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Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

• Examine the current PM content for validity, because the PMs that require downtime need to be as short of a duration as possible. Try to find the technical basis for each of the tasks and tie them back to the failure modes they are intended to prevent or detect. If a task can't be tied to a failure mode, it's probably not worth doing. 
• Do an FMEA to ensure you are covering all the failure modes that you anticipate.
• Address as many of the failure modes as you can with condition monitoring technologies. 
• For those tasks that require downtime, try to find the right frequency by examining equipment history and/or talking to the experienced maintenance folks. 

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

• Examine the current PM content for validity, because the PMs that require downtime need to be as short of a duration as possible. Try to find the technical basis for each of the tasks and tie them back to the failure modes they are intended to prevent or detect. If a task can't be tied to a failure mode, it's probably not worth doing. 
• Do an FMEA to ensure you are covering all the failure modes that you anticipate.
• Address as many of the failure modes as you can with condition monitoring technologies. 
• For those tasks that require downtime, try to find the right frequency by examining equipment history and/or talking to the experienced maintenance folks. 

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

• Examine the current PM content for validity, because the PMs that require downtime need to be as short of a duration as possible. Try to find the technical basis for each of the tasks and tie them back to the failure modes they are intended to prevent or detect. If a task can't be tied to a failure mode, it's probably not worth doing. 
• Do an FMEA to ensure you are covering all the failure modes that you anticipate.
• Address as many of the failure modes as you can with condition monitoring technologies. 
• For those tasks that require downtime, try to find the right frequency by examining equipment history and/or talking to the experienced maintenance folks. 

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Bruce,

Thanks for the detailed reply and agree with everything you have mentioned.
However, as afore mentioned with the plant being as old as it, is it worth the effort of going through the detailed analysis you mention above? I am playing devil's advocate here. Unfortunately we are 20 years too late. 

A plant is only as old as management allow it to be, but typically once they reach 20+ years and start to become harder to maintain, this is usually the beginning of the end (in most cases).

Is it the case of regardless of how old a plant is it shouldn't matter? 

As an engineer is goes against everything I've been taught when it comes to maintaining plant to continue to run as is. But it really needs to be driven top down from management, and I am unsure what the appetite for this change would be.

Thanks
Derek 

• Examine the current PM content for validity, because the PMs that require downtime need to be as short of a duration as possible. Try to find the technical basis for each of the tasks and tie them back to the failure modes they are intended to prevent or detect. If a task can't be tied to a failure mode, it's probably not worth doing. 
• Do an FMEA to ensure you are covering all the failure modes that you anticipate.
• Address as many of the failure modes as you can with condition monitoring technologies. 
• For those tasks that require downtime, try to find the right frequency by examining equipment history and/or talking to the experienced maintenance folks. 

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

• Examine the current PM content for validity, because the PMs that require downtime need to be as short of a duration as possible. Try to find the technical basis for each of the tasks and tie them back to the failure modes they are intended to prevent or detect. If a task can't be tied to a failure mode, it's probably not worth doing. 
• Do an FMEA to ensure you are covering all the failure modes that you anticipate.
• Address as many of the failure modes as you can with condition monitoring technologies. 
• For those tasks that require downtime, try to find the right frequency by examining equipment history and/or talking to the experienced maintenance folks. 

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown

Hello all,

I was looking for some opinions on what your thoughts and experiences are with PM backlogs.
The plant I work in is a single train petrochemical production line that has a historical issue of backlog PM routines. There is some redundancy built in to the plant but not a lot, and some of the main pumps we have cannot be swapped over on the run, or the operators are not willing to.
I am new to the plant and when the planners asking what the issues are with backlogs, I was told it is mainly due to PM's cannot be completed as awaiting plant condition, I.e. a shutdown as there is no proper way to do the majority of these PM's on the run.

The issue seems to be there is a lot of reactive maintenance which obviously does not help so emergent work during running periods then gets prioritised before PM routines - and the cycle continues.

The management are now posing the question of if we could utilise contractors during shutdowns and outages to do the bulk of low skilled PM routines. Has anyone done this and what were your experiences?

For me the current routines are poor, with many time based routines and not a lot of condition monitoring (plant is 20 year old) and we should be shedding low value PM routines and moving as much as we can to CBM for equipment.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences on PM backlogs and how you over came it.

Thanks
Derek Brown