New approach cuts service costs, energy bills and stock loss
A new approach to plant maintenance is set to revolutionise the way we manage and service hvacr equipment, says Steve Nicoll of RDM
There is a new emphasis in medicine on preventive healthcare. The aim is to improve health by stopping disease occurring in the first place. It contrasts with the traditional approach of waiting until illness strikes, then trying to treat it.
It is a revolution in approach. It costs a lot more to try and cure a disease once it is established, not to mention the cost in terms of human suffering. The preventive approach makes absolute sense, and it is slowly transforming medicine and human health.
A similar change, I suggest, is now required in our approach to maintaining the vital plant and equipment upon which society depends for its well-being.
Plant such as refrigeration and air conditioning, as we know, supports many diverse functions which collectively underpin modern life. From ensuring the supply of food via the cold chain, to providing stable environmental conditions for high power computers; from delivering comfortable conditions in buildings, to vital cooling for industry. In these, and a hundred other applications, reliable cooling is essential for the continuity of business and, indeed, life as we know it.
Why, then, do we continue to approach the care and maintenance of this vital plant on the basis of “if it breaks, fix it”? Most maintenance the world over is still carried out in this way, and the cost – in terms of lost productivity, stock-loss and environmental damage – is staggering.
One of the main problems with “fix it when it breaks” is that, when plant doing an important job breaks down, it creates an emergency. When the alarm goes, the clock begins ticking – and every minute that passes costs money. The classic example is a refrigerated meat case in a supermarket; in the event of breakdown, there is not only several thousand pounds worth of stock at risk as temperatures rise, but every minute of downtime results in lost sales.
This emergency situation can result in an impatient store manager standing, often hands on hips, as the service engineer battles to fix the problem and get the show on the road again. Due to the pressure, instead of taking time to fully investigate the cause of the problem, and carry out necessary repairs to stop it happening again, a sticking plaster is applied. As the underlying problem remains, it won’t be long until the engineer is back again – applying another sticking plaster.
This emergency situation can result in an impatient store manager standing, often hands on hips, as the service engineer battles to fix the problem and get the show on the road again. Due to the pressure, instead of taking time to fully investigate the cause of the problem, and carry out necessary repairs to stop it happening again, a sticking plaster is applied. As the underlying problem remains, it won’t be long until the engineer is back again – applying another sticking plaster.
This kind of situation is repeated thousands of times a day across the country, and the cost is incalculable.
The proactive approach
There is another way. In much the same way that preventive medicine is transforming healthcare, preventive maintenance has the capacity to revolutionise the way we approach the upkeep of essential plant and equipment.
The key to effective preventive maintenance is, of course, timely information. Until fairly recently, we had no real insight into the condition of plant that would enable us to predict future problems with any accuracy. The bonnet, as it were, was closed, and it would only ever be opened in the event of something going wrong. Today, with the development of easy-to-use yet powerful web-based control and monitoring systems, all that has changed.
We now have a unique insight into the performance and condition of plant. This not only gives detailed information and feedback, it provides it in real time, for the first time enabling engineers to not only look under the bonnet, but peer inside the engine. It is the service manager’s dream come true.
Using this information, it is possible to analyse trends, patterns and exceptional events, and diagnose incipient problems. That is, spot conditions not currently resulting in loss of performance, but which, if left untreated, will result in plant inefficiency or breakdown in the future.
An example of this is refrigerant leakage, where slow loss of charge over time does not initially result in significant impairment of performance, but if untreated will lead over time to significant loss of cooling capacity and inefficient operation. With effective monitoring, the problem can be picked up and the leak repaired, long before it impacts performance or an expensive system charge is lost.
Another example is compressor failure. Mechanical components such as compressors rarely, if ever, fail spontaneously out of the blue. There is invariably a process which, over time, leads to poor performance and, ultimately, breakdown. It is possible to identify machines that are suffering wear or underperforming, and which if left untreated will break down. With this knowledge, a decision can be taken to carry out preventive maintenance to remedy the problem before it results in stock loss and downtime.
Armed with this stream of real-time and historical information, delivered graphically to the desktop, service managers and end users have an unbelievably powerful tool to manage preventive maintenance programmes. Potential problems can be prioritised, and dealt with in a timely way. Over time, preventive maintenance replaces emergency repairs as the main activity. Money is saved, stock preserved, productivity maintained, and plant working life extended.
If all this sounds like an unrealistic ideal, it is already happening. M&S is pioneering with an approach called “active engineering”, based on anticipatory troubleshooting. This spots problems before they happen, and enables field engineers to nip them in the bud. The savings are proving compelling.
The monitoring under the programme is carried out by RDM at the company’s bureau in Glasgow. From this nerve centre, the whole of the food retailer’s national estate of stores is monitored around the clock. Any incipient problems are identified, prioritised and scheduling into the forward maintenance programme.
The approach not only results in significant savings, it is good for the environment. It leads to fewer breakdowns and emergency service calls, fewer road miles travelled by field engineers, less refrigerant lost, and improved overall energy efficiency. It’s a win-win, for the end user and the environment.
One day, all important rac and building services plant will be looked after in this way.