Procedural compliance and data collection

Tools for integrating compliance into an enterprise-wide maintenance management system

Process and discrete manufacturers, utilities, and oil and gas companies are under increasing pressure from governmental regulatory agencies to meet a host of stringent environmental and safety standards. Achieving compliance with these measures hinges on an organization's ability to provide detailed accounts of the procedures and methods workers use during manufacturing and maintenance processes.

In the effort to achieve compliance, processes and equipment used in those procedures must deliver a consistently high quality. Workers must follow the procedures to the letter, systematically, and accurately performing and documenting every task.

While planning and management once functioned as the core of most computerized maintenance management
solutions, an increased emphasis on regulation has switched the focus of asset management to the activities and operations performed in the field and on the shop floor. Procedure compliance and data collection applications streamline and consolidate the compliance aspect of these activities in a paperless environment. This uniformity and accessibility of data is pivotal in industries in which safety regulations and procedural compliance play a crucial role in daily operations.

Point of performance
Procedural compliance and data collection applications need to support every compliance-related aspect of a plant or facility's maintenance operation and inspection activities and allow for the development and control of sophisticated work practices. They must provide a seamless connection between maintenance personnel and enterprise asset and process management systems. These applications put the power and the knowledge of the CMMS into the hands--literally--of personnel responsible for maintenance activities.

Hand-held devices are the norm with intelligent bar-coding technology or other identification technologies. They allow for a level of procedural compliance that satisfies the most stringent regulatory standards. By eliminating the inaccuracies and bottlenecks associated with manual data-gathering, procedural compliance, and data collection applications improve the overall quality of maintenance data collection, storage, and distribution. These improvements help users reduce costs, achieve compliance, improve safety, increase productivity, and reduce human error.

The compliance tools must be designed to streamline work order performance across a broad range of preventive and predictive maintenance, and inspection activities to help organizations transfer detailed CMMS job plans, procedures, and work order information from a host system to a hand-held device, and to provide step-by-step guidance at the point of job performance.

Built-in logic directs workers through tasks with step-by-step instructions and mandatory checklists. Maintenance workers can be directed through alternative procedural branches also, depending on as-found conditions. Work order status and close-out provides up-to-the-moment information on the status of work orders and the steps needed to close-out the work orders. These real-time, on-site prompting features ensure procedures are performed to specifications, regardless of the employee, facility, or location.

On-line audit trail
This enterprise-wide control helps to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and to establish work processes that result in smoother, more efficient operations. Information
and data captured during a procedure can be immediately downloaded to the CMMS database.

Other benefits include:

• point-of-performance corrective action,
• access to past maintenance data,
• ability to generate real-time work orders,
• increased integrity of field data, and
• enterprise-wide, cross-platform data support.

User-defined calendars and shifts control work activities by allowing for complete flexibility in the configuration of electronic schedules. Limits can be built into every step, that if exceeded, automatically trigger investigations to document problems. Based on this diagnosis, users can initiate corrective action at the point of performance.

Workers must follow the procedures to the letter, systematically and accurately performing and documenting every task.

The application also gives operators the ability to capture, transmit, and record data for future field analysis and predictive or preventative maintenance. Other areas for enhancing productivity include:

• calendar-driven work scheduling,
• user-defined scheduling,
• detailed location information, and
• bar-code driven capabilities.

Equipment status tracking provides up-to-the-moment status on equipment currently undergoing or scheduled for maintenance. By integrating lock-out and tag-out procedures with an automatic identification system such as bar coding, human error associated with component manipulation is virtually eliminated. Bar code scanning ensures that the correct piece of equipment is being worked on, and that equipment status is verified at the point of performance.

With a lock-out and tag-out application, work orders can be organized and prioritized based on area, system, or procedure. Information and data captured during maintenance activities is transferred and recorded in the CMMS database automatically. Other important areas the application can address include:

• on-line equipment status tracking,
• shutdown and turnaround management tracking,
• system lineups and restorations,
• detailed location information,
• dual verification, and
• point-of-performance information access.

To support management and maintenance information requirements, it is necessary for plants to collect high-quality data quickly, accurately, and cost effectively. Procedural compliance and data collection tools assist in this process by delivering a number of important benefits that allow plants to reduce downtime, extend equipment lifetimes, and avoid costly accidents that can dramatically impact their bottom line.

Benefits re-cap
Procedural compliance--Step-by-step features walk technicians through procedures and ensure that the procedures are carried out correctly. This results in enterprise-wide operability and maintenance control.

Increased data integrity and availability--Point-of-performance paperless data capture and automatic data population eliminates human error and ensures timely, accurate, and complete data collection.

Reduced overhead--The elimination of manual data entry functions helps reduce administrative overhead and streamline reporting activities.

Enhanced knowledge base--Timely access to real-time and historical maintenance and operational data expands the organization's knowledge base and allows managers to make more informed maintenance decisions.