Maintenance Audit & RCM Analysis

Industry: Water & Sewerage Treatment

Location: Victoria

Type of contract: Fixed fee, provision of professional (consultancy) services

Duration of contract: Four weeks

Summary:

Transfield Worley Solutions conducted an audit of the client’s maintenance functions, with a primary objective to identify opportunities for improvements in the delivery of maintenance services.

The client’s network of more than 430 water and sewerage treatment assets included pumps, booster stations, storage units and disinfection units.

The maintenance audit was followed by an RCM analysis.

MAINTENANCE AUDIT & RCM ANALYSIS

Scope & Approach:

Transfield Worley Solutions was able to offer a comprehensive range of maintenance audit related services.

The approach taken focused on organisational and equipment-related aspects of the client’s maintenance functions. Using proven and well-documented audit criteria, a team of professionally-qualified maintenance engineers investigated the organisational structure, planning and procurement functions of the client’s maintenance operations.

Complementing the audit was a detailed analysis of the reliability of the main plant and equipment. By combining audit and analysis activities, Transfield Worley Solutions was able accurately to appraise the client’s situation in maintenance.

Outcomes & Benefits:

The client’s maintenance philosophy was essentially to perform breakdown maintenance only. Consequently, equipment availability figures were being driven downwards due to the delays incurred for spares deliveries.

The RCM analysis concluded that an increase in total maintenance labour was required to produce an overall reduction in the total cost of maintenance, across all sites.

The recommendations of the audit and RCM analysis were immediately implemented at the client’s two major operating sites, by amending the asset maintenance plans. The potential savings in the forecast total maintenance costs were significant, as described below:

	Site 1	Site 2
Labour	19.6% increase	69.1% increase
Spares	-19.6% decrease	-25.0% decrease
Effects	-58.9% decrease	-95.5% decrease
Callout	-30.9% decrease	-58.5% decrease
TOTALS	-20.2% decrease	-64.3% decrease

Such findings are not unusual in maintenance audits. Increased effort in planning and managing maintenance activities will lead to direct cost savings in the total maintenance costs.