An Allied Reliability Group 4200 Faber Place Drive

White Paper Charleston, SC 29405

843.414.5760
www.alliedreliabilitygroup.com

How to Rank Your Equipment

A Straightforward Roadmap

By: Lance Bisinger, Technical Director

August 2, 2012

Reliability its in our DNA.

Contents Introduction
Introduction .......................................................1 A database of accurately ranked assets is the
foundation of almost any preventive,
The Criticality Team .........................................2 predictive, or condition based asset
management program. Without accuracy in
Project Governance .......................................3 this process, any program that has its basis in
Project Governance .......................................3 this data will fail. Prior to starting the ranking
process, it is important that certain
Load Site Asset List into Facilitation Tool ..4 prerequisites are completed. Some
Form Site Criticality Analysis Team ...........5 straightforward questions should be answered
Conduct Basic Criticality Awareness ...........5 before beginning asset ranking:

Develop Site Specific Assessment Criteria ..5 1. How can this ranking information be
Begin Criticality Facilitation........................6 used for other processes?
2. Is your asset catalog accurate?
Perform Process Quality Checks ..................7
Load Criticality Value Into CMMS ..............7 Understanding how the asset ranking can be
leveraged across other areas is powerful. The
Conclusion .........................................................7
assets numerical criticality value can be used
to prioritize a repair backlog for planning, a
ready backlog for scheduling, where to focus
Bill of Material (BOM) optimization, a spare
parts plan, and assets to receive scheduled
maintenance, both preventive and condition
based. Which of these are driving your need to
rank assets?

Figure 1: Asset Health Assurance Model

2013 Allied Reliability Group Page 1

Verifying and updating your sites asset list is
an important step prior to ranking. Criticality
Analysis is part of an overall reliability
improvement process called Asset Health
Assurance (AHA). A graphical representation
of this process showing prerequisites and
reviews is provided in Figure 1.

I am sure you are saying that your site asset

list is accurate, correct? Over the course of
project implementation, I frequently hear the
same thing: We have found an average asset
accuracy of 82% and attribute
population/accuracy of 19%. Translation: there
are assets installed in the facility that are not
documented within the Computer Maintenance
Management Software (CMMS), which means
no scheduled or corrective maintenance is
assigned, executed, or accurately documented.
Incomplete or outdated asset attributes yields
insufficient data for purchasing replacement
parts or carrying outdated inventory. Investing
the time to update and correct your facilitys
asset catalog ensures sufficient data is
available to support subsequent reliability
processes.

Now that the asset catalog is accurate and the

reason for asset ranking is identified, it is time
to begin. This is not an academic exercise
where a single category such as maintenance,
production, or safety is used by the reliability
engineer to determine the assets ranked value.
Ranking describes the process of determining
asset importance: assets whose failure more
immediately and/or more severely impacts the
desired state. Criticality is the name for this
combination of importance with failure rate.

The Criticality Team

It must be understood that successful asset
ranking is a process that will involve people
from various areas of your plant environment.
A high level process flow is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Criticality
Ranking Process

Page 2 How to Rank Your Equipment: A Straightforward Roadmap

 Project Governance Executive Sponsor

A reliability improvement The rule of thumb for executing process

element reaches beyond those in improvement projects is to locate the role that
the maintenance organization. controls all of the resources necessary for
While it is common for area craftsmen, area successful implementation. The scope of the
operators, maintenance supervisors, and process improvement determines if an
operation supervisors to be included as team executive sponsor is required. The executive
members, other stakeholders must also be sponsor should be at the corporate level in an
included. Representatives from Safety; operational or continuous improvement
Environmental; Purchasing; Maintenance, director, regional director, or VP position. This
Repair, and Operations (MRO) Materials; and level of the organization is responsible for
Planning should participate. making changes to policies and procedures to
improve organization performance. The
This is a good time to discuss the necessary site Executive Sponsors role is to engage the
governance structure (Figure 3) and roles Executive Steering Team and the organization
required to support the criticality process. in monitoring the successful implementation of
the project and achieving the return on
investment. He or she will provide an
organization charter to the sites, take actions
to align competing initiatives, remove
obstacles, and provide realignment of
organizational constraints to reinforce new
behaviors.

Executive Steering Team

The executive steering committee is comprised
of the owners of the functions that support the
new processes and must be realigned to drive
and sustain new behaviors, at a minimum.
About 40-60% of the sites constraints are
controlled at the corporate level; therefore, the
role of the Executive Steering Team is to
realign the constraints they control that have a
direct impact on successful implementation and
sustainment of process and behavior. They
monitor implementation progress and benefits
return, remove obstacles, and set priorities.
Additionally, they monitor risk factors to the
sites ability to implement and sustain the
initiative and take actions to mitigate or
eliminate the risks that they control.
Figure 3: Project Governance Structure

2013 Allied Reliability Group Page 3

Site Manager Change Management Team
The Site Manager is normally the Site Sponsor The Change Management Team is a working
or the owner of all of the resources at the site group chartered by the Site Sponsor and
level necessary for successful implementation. Leadership Team and charged with the tactical
The Site Sponsor is responsible for monitoring actions needed to drive change at the site. They
implementation and benefit return and setting support the Leadership Team and manage the
priorities for implementation by aligning Risk Management Plan, Communication Plan,
competing initiatives and removing obstacles. Site Employee Engagement Plan, and Change
The Site Sponsor realigns the organizational Management Plan, which identifies constraints
constraints under his or her control that will and recommends performance metrics that will
reinforce implementation and sustainment. drive and sustain the correct project behaviors.

Leadership Team Workstream Champions

The Leadership Team is usually the direct A Workstream Champion is someone who is an
reports to the Site Sponsor as they typically are advocate for a particular workstream (Team),
the department heads who own a specific defends decisions made by the Team, and
functional responsibility at the site. They are actively supports the overall project
engaged to support the project implementation improvement process. They serve as the
by aligning their part of the site organization to workstreams liaison to the Leadership Team to
ensure successful implementation of the project present issues that may prohibit successful
and its sustainment. They help align competing implementations of the project output or
initiatives by setting priorities, remove solutions. The Workstream Champion
obstacles, provide resources, and demonstrate evaluates Team dynamics and member
active leadership presence in the participation to provide feedback and direction
implementation. as necessary to improve the efficiency of the
Team, ensuring an on-time completion of the
Project Manager technical implementation plan.
The site Project Manager is the Project
Facilitator and is responsible for successfully
implementing the project at the site. The Load Site Asset List
Project Facilitator engages the site Leadership
into Facilitation Tool
Team and Site Sponsor in executing their roles
with assistance from the Change Management Take the completed asset
Team. The Project Facilitator provides project list, including hierarchy,
management (time, cost, and quality of the and put this information into your sites
projects functionality) and ensures that change preferred format. Common formats include a
management actions occur with regard to text document, spreadsheet, or database
engaging the workforce, effective program. This is the list of equipment used for
communication, and establishing reinforcing the criticality analysis.
systems that will drive and sustain the correct
behaviors.

Page 4 How to Rank Your Equipment: A Straightforward Roadmap

 Form Site Criticality developed through execution of the strategies
outlined in each stage.
Analysis Team
The assembly of the
criticality assessment team is vital to accuracy
of the equipment ranking. In many instances,
sites will want to include department
representatives who are new or have little
experience in the areas to be assessed. This
must be viewed no differently than a project to
modify a piece of equipment or change a
process. Would you place inexperienced site
personnel on this work? If this were done,
would you be surprised if the outcome of the
project did not meet expectations? A criticality
assessment is no different. It requires
experienced and knowledgeable
representatives on the equipment to be
assessed. This team should be comprised of
representatives who can speak for the
Figure 4: Engagement Curve
department when answering the assessment
questions. It will be a challenge to get the time
from the most experienced people, but it is
their knowledge that will yield the desired Develop Site
results. Specific
Assessment Criteria
Conduct Basic The decision should have
Criticality been made as to the level at which the
criticality analysis will be performed.
Awareness Regardless of the level used, assessment
The Project Manager criteria must be developed. This will come in
must conduct an awareness session of the the form of specific questions and answers. The
criticality analysis process. This will include questions should be grouped into main
information on the process itself, resources categories, such as safety, environmental,
required, process customization, what to maintenance, operations, purchasing, and
expect, output, and opportunities to incorporate customer/facility impact. By including these
the results into other workstreams. areas in the assessment, the needs of the entire
site will be addressed.
Communication must be coordinated across all
levels of the organization to promote Ranking at the system level, equipment level,
awareness, understanding, acceptance, or failure mode level may be conducted. System
commitment, and advocacy. The engagement criticality is often performed at plants that
curve in Figure 4 shows how commitment is have not conducted a criticality assessment or
may have one that is outdated. Going through
a system level criticality assessment first

2013 Allied Reliability Group Page 5

identifies which systems are most critical to the analysis. To the contrary, they want the
process or facility. For those who have not gone process to be completed to the best of the
through a criticality assessment before, it is a groups ability without taking sides or
great starting point because the number of influencing the results. This can be problematic
systems is less as compared to the number of since discussions can become quite heated as
pieces of equipment. The group can begin individual personalities collide. A seasoned
forming and gain knowledge of the facilitated facilitator will expect the emotional up and
process. downs that are common during the process and
will use an adaptive leadership style to guide
However, system level criticality is not the groups through the inevitable conflicts. The
sufficient for making machine level decisions role of the facilitator is one of referee and
for resource allocation. The asset level should challenge the team when questions are
criticality assessment provides the granularity not consistently evaluated from one piece of
required to compare almost any asset to the equipment to the next.
next, yielding a clearer path as to where
resources should be allocated. The first step in the process is to document the
assumptions for the analysis. An assumption is
Once asset level criticality is completed, there used as a frame of reference and a source of
exists another level of refinement that should consistency during the analysis. Start with a
be applied to the most critical assets, ideally few easy ones to get the group moving in the
the top 5-20%. Because of their importance and right direction. One example would be to gain
their failure rate, these assets pose the greatest consensus that the most reasonable work case
risk to the plant if they fail. This next step will scenario will be used. The point of the analysis
focus on the failure mode level. This is not to select the catastrophic failures that
assessment process is known as Failure Mode, may only occur once in the sites operation.
Effects, and Criticality Assessment, or more With that said, if the site has experienced such
simply FMECA. Reviewing the specifics of how a failure in the past, then it is reasonable,
this machine fails will provide a much clearer particularly if no root cause analysis was
picture as to which maintenance techniques conducted and mitigating actions implemented.
are warranted to eliminate or at least prevent Continue building the assumptions list, but
the failure from occurring. FMECA is an keep in mind that assumptions can be added
essential part of understanding machinery anytime during the analysis when the group
failures and developing effective and efficient decides it provides value.
Equipment Maintenance Plans (EMP).
Begin the equipment analysis process and
Begin Criticality remind the team to focus on the question being
asked and provide their input as to the best
Facilitation
answer to select. The first few machines will
An often overlooked part of take an excruciatingly long time to complete.
the criticality team is the The facilitator must allow some of the
facilitator. Their job is to assist the group in posturing to take place between team members
understanding the common objective of the during this time, but must move the team back
criticality process and then enable them to on task. After the first 8-10 machines, the
reach consensus, while remaining neutral. Do group will enter a flow and move at a more
not interpret this to mean they are not reasonable pace. The goal is to randomly select
interested in whether the team completes the

Page 6 How to Rank Your Equipment: A Straightforward Roadmap

approximately 100 machines to rank so an Load Criticality
initial quality assurance check can be done.
Value Into CMMS

Perform Process Once the ranking is

completed and the result
Quality Checks approved, the values must
be added to the CMMS. Do not lose sight of the
A review of the answer
reasons why criticality analysis was required.
distribution and overall
As a reminder, using the assets numerical
machine ranking must be conducted to verify
criticality value can be used to prioritize a
that the rationale behind a question or group of
repair backlog for planning, a ready backlog for
answers is sound. A good place to begin this
scheduling, where to focus Bill of Material
review is on questions where the answers are a
(BOM) optimization, a spare parts plan, and
range of values. For example, the answers to
assets to receive scheduled maintenance, both
maintenance downtime may be given in a
preventive and condition based. None of these
range of hours that should be checked to make
can be accomplished without migrating each
sure one or two answers are not being selected
machines criticality value from the system
routinely. If this case exists, pull the team
used to develop the score into the daily work
together and ask for their input on refining the
management system used to support the
range of hours available for selection. These
functions previously listed.
types of adjustments are common in the
beginning and demonstrate to the criticality
team that the process is not an academic Conclusion
exercise. To efficiently and effectively complete
criticality analysis, there are key enablers to
Another area to review is the ranking
the process. Often overlooked, but a crucial
distribution. Evaluate the histogram to see if
component is establishing the governance
you see any tendencies, high or low, in the
structure for the project. Establishing a logic
scoring. It is possible that the initial group of
process for the analysis, obtaining the required
equipment selected is actually similar in
personnel, and selecting a knowledgeable
ranking, so verify with the team. You may find
facilitator will provide tremendous return on
it necessary to select another group of 30-40
the effort put forth during the analysis.
machines to rank and then reevaluate the
Completing the analysis is only part of the job,
distribution. The point is that the quality
so follow through on adding the machines
assurance process is ongoing and the
ranking to your CMMS. After a few weeks of
responsibility of the facilitator.
incorporating criticality into your daily work
processes, you will have a full appreciation of
the value it provides.

2013 Allied Reliability Group Page 7

 About Allied Reliability Group
Allied Reliability Group (ARG) offers best-in-
industry maintenance, reliability, and
operational consulting and services, training,
staffing, and integrated software solutions
servicing the industrial and manufacturing
sector.

Reliability it's in our DNA.

For more information about Allied Reliability

Group, please contact:

Global H eadquarters
843.414.5760

info@alliedreliability.com
www.alliedreliabilitygroup.com

2013 Allied Reliability Group How to Rank Your Equipment: A Straightforward Roadmap