Medical Construction & Design

JUL-AUG 2015

Medical Construction & Design (MCD) is the industry's leading source for news and information and reaches all disciplines involved in the healthcare construction and design process.

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BY TIMOTHY SCHIPPER A mentor once told me: "Maintenance is like aspirin. Too much will kill you, too little is not ef ective and if it could cure baldness you would never catch me without it." Just like aspirin, if predictive maintenance, or PdM, is not used for its intended purpose it becomes useless. PdM techniques are used to determine the condition of assets in order to predict when a maintenance activity should be performed. PdM focuses on early detec- tion of random failures that routine or time-based maintenance is not designed to capture. Overall, PdM techniques are used to detect failures sooner rather than later. The main advantages of deploying PdM are: 1 Increased safety – PdM proactively addresses problems before failure occurs, creating a safer environment as issues are identifi ed early and repairs can be mitigated. 2 Reduced equipment cost – Early detection allows for repairs to be made prior to a critical or catastrophic failure. Savings are realized since outages can be planned, personnel scheduled and parts ordered without being expedited. 3 Reduced labor cost – Early detection of catastrophic failures. Early detec- tion allows for a more strategic approach and reduction in call outs. When repairs are scheduled, they require less time as only a single component is being addressed and other components are not impacted through collateral damage. 4 Reduced productivity loss – When failures occur, it is a major disruption. Component replacement or repairs can be scheduled for of -peak hours to reduce the impact on productivity and personnel. MAKING PROACTIVE CHOICES TO MITIGATE POTENTIAL FAILURES PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE 5 Increased revenue – Early detection allows for repairs instead of replace- ments, reduces labor costs and reduces collateral damage. This equates to lower maintenance costs. One of the biggest misconceptions is that adopting PdM will deliver a signifi cant savings to the bottom line. The very nature of predicting a failure does not necessarily reduce routine or time-based maintenance; it simply uses dif erent methods to identify failures early to be proactive. These planned and scheduled events do equate to a cost savings, however, it is the avoidance of the cost of failure where PdM's true value is realized. To properly capture the value of PdM, the cost avoidance must be quantifi ed as in the following facilities management proposal: A recent assessment of potential issues with lighting ballasts proved the true value of PdM. It was dif cult to tell which ballasts may be going bad merely by looking at them. Replacing one ballast BUILDING CARE & OPERATIONS ISSUE FOCUS 32 Medical Construction & Design | J U LY/AUGUST 2015 | MCDM AG.COM

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