The Asset Performance 4.0 Conference focuses on disruptive technologies and solutions to increase 

performance in the field of operations, maintenance, reliability, condition monitoring throughout the asset lifecycle. 

We are looking for speakers to give a 40 min. presentation on their innovative applications and projects in this 

field. Speakers can share the results and experiences with 4.0-solutions currently being implemented in 

(pilot) sites. Duo presentations are allowed. 

Furthermore, we’re looking for workshop facilitators to teach the participants how to work with a certain 

technique, tool or application in the field of maintenance and operations. In short, workshop animators teach 

participants how to use disruptive technologies or solutions and to get them acquainted with how new solutions can 

help them increase asset performance. 

Searching for a solution to a specific problem? Post your hackathon ideas. In a hackathon, an asset owner 

introduces a problem in operations or maintenance to a panel of experts, who will work to find a solution using 

predictive analytics, AI and IoT. 

Why become a speaker? 

• Share your ideas with your peers and get feedback 

• Present yourself and your organization as a top level experts in the field of asset performance 

• Participate for free in the conference and exhibition 

Milestones 

• December 1st, 2019: Submission deadline 

• January 15th, 2020: Announcement of chosen speakers 

• February 2020: Agenda online 

Submit a presentation 

Submit an idea 

Submit a hackathon idea 

Powered by 

www.assetperformance.eu


Cross-Fertilization of Asset 

Management with Resilience 

and Reliability 

Text: Helena Kortelainen, Toni Ahonen, 

Minna Räikkönen & Risto Tiusanen, 

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. 



Figure 1. The view from Sentosa 

beach reminds that Singapore is one 

of the world’s busiest ports. 

Increasing complexity, 

interdependency and 

connectivity through 

digitalization characterize the 

current society and the engineering 

systems involved. 

The World Congress 2019 in 

Singapore offered a forum 

for cross-fertilization across 

the disciplines by bringing 

the professionals in asset 

management, reliability and 

resilience together. 

THE ONGOING disruptive trends such as 

digitalisation, automation, novel business 

models and the emergence of cyberphysical 

systems (CPS) have resulted 

in increased connectivity within and 

between infrastructure and industrial 

systems. This development leads to the 

increasing complexity of the systems of 

systems and creates challenges in the 

design, operation, maintenance and 

renewal of the assets. World Congress 

on Asset Management (WCEAM) is 

an annual conference that displays the 

recent development in the technologies, 

methodologies, processes and tools in 

the engineering asset management. In 

this year, the WCEAM was organized as 

a track in the Resilience, Reliability and 

Asset Management (WCRRAM) conference 

in Singapore. The event brought 

together scientists, policymakers, and 

practitioners from different continents 

to share the latest knowledge, approaches 

and experiences to make interdependent 

infrastructure and industrial 

systems more robust and resilient. 

The congress and the networking opportunities 

provided a platform to crossfertilize 

ideas and develop new insights 

for the management of future engineering 

assets. The topics of the engineering 

asset management track addressed 

major sectors of the capital-intensive 

industries, mining, public infrastructure, 

and service industry asset management. 

The reliability track highlighted the key 

issues of asset management including 

system reliability and safety, and prognostic 

health monitoring of complex systems. 

The resilience track sessions emphasized 

the importance of the societal 

aspects of infrastructure and industrial 

systems including metrics, modelling 

and design for resilience (robustness, 

recoverability). 

Eras of reliability optimization 

World-class keynote speakers’ presentations 

provided interesting thoughts and 

laid the groundwork for reflections during 

the technical sessions. The keynote 

provided by Professor David W. Coit 

from the Rutgers University, USA, addressed 

the development of the reliability 

engineering as a path through three 

identified eras. These were the eras of 

mathematical programming, pragmatism 

and active reliability improvement. 

He highlighted the progress from individual 

analyses towards continuous improvement, 

the progress from dynamic 

programming to integrated design and 

optimization techniques for complex 

systems. The discussion related to the 

era of active reliability improvement 

well covered the aspects also highlighted 

by the current conference, namely integration 

with new data, continuous optimization 

and consideration of resiliency. 

Advanced safety analysis 

methods needed for 

autonomous machinery 

Research results and practical experiences 

of system safety engineering 

methods for autonomous vehicles were 

shared in three presentations. Applications 

of systems engineering principles, 

V-model framework as well as software 

safety issues in complex systems were 

discussed. Safety requirements and 

technologies for autonomous vehicles 

are still strongly evolving. Research on 

innovative safety engineering and risk 

mitigation methodologies are needed to 

be able to manage risk arising from the 

higher levels of vehicle autonomy and 

to enhance the safety of autonomous 

systems. 

System modelling and multi-criteria 

analysis methods for safety analysis of 

complex control systems were discussed 

in several presentations. Use cases and 

experiences from aviation, military and 

energy sectors were introduced. Ms 

Yuan Yuan from Beihang University presented 

a safety analysis method for vehicle 

systems having complex coupling 

relationships in the perspective of time, 

space, function, structure and other aspects 

because of the influence of the condition 

of the operator, equipment under 

control and the operating environment. 

The method is based on functional resonance 

method (FRAM), Bayesian model 

under multi-factor coupling to analyze 

the coupling effect of human, machine 

and environment and their influences on 

the behaviour of complex systems. 

Asset management is getting 

smarter, but how? 

Mr. Brandon Lee from Intech Process 

Automation shared thoughts about the 

adoption of Industry 4.0 and particularly 

concepts for the effective use of data in 

different use cases in his keynote. Features 

of Smart asset management were 

discussed; more specifically Mr. Lee addressed 

the opportunity to orchestrate 

efficient operation with optimal resource 

utilization through smart assets 



and methods with capabilities to detect 

and predict inefficiencies. Furthermore, 

there is an increasing need to design 

digital twins alongside with the physical 

products and to arrange the related data 

collection. He also acknowledged that 

new business models, such as digitalization 

as a service, digital twin as a service, 

manufacturing as a service and intelligence 

as a service, will play an important 

role in the future. These issues also 

offer an important domain for further 

research and development. Panel discussion 

on “Digitalisation of the World 

and its Impacts on Resilience” chaired 

by Prof Hans Heinimann (ETH Zurich) 

addressed several topical issues that 

are common for resilience, engineering 

asset management and reliability optimization. 

Harnessing the life cycle value 

from industrial assets 

The technical sessions for asset management 

addressed a variety of topics related 

to e.g. digitalization, asset services, 

investment appraisal and maintenance 

planning and strategy optimization. Industrial 

and infrastructure viewpoints 

were covered and methodologies and 

Digital twins and shadows 

The concept of digital shadow for determining 

the value contribution of 

maintenance and maintenance services 

was introduced by Frederick Birtel 

from FIR at RWTH Aachen University. 

The determination of actual value of 

maintenance services for companies 

should not cover only the optimization 

of direct but especially of indirect costs. 

The problem for companies in this 

context is that they do not know which 

data they have to record in order assess 

indirect costs and maintenance value 

contribution respectively. Antonio de 

la Fuente from University of Seville 

addressed the practical methodology, 

asset criticality and health index 

(AHI), for planning major overhaul and 

equipment renovation. AHI takes into 

account the importance of the assets 

for the business (asset criticality) and 

determines the asset health projections 

over time and NPV of the different 

technical alternatives. Moreover, 

several presentations comprised the 

need for novel maintenance strategies 

and data-based business models where 

the entire life cycle of products and services 

is reconsidered. 

frameworks presented from both asset 

owner and service provision perspectives. 

The sessions provided interesting 

insights into the value creation for 

industrial asset management. In this 

research area, the focus in the conference 

was especially on the research and 

the real life uses of valuation of data and 

the value contribution of maintenance 

services as well as the role and value of 

THE WCRRAM CONGRESS REVEALED THAT THE VALUATION 

OF DATA AND MAINTENANCE SERVICES IN THE CONTEXT OF 

ENGINEERING ASSET MANAGEMENT IS HIGHLY TOPICAL AND 

THAT THE VALUE OF THE DATA IS NOT FULLY UNDERSTOOD YET. 


Figure 2. Panel discussion on “Digitalisation of the World and its Impacts on Resilience” 

chaired by Prof Hans Heinimann (left) and participated by Prof Jose Emmauel Ramirez- 

Marquez, Mr. Patrik Lieser, Mr. Brandon Lee and Prof. Joseph Mathew (right). 

digitalization in asset management. The 

fact is that the digitalization of manufacturing 

processes creates vast amounts of 

maintenance and production data available 

to companies and to entire business 

ecosystems. Dr. Salla Marttonen-Arola 

from University of Sunderland outlined 

the role of data role in asset management 

decision-making and presented 

the results of a case study on evaluating 

the value of data-based profitability of 

investing in a CMMS. Moreover, several 

innovative value-driven approaches 

were introduced in the congress. Sanyapong 

Petchrompo presented an 

optimisation model for vehicle fleet 

maintenance scheduling and Andrew 

Hoisington outlined a model to reduce 

lifecycle costs for infrastructure assets. 

Many of the presentations emphasized 

the need for novel strategies and business 

models of sharing risks and benefits 

when implementing advanced technologies. 

Ype Wijnia presented an approach 

for modelling the consequences of various 

asset replacements in terms of cost, 

risk and performance. 

The WCRRAM congress revealed that 

the valuation of data and maintenance 

services in the context of engineering 

asset management is highly topical and 

that the value of the data is not fully understood 

yet. Future research is needed 

e.g., on assessment and realization of 

value of data for different stakeholders 

in industrial value networks. Relevant 

topics include business models, contract 

types, risk management, and measurement 

and demonstration of the value of 

data. 

The asset management 

journey continues in Brazil 

and Spain 

The asset management journey continues 

from Asia in South-America, as 

WCEAM 2020 takes place in Bonito, 

Brazil. The World Congress (http:// 

wceam.com/ ) will be hosted by the 

Federal University of Mato Grosso do 

Sul. In 2021, the WCEAM event will 

be held in Europe in Seville, Spain and 

the University of Seville will host the 

congress.

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Maintworld 4/2019

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