Contemporary computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) contain an ever increasing amount of functionality. This article addresses some specific functional CMMS requirements important to the chemical plant that is proactive in improving its maintenance practices. This is a plant in which maintenance is truly mission critical, where the goal is to optimize the production capacity through improved equipment reliability, while at the same time striving for cost containment.

Functional overview
The total CMMS software package includes many integrated application programs, sometimes called modules. These are grouped into five broad categories:

•  work management (usually called maintenance management),
•  materials management,
•  procurement/purchasing,
•  human resources, and
•  financial management.

Work flow requirements
A work flow is associated with the initiation, planning, scheduling, and completion of maintenance work. The work flow varies depending on whether it is corrective work, preventive maintenance, turnaround (shutdown) work, or capital work. The CMMS package must have the ability to track these types of work--usually identified as work orders or job orders?through their life cycle. This is basic built in functionality in most CMMS packages. However, the requirements are quite complex when analyzed further.

As the work order moves along the flow, it may generate notifications that ensure that the right people are notified that either an action such as an approval is required by them, or that an event has taken place, for example an emergency work order was initiated. The plant's requirements may require the work flow itself be configured to suit different approval levels or additional sign-off on certain work orders by, for example, an owner department like the inspection department.

    The CMMS should contain a planning library of standard plans that can be attached to an approved work order for rapid planning.

Planning functionality
Many plant environments are such that a work order does not need detailed planning other than an estimate of the total labor, material requirements, and cost. Most chemical plants need more detailed planning on some percentage of its work orders. These plants need to look for a CMMS that enables the work to be broken down into multiple tasks activities that are networked together for the correct sequencing of the work. Each of these tasks might have one or more craft estimates. Special equipment like cranes, tools, and contract resources are also estimated.

The CMMS should contain a planning library of standard plans that can be attached to an approved work order for rapid planning. Planning the parts and material for a work order should be fully integrated with the labor planning. Parts lists bills of material can be created either from the standard parts lists, usually stored by equipment class and type or from the corporate catalog. Non-stock items need to be ordered through the procurement module. Look for a parts reservation capability to reduce the chance of a stock-out when the part is required.

Don't forget the safety requirements! The CMMS must accommodate special permits required to carry out the work in addition to personal protective equipment. Tracking permits and MSDS sheets for hazardous material are just two of the many requirements for the chemical industry to comply with Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA), 29 CFR 1910.110, Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals. A CMMS package that tracks which craftsperson with what skills was assigned to which tasks, what procedures and material were used to perform those tasks, aids in regulatory compliance with 1910.119.

    Some CMMS packages display a list of symptoms and probable causes. Many chemical plants spend up to 40 percent of their annual maintenance budget on turnarounds.

Preventive maintenance jobs are pre-planned with the required parts. Work orders are generated based on a frequency or condition trigger. Advanced CMMS functionality allows triggering of work orders based on meter readings at some higher location on the equipment hierarchy. CMMS packages allow linking of preventive maintenance items into one work order such that the second preventive maintenance, for example, only occurs every second time the first preventive maintenance is generated.

Reliability centered maintenance
Reliability centered maintenance is a proven maintenance management methodology that is effective in increasing equipment and hence plant uptime while reducing costs through the performance of the right maintenance at the right time. A good reliability centered maintenance program combined with an effective preventive maintenance program also addresses the need for mechanical integrity required by OSHA 1910.119.

Reliability centered maintenance defines optimal maintenance strategies that lead to maximum uptime of critical equipment at minimum cost. Management of equipment reliability is an on-going strategy that requires the use of an appropriate CMMS tool to analyze the vast amount of data collected as part of the maintenance management program.

The minimum CMMS functionality required is the ability to capture and codify key reliability data. Some CMMS packages display a list of symptoms and probable causes. This enables the work requester to select from the list and build an intelligent work request description while at the same time capturing the associated symptom and cause codes. Upon completion of the work order, these CMMS packages allow the craftsman to enter further reliability data such as the known failure, if any, and the corrective actions taken.

This relatively simple collection of data generates meaningful statistics such as mean-time-between-failure and the mean-time-to-symptom. In addition, they generate reports that point to the type of equipment causing the most down time or costing the most in repairs over any period of time.

Inspection management
Determining the right time to initiate a maintenance action is based on monitoring the condition of the equipment. Condition monitoring enables trending analysis on vibration levels, lubricant properties, contaminant concentrations, wall thickness, infrared temperature profiles, and the like. The result is a predicted time at which corrective maintenance will be needed. Several vendors developed condition monitoring software that analyzes the many readings taken over time. This software can be integrated with the CMMS to trigger a work request automatically when the condition monitoring shows values trending outside user-defined limits.

The other aspect to condition monitoring is the inspection of stationary equipment and piping. This inspection includes many types of non-destructive testing of equipment that lends itself to engineering analysis of corrosion rates, wear rates, oil analysis, and so forth. But it also includes more subjective inspection observations and recommendations. One or two CMMS packages include an integrated inspection and corrosion management module that captures these observations and recommendations plus readings taken on defined test points over time. Trending these readings shows remaining life until a retirement value is reached.

Scheduling functionality
For chemical plants, scheduling is where many CMMS packages fall down. Scheduling is a two step process. Firstly, work is scheduled for the following week or two based on the available resources like the different skills, special equipment, contractors, and the like. Secondly, tasks are assigned to crews or individual craftsmen. This second step is optional and is usually a manual function.

The problem is finding a CMMS package that can schedule a relatively large backlog of work and combine it with the preventive maintenance forecast for the next period. There are one or two CMMS packages that can schedule multiple work orders, each with multiple tasks, each task having multiple skill estimates. These work orders have different priorities and required completion dates on equipment that has different criticalities. The parts required may not be available until some future date thereby requiring integration with the procurement process. The craftspeople are also available based on specific shifting patterns.

Fine tuning schedules is a manual process in which the planner needs the assistance of a good CMMS package to keep track of the changing resource requirements and availability. Some programs have Gantt charts­bar charts­that allow the planner to drag and drop work orders and tasks to fine tune the schedules.

    Better CMMS functionality allows collecting costs by activity codes. The problem is finding a CMMS package that can schedule a relatively large backlog of work and combine it with the preventive maintenance forecast for the next period.

Turnaround and shutdown management
Many chemical plants spend up to 40 percent of their annual maintenance budget on turnarounds. There are some CMMS packages today that have fully integrated turnaround management modules. This means that the work requests for turnaround work can be entered just like any other work requests, only they can be given a work type of turnaround. The planning library can be used for either daily maintenance work or turnaround work. Material for the turnaround is planned using the integrated materials and procurement modules.

Some CMMS integrated turnaround modules allow a work package view of the data rather than just a work order view. A work package is created for each job on a piece of equipment and planned as an integrated job, regardless of the number of work orders. This leads to more effective planning and scheduling.

The integrated turnaround module also faciltates what-if analysis of the work schedules. Alternative scenarios can be evaluated in which the scope of work, the shifts worked, and the available resources can be varied.

Managing costs
Cost management is a key benefit of integrated turnaround management. Costs for labor, direct or contract, material and parts, rentals, anmd so forth are collected and rolled up alongside the costs for routine maintenance on the same equipment. Equipment history now includes the work completed on turnarounds.

CMMS packages allow costs to be rolled up by the traditional code of accounts as well as the equipment or location hierarchy. Better CMMS functionality allows collecting costs by activity codes. Doing so enables activity based costing analysis (ABC) to determine the value added and eliminate the non-value added activities.

Summary
This article introduces the reader to some of the advanced functionality that does exist in contemporary CMMS packages. This is functionality that addresses the particular needs of the chemical industry. The uniqueness of this industry is the need for detailed planning, the management of a large backlog of work orders, the requirement for managing both small and very large turnarounds/shutdowns, and the emphasis on reliability centered maintenance. Underpinning these requirements is the need for good cost management.