Digitalizing Inspections: bridging a well-known CMMS gap

This article is part of our series on TPM, Lean, WCM, also it can apply generally to all industrial companies looking to improve their Operation & Maintenance.

You may also want to read THIS PREVIOUS ARTICLE on Digitalizing Autonomous Maintenance.

In some companies, production operators or supervisors perform inspections, meter readings, and regular maintenance tasks. For them, bluebee? offers strong support in the form of reminders, step-by-step instructions, access to the centralized know-how base and historical records. It greatly simplifies previously tedious administrative processes often based on paper, Excel and customized applications. The same solution can also be used by maintenance teams for their own inspections, as well as by HSE for audits.

Traditional CMMS software seldom reach the operation and inspection teams, less accustomed to using complex IT systems in their daily work. Most plants face the same challenge when it comes to managing inspections, assessing their executions and handling feedback in a useful manner:

• Difficult to control and track work execution (has the inspection really be done?)
• Less accurate reporting or measurements (often handwritten report on paper)
• Results and measurements are not usable for analysis (paper reports get archived in folders, analysis would require manual input into a system, sometimes done in Excel or in separate, specialized subsystems)

As a result, the inspection loop is hard to close: significant gaps exist between the definition of inspection routines, the planning process, the execution and reporting process and finally the analysis and optimization process. Support from traditional IT systems, designed for administration and cost control, is severely lacking.

bluebee?, since the product very first version in 2008 under the name “eHand”, is designed to support the daily inspection process, so critical for the plant operations. The app directly answers the challenges:

• Standardization and planning of inspections (including routine maintenance and measurements)
• To ensure that jobs are actually performed, through mandatory scanning of asset tags
• To provide a diagnosis aid for technicians, based on reported symptoms and access to existing know-how
• To allow analysis of measurement trends, in order to predict failures
• To use operation and management reports to optimize inspection plans, ultimately enabling a Risk Based Inspection (RBI) strategy

Thanks to bluebee?, inspection technicians receive their inspection tasks and related specific guidelines on their mobile and, after scanning the tag of the corresponding asset or inspection point, record results directly in the device. For example, operation staff can input operating parameters observed during their daily walking inspection routine on pumps (outlet pressure, temperature, oil level, unusual sounds, visual checks of seals etc.). bluebee? will provide immediate feedback on abnormal readings and further assistance can be obtained if needed. All data will be summarized and analyzed in the back-office management system, also producing regular reports for management (monitoring execution) and analysis (improvement of plans and strategy) purposes.

The process is shown below:

Immediate benefits

Based on experience with client across industries, an inspection-driven bluebee? project produces immediate benefits, experienced during implementation itself:

• Motivate the maintenance team and increase awareness: high-tech acts as a catalyst for maintenance improvement. As a Chemical client in East China put it a few years ago: “Our inspection team was immediately fired up by the use of high-technology. As a direct consequence, awareness of best practices increased.”
• Initiate a continuous improvement process based on predictive maintenance: strong linkage is created between field inspections and back-office analysis. “Systematic analysis of data collected in the field was practically impossible to achieve using a traditional paper-based process.”
• “Clean up” of the CMMS database: especially more detailed equipment structures, down to specific inspection or measurement points. “The project prompted a more in-depth definition of equipment structures and inspection points, at a level of detail which did not exist in SAP PM; bar-coded steel tags were physically attached on the equipment, ensuring exact match between the database and the reality.”

A second series of benefits happens from the very first days of utilization:

• Ensure inspections are done: records cannot be saved without scanning of equipment tag (two-dimensional barcode on stainless steel tags), ensuring technicians have actually been there. Highly visual color-codes indicate unfinished actions. Management staffs receive completion reports to track job done.
• Immediate increase in accuracy of records (temperature, vibration): instant warning for out-of-range data. From the same chemical client: “Inspectors saw the accuracy of their records improved, as bluebee??clearly indicates inspection points, requires scanning of barcode for confirmation, warns users in case of abnormal readings and provides basic diagnosis support. Any unfinished action is clearly visible in the mobile display, through simple color warnings.”
• Onsite inspection results without the need to return to office: technician gets immediate warning when measurements are outside of safe range or into danger range and get access to diagnosis information, with easy contact with the back-office team if needed.
• Enable analysis based on trends: performed by the back-office team (equipment managers), they allow for true predictive maintenance and long-term optimization of the maintenance strategy. “The project has achieved the necessary steps to implement a true Risk Based Inspections (RBI) strategy based on real data from the field, which is seldom seen in the industry.”

Finally, long-term benefits from the project will derive from the implementation of predictive maintenance that bluebee??enables. Rapid improvements are expected in terms of downtime reduction and the indirect cost of maintenance.

Learn more about bluebee? at www.bluebeecloud.com

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