maintenance: how not to hate it

MAINTENANCE:HOW NOT TO HATE IT

Brian GongolDJ Gongol & Associates, Inc.

November 6, 2014

Nebraska Section AWWAFall Conference

Terrorism is scary.

We spend massive sums on detection

NSA CIA TSA FBI Homeland Security Local law enforcement

Cameras

Sensors

Radiation X-ray Biological weapons Full-body scanners

The detection doesn't always work

Resulting in failuresthat grip the

world's attention

Detection failures

1993 WTC bombing Khobar Towers bombing 9/11 Shoe bomber Underwear bomber Boston Marathon bombing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (?)

More attention leads to more surveillance

Even though the events are incredibly rare

Story-tellers magnify the story

Reporters, pundits, politicians, and others

...until we spend billions without thinking twice

$16.6 billion a year

What's a lot scarier?

Deferred maintenance.

Scarier, really?

Not to diminish the tragedies that have occurred,but they are extremely low-probability events.Your individual chances of being affected are

indistinguishable from zero.

But our choices as a society mean thatinfrastructure failures are certain to occur,

with extremely widespread impact,and can range from inconveniences to calamities.

Truth time

It should terrify us to think that wechoose to put ourselves at risk

solely due to a lack of willpowerto take responsibility for

an entirely preventable condition

$3.6 trillion in deferred maintenance

Anti-terrorism: $16.6 billion spent yearly

$50 per person

Deferred maintenance: $3,600.0 billion needed

$11,000 per person

That's $3,600 billion

Or about 217 years of anti-terrorism funding

Nobody talks about it, though.

A simple question and a troubling answer

Who has been asked to defer maintenancebecause of a budget shortfall?

A simple question and a troubling answer

Who has been asked to accelerate maintenanceto make up for what has been deferred?

That gap you're seeing

We treat "maintenance" like a bank accountfrom which we only ever borrow

Maintenance means just holding the line

What we should really advocate iscontinuous improvement

You're in an unenviable position

Having to address an expensive problemwith under-funded resources

A three-fold strategy for easier maintenance

1. Fix our concept of maintenance

It can't always be an emergency

2. Make practical maintenance easier

3. Communicate the problem effectively

CONCEPT

Even nature has maintenance cycles

Small forest fires are natural

Big fires result from human intervention

Not all maintenance is worth doing!

Maintenance is about one thing

Getting the full life-cycle value from a product

Extending life means actively saving money

Think of operational savings in pretax dollars

$1.25 to $1.33 in pretax incometo the ordinary taxpayer

So let's save some money!

Types of maintenance

Fix on failure Scheduled Preventive Predictive

Each approach has its place

Fix on failure

When it's cheap, simple, and in-stock, like a pen

Scheduled maintenance

When there is lots of data from prior experience

Preventive maintenance

When a failure puts you at serious riskof long-term downtime

Predictive maintenance

When the signals of trouble are well-knownand surveillance is cheap

In the context of your health...

Fix on failure

Bandage on a papercut

Scheduled maintenance

Getting your annual physical(prostate exams, colonoscopies, cholesterol tests...)

Preventive maintenance

Regular exercise

Predictive maintenance

Blood pressure checks Body-composition bathroom scales Blood-sugar tests

We rely too heavily on fix-on-failure

(Not a recommended maintenance strategy.)

You would never fly Fix-On-Failure Airlines

Now that we get the concept...

PRACTICE

Avoid the curse of Shary Bobbins

Always put safety first

You are the most valuable piece of equipment

Lock out, tag out

Check for gases

Seriously. Check for gases.

Prevent slips, trips, and falls

Carpet pattern designed as if to maximize disorientationCenturyLink Center, Omaha

Prevent muscle strain

Keep safety equipment in good repair

Guards Belts Sensors Handrails

Measurement means control

Everyone knows quantitative measurements

Pump run times

Energy consumption

Flows

Pressure readings

Oil temperatures

Motor casing temperatures

But qualitative measurements matter, too

Vibration

Smells/scents/odors

Smells/scents/odors

bitter burnt citrusy fermented fishy fresh fruity grassy hot moldy musty

oily oppressive organic pungent rotten sharp smoky sour sulfuric sweet

Sounds

Sounds

bassy buzz chirp clack clap click crescendo dissonant echo grind growl harmonic hum knock loud muffled

piercing ping quiet rattle rhythmic ringing rumble screech sharp squeak squeal staccato tap whinny whoosh

Why take measurements?

And keep qualitative records?

From fix-on-failure to anticipation

Making the change meanscollecting and using data

Not appropriate to everything

Litmus test

If downtime would wake you in the middle of the nightand a replacement isn't on your own shelf,

use some kind of predictive/preventive measurement

Make it easy to measure and record

Make it easy to review performance

Take the time to review

I-35W: Calculations were "too much work"

Take records straight to a tablet or netbook Eliminates handwriting errors Eliminates copying errors Promotes rapid visualization

Prices are so low, it's highly justifiable

Use free resources

E-mail

Calendars

Charts and task lists

7x7

Make them easy to digest at a glance

People like to keep up unbroken chains

"X" days without a safety incident

Know your indicators

Problem indicators Smoke from under the hood

Planned indicators Squeaking brakes

Conduct a post-mortem on failures and incidents

What did it cost you? What signals were missed?

Primary predictive-maintenance indicators

Temperatures Oil/lubricant conditions Ultrasonic analysis Vibration Performance trends

Nobody wants to do the dirtiest job

Create a culture that encourages maintenance

Starting with ownership of the process

Wax/paint/clean the equipment

Broken window effect

A baseline for what's right...

...makes it easier to see when something's wrong

A hidden payback

When you practice regular maintenance,you get to know the equipment

on an expert level

Expert-level understanding makestrouble resolution much faster

What you have in common with machines

Some of the things thatmake your life more pleasant

help equipment, too

Winter heating

Proper heating in winter prevents freezing

Summer cooling

Well-ventilated motorsare more reliable and more efficient

Turn better maintenance into a game

Rival departments (or shifts)

Rival communities

Leverage your efforts & improve motivation

Friendly rivalries withsomething on the line

(pride or a small wager)raise the level of performance

all around

Make it a measurable goal with a small wager

Doughnuts?Lunch?

A round of beers?

Buddy system aids information-sharing

Create your own "peer group"

Valuable for comparisons in reports

If you're doing well

The peer group helps you take credit

If you're doing badly

Peer pressure can motivate improvement

If you need more resources

The peer group helps you make the case

Reward good maintenance ideas

Multi-thousand-dollar ideas go un-sharedbecause people don't think they'll be rewarded

Rewards beget buy-in

"You can achieve amazing progressif you set a clear goal and find a measurethat will drive progress toward that goal

in a feedback loop."- Bill Gates

Use mental tricks to help yourself

Make maintenance automatic

Conserve mental energy

Don't make more choices than necessary

Color-coded tools

Opt-in versus opt-out

When the default option is participation, one-third of people stick with retirement plans who wouldn't have signed up on their own

Add a third choice to make

Add a third choice to make

Batches of three

Just clustering tasks and choicesin groups of three

reduces the mental taxof decision-making

Conserve mental energy for what matters

"What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't know. What do you want?"

"I don't know."

Tools under $25 to improve maintenance

Kneepad

Graph pads

Fold-out two-wheeler

Lock-out, tag-out devices

Pilot's kneeboard

Custom toolkits for frequent tasks

Foam roller

Reach extender

Zip ties (cable ties)

Carabiners

It is not wasteful to duplicate tools

If it's the difference between doing the maintenance and not If it saves time on a quick payback period

Play hurt sometimes

Figure out what is adding extra strain,then eliminate it

Concept and practice: Done.

Now...

COMMUNICATION

Get the resources you need

Explaining to people who don't do maintenance

Maybe not even at home

Give them three forecasts

Best case, worst case, and most likely(Remember: People default to the middle)

We have to engage people who think:

Infrastructure happens by magic The work gets done by people who are beneath them

Professionals speak up for themselves

CPAs funding "Feed the Pig" commercials Medical journals in the news Trial lawyers making campaign contributions

We can't be timid about real needs!

Worn-out infrastructure is no goodfor the people actually doing the work,

and it does no service to customers

Reluctant? Why?

Too time-consuming?Too much effort?No motivation?

Just because we don't do it now...

...doesn't mean it goes away. It usually just gets worse.

If time is short...

Can a better strategy save time?

If time is short...

Are you valuing the opportunity cost of your time?

If it requires too much effort...

Are we just hoping to run out the clockand avoid the eventual catastrophic failure?

If you're unmotivated...

Think about saving yourself a 2 a.m. weekend call

If it's external, examine why

Not enough staff or hours in the day? Not enough funding? No support from "on high"?

Just because it isn't done

...doesn't mean it doesn't have to be done

Troubles happen

Potholes Bridge collapses (I-35W) Levee failures (Hamburg) Main breaks Sewer backups

People see (and feel) potholes

Water-related utilities are relatively invisible

We have to speak up about the invisible"potholes" in water and sewer systems

Cost deferral isn't cost prevention

Cost deferral is usually cost compounding

If we don't communicate what we need

...we shouldn't be surprised if we don't get it.

You have to tell them what you need

Add a little bit of "Why?"

Make it a "Why" that matters to the decision-maker

Words matter

"Honey Wagon"

Euphemisms don't really help

But we must considerreal perceptions andtheir consequences

Since 1989, people have watched

...which is a more compelling title than

Words really do matter

The same food wasteis perceived differently

when it movesfrom the garbage can

to the compost bin

Words really do matter

Consider the magical transformationfrom sludge to biosolids

Honest improvements to "Maintenance"

Asset manager Capital-preservation specialist Incident-prevention supervisor Public-health technician Service reliability agent

Alternative titles to avoid

Museum curator Crisis-response team Equipment babysitter

People rarely ask what maintenance will cost

Or how much good maintenancechanges the life expectancy

Caring for assets makes you a:

Guardian Conservator Trustee

Custodian Steward Fiduciary

"Cheap" isn't always cheap

"Cheap" up-frontmay cost you a fortune

Doing maintenance right saves you grief

AVOID PAIN!

Good maintenance saves customers money

PLEASE THE PEOPLE!

Summary:

Do the right maintenance for the right equipment Fix-on-failure, scheduled, preventive, predictive

Use your brain as often as your hands Place a real value on maintenance and communicate it

Questions?

Thank you for coming! Brian Gongol DJ Gongol & Associates 515-223-4144 info@djgongol.com

References:

Cost of anti-terrorism: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/11/u-s-spends-over-16-billion-annually-on-counter-

terrorism/

Cost of deferred maintenance: http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/news/

Retirement opt-in participation: http://www.nber.org/bah/summer06/w12009.html

Airport security photo (public domain): https://twitter.com/TSAMedia_RossF/status/375424954600157185/photo/1

I-35W "too much work": http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/52124637.html

I-35W photo (public domain): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:I35W_Collapse_-_Day_4_-_Operations_%26_Scene_(95).jpg

Osama bin Laden screen capture: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/usama-bin-laden

Aircraft boneyard photo (public domain): http://research.archives.gov/description/6505216

All other photos and illustrations are original work by Brian Gongol. Copyright and all other rights are reserved.