Prioritization or Criticality? Selecting assets for analysis

When commencing a wide ranging asset improvement initiative there is always the question of where to begin the program of work. Popular discussion on this theme often turns to statements surrounding "criticality" and "critical assets".

Within small plants or single site operations this is a relatively simple thing to do but when the project spans expansive asset bases then there is an entirely different level of complexity involved.

However there are two distinct methods for determining the sequence of a program of works, that of prioritization, and that of criticality. These are two fundamentally different approaches that have two often different outcomes.

Prioritization is the listing of assets in terms of importance based on current business objectives or goals. This is also often referred to as Decision by Objective.

In its simplest form this approach is able to be done within a few decision makers in a room for a couple of hours, listing sites or assets, and then ranking them against current business objectives.

Criticality is a different animal altogether. This is the relative importance of the physical assets regardless of current business objectives. To get a true indication of the criticality of an asset there is a need first to understand the functions that the asset fills, then to understand the effects of each reasonably likely failure mode that could occur. Consequence categorization is carried out using a standard approach that lists safety first, then environmental damages, then operations, then economic only failure modes.

This is of course a pretty big task and is really only useful for hazardous asset bases, or for asset bases where there is a significant economic risk associated with failure. (and a limit to the funds available for fixing the problem)

But in its advanced form, prioritization can be a very complex approach. Still rapid, but able to deliver a sequence that bests describes the value for money for initiating the maintenance initiatives.

When confronted with situations such as this, I prefer to utilize a process called Analytical Hierarchical Process AHP. I will write some more on this issue in later posts.

In the meantime task some time to have a look through this online book. It is by a software company but contains a lot of good information. Hope it is of some interest.

http://mdm.gwu.edu/Forman/DBO.pdf

Cheers,

Daryl...