Earth Day awareness pushed the volcanic eruption in Iceland to the sidelines for a few days. I am just wondering if the volcano was just Mother Nature's way of saying don't forget about Earth Day. I am sure concerns about the ash cloud will return as there are several videos popping up demonstrating the impact of volcanic ash on engine components. We hope everyone had the opportunity to read our blogs and check out our website, but just in case you did not have the time to see our blogs and voter links as they were published, we have summarized them for you here. Please enjoy them and be sure to check back for new articles during the week. You can find a complete listing on the Mintek Blog.
The top article for the week was titled Tips for Negotiating an EAM/CMMS contract which discussed some of the intricacies involved when making an EAM purchase. A key point is that maintenance and facility managers must be truly involved in the decision making and price negotiations as it their knowledge that provides the information required to make a good business decision.
1. Tips For Negotiating an EAM/CMMS Contract
Author: Stuart Smith
The article discusses the value of negotiation an EAM/CMMScontract including, why, points of consideration, tips and things that can break a deal. The post stresses that price should not be the driving force behind narrowing the vendor selection. The points for consideration section addresses SaaS versus on-premise considerations as well as the need for project management, training and hardware needs.
Key Point: An EAM is not an off the shelf software package that can be installed cheaply or quickly. Setting up an EAM requires facility management to approach the implementation with careful planning.
2. Earth Day, Sustainability, Going Green and an EAM
Author: Stuart Smith
Much has been written about the green building trend, sustainability issues and other trends intended on improving energy awareness that sometimes the meaning of the terms is lost. This article describes the major terms associated with Earth friendly initiatives subsequently relating them to how an EAM can make an impact.
Key Point: The Earth's ability to provide resources is limited. There is no question that greater care must be taken to minimize the depletion of the world s resources. Green buildings, sustainability programs and implementing an EAM are all valuable tools for achieving a greater good.
Read Relevant Articles That We Found Last Week
But wait there is more. We have found several more articles that you might find to be interesting and even put them on our website for you to vote on. The 5 best this week are:
1. Non-traditional ROIs to improve you maintenance ROI: Part II and III
Author: Ralph W. “Pete” Peters
Mr. Peters has put together a fine article reviewing methods for getting the most out of your CMMS. Not surprisingly, many of his key points are related to the approach taken by maintenance management professionals including the recognition that a CMMS is just a tool that works best when everyone believes in the system working toward a common goal for maintenance excellence. Achieving this goal requires leadership, training as well as commitment.
Key Point: It is important to treat maintenance as a business unit or profit center and give them the proper tools to perform their function positively affecting the bottom line of any organization.
2. Earth Day, 4/22: 40 Ways to Go Green in the Workplace
Author: Heidi
Heidi's Earth Day post provided 40 ways building owners property/facility managers, administrators as well as employees can recognize or contribute to Earth Day awareness. Ideas ranged from facility sustainability tasks energy metering to recycling to changing over to more energy efficient lighting. She even includes some energy saving tips for office administrators such as powering down computers, copiers and other office equipment.
Key Point: There is something each of us can do to recognize Earth Day regardless of our position of influence.
3. Is the PM dying? Should we try to save it?
Author: Jeff Shiver
A short article posing the question of how preventive maintenance is losing favor. The reality is the terminology is being blended into other preventive maintenance methodologies such as predictive maintenance.
Key Point: Maintenance and facilities managers do not need to distinguish because predictive maintenance is a subset of preventive maintenance.
4. Communications: The CMMS Setup In A Maintenance Partnership
Authors: Ken Bannister
Another article describing the importance of communication when considering or implementing a CMMS. A CMMS is more than just a maintenance tool for scheduling and recording work. However, in order for a CMMS to be better utilized, all affected parties must work together to ensure that the data collection is valid and can be used to provide meaningful output. This includes being able to input accurate work order details, asset details, outcomes and so on.
Key Point: "The true power of the CMMS is derived from its ability to provide management reports"
5. Energy management and the CMMS
Authors: David Berger
David discusses the importance of installing energy management tools that will enable plants and other facilities to monitor energy usage. Once the data is collected an analysis can be performed to identify issues and solutions. This is not only green oriented but good business. This article was referenced in the Mintek Earth Day blog post mentioned above.
Key Point: The trend for green buildings is not going to go away anytime soon. Organizations need to get on the wagon now.
What We Learned This Week
Earth Day is not just a political event. It is a day to remember that we must all take better care of the resources our planet has given us. There are many ways individuals or companies can make a difference. For asset intensive organizations one of the ways facility and plant managers can makes a difference is to incorporate an EAM as one of their tools. When implemented properly an EAM will organize the care for energy consuming assets by scheduling maintenance related work such as inspections, preventive maintenance or work orders. Better maintenance translates into more energy efficient equipment.
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No sooner than I finished putting away my notes for writing blogs for St Patty's Day, April Fools and Earth Hour than Earth Day pops up. I knew it was coming not because it was on my calendar but because the web was already being inundated with articles describing suggestions on the may ways individuals or companies can participate. There is a nice list posted on FacilityBlog.com covering many to do list items. Not wanting to write another idea list, it occurred to me that there might be some confusion as to all the buzz terms being thrown around. So in order to make sure we are all on the same page, I have described the 5 major terms, indicated how facilities, plant and maintenance managers can help and finished with how an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system can help provide a positive impact.
The Fab 5
The terms are in no particular order of importance but since today is Earth Day it is listed first.
- Earth Day
- Description: Earth Day is designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. Founded in early 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, a longtime conservationist, Earth day inspired millions to begin taking notice of the world round them and to become more environmentally responsible. Earth Day is now celebrated in over 175 countries and provided key popular support for the establishment of The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1970), The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
- What organizations can do help: Companies can participate by either reinforcing or creating recycling programs, examining their carbon footprint by reviewing energy consumption, addressing pollution problems (indoor and outdoor), encouraging carpooling and work at home programs.
- How an EAM can help: Utilizing an EAM will enhance the ability of environmentally facilities managers track asset inventory for proper disposal, schedule inspections of energy consuming equipment or pollution control monitors to make sure they are working efficiently. More importantly, when integrated with handheld mobile technology, paperflow can be nearly eliminated saving countless trees.
- Earth Hour
- Description: Earth Hour was started in Australia in 2007 when residents of Sydney agreed to turn off the all the city lights for one hour in statement against global climate changes. The concept was to reduce the cities energy consumption, lowering the carbon footprint (reducing greenhouse gasses) and thus lowering the cities impact on global warming. Earth hour has spread to over 100 countries with thousands of cities taking part.
- What organizations can do help: The object of Earth Hour is lower the carbon footprint that all activity inherently produces. The biggest opportunity here is for building managers. Government, municipal, schools, and business can turn off all their lights saving wasted energy as well lowering their electric bill. Even 24 hour operations can turn the power down on unused portions of the facilities. Perhaps a greater longer term solution would be for facilities such as hospitals, plants and government buildings to install occupancy sensors to automatically control the lights to areas.
- How an CMMS can help: Energy saving devices can be installed in buildings for year round savings. Using the asset tracking functionality of an Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), building managers will always now where each piece of equipment is, when it was last checked, changed and condition. All lighting equipment can be scheduled for inspection or maintenance. Asset maintenance management is the true strength of a CMMS and is applicable to all types of businesses and industries.
- Green Buildings
- Description: Going green refers to the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally friendly and resource-efficient. The green theme is integrated into the building's entire lifecycle from design through construction, operation, maintenance, and destruction. Green themes can be are not just for new building as older buildings can be renovated or retrofitted. Objectives of green buildings include:
- Greater water, energy and waste efficiencies.
- Enhances indoor air quality, fewer employee sick days and ergonomic adjustments to improve productivity
- Reducing waste, pollution and addressing assets that add to environmental degradation
- What organizations can do help: Most building managers are well aware that that HVAC systems alone account for 40-60 percent of the building energy usage. Improperly maintained equipment will operate less efficiently increasing the energy costs to operate them. Facility, plant and all maintenance managers can install regularly scheduled maintenance programs to perform tasks ranging from filter changes to lubrication to corrosion removal. There was a good article recently called Energy management and the CMMS on PlantServices.com that describes some methods of energy monitoring.
- How an EAM/CMMS can help: EAM/CMMS systems are designed to maximize the efficiency of work flow by organizing and scheduling needed inspections, preventive maintenance as well as work orders. Just as importantly, when set up properly, they collect a wealth of historical maintenance history that can be used to identify problem areas or potential issues.
- Energy Consumption
- Description: Lowering energy consumption should have the effect of reducing the worlds carbon footprint which is best described as the amount of greenhouse gasses (CO2) produced. This makes sense as 80-90% of the worlds energy consumption comes from fossil fuels (coal, wood, oil, gas). Obviously, facilities having lower energy consumption should also result in lower energy costs.
- What organizations can do help: The short answer is just about everything. Energy savings tips can be found on most power driven assets. From chiller to boilers to HVAC units there is always an opportunity to make sure the equipment is operating at optimal efficiencies. Both office buildings and companies can implement policies of shutting down unused equipment such as computers, office machines or turning down/off lights in lightly trafficked areas.
- How an EAM/CMMS can help: The secret to lowering energy consumption for plants, hospitals, amusement parks, schools as all other facilities is to establish an effective energy reduction plan to be managed by an EAM/CMMS system. The advantage of using an EAM/CMMS solution is that it will identify each asset that needs to be maintained, provide the scheduling tools to optimize maintenance management, record the history of the work performed and most importantly provide maintenance management with data necessary to more accurately analyze the operational costs data for capital planning.
- Sustainability
- Description: Sustainability is the capacity to endure. Fears of fossil fuel depletion, pollution, and a growing world population have raised concerns about the Earths ability to continue supporting human life as we know it. The trickle down to industry is concerns that industry will fail or not be negatively impact the worlds ability to keep moving forward. Sustainability planning is a mindset that we can all do more to protect our planets resources from overuse and waste.
- What organizations can do help: Sustainability for industry refers to better planning for growth, energy use, natural resource conservation such as water or fuels and the reduction of waste products. For non-power producing organizations this can be achieved by education, training and going green strategies.
For the energy producing utility industry the need for sustainability is critical to their survival. The majority of energy producing power plants still use fossil fuels as the catalyst for energy production. Alternative fuel sources such as wind, solar, geothermal or biomass are still under developed. The opportunity for alternative fuel sources is how convert the source fuel into energy at economically feasible costs. This is the reason The Federal Government has initiated so many alternative fuel stimulus programs. Therefore reducing the demand for fossil fuels is crucial for sustainability.
- How an EAM can help: Energy costs are highly dependent on the amount of fossil fuel needed to begin the energy transfer process. The more efficient the energy conversion process the less fuel is used, costs are lower and energy is cheaper. Ideally, demand is constant and assets are run at 100% capacity with no down time. This will never be true, therefore energy producers need to exercise extreme vigilance in maintaining assets at optimal efficiency. Some equipment can be monitored by sensing devices but other assets may require a visual inspection to identify leaks, corrosion or other items that can cause equipment shutdown. An EAM is the perfect solution for establishing regularly scheduled maintenance procedures and incorporating various maintenance technologies to maximize uptime.
Tell us how your company helped to recognize Earth Day.
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Register for your chance to win a Free EAM & CMMS Worth $23,000
If you want a EAM & CMMS system, but can't afford to implement one this budget year; then this contest is perfect for you. We are offering a chance to win a FREE EAM & CMMS software suite. Contest includes a 1-year site license, 10 web/mobile licenses and support, as well as, training and implementation.