ABB’s Reliability Integrated Solutions

ABB recently came to ARC offices in Dedham for a briefing on their Reliability Integrated Solutions (RIS), a segment of ABB’s services business that provides end users with performance-based approach to maintenance that mitigates risks and consequences such as unplanned downtime and plant incidents. RIS fosters collaboration between production, maintenance, and engineering through interoperable solutions and benchmarking techniques. The goal is implementation of a site-based strategy for optimum maintenance practices that focuses on the areas of health, safety, environment, quality, reliability, productivity, and operational requirements. 

ABB offers a toolset as part of the solution that combines asset information from the company’s plant asset management applications (PAM), Dynamic Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), maintenance planning and scheduling and CMMS applications, inventory data, and alarm and alert information. The company combines this application expertise with services such as ABB Full Service contracts, its own World Class Reliability benchmark assessments, Total Plant Reliability Implementation, Reliability and Maintenance outsourcing, and education and training.

RIS zeroes in on the financial impact that maintenance has on the manufacturing enterprise and business performance. Things like unscheduled maintenance and maintenance overtime can be a real productivity drain. Most companies do not operate at a world class level when it comes to these metrics (most operate well below these levels). Some companies estimate that as much as 63 percent of maintenance labor results in no action, and the money spent on unnecessary maintenance can equal the size of plant’s entire profit.

ABB’s approach is unique in that it addresses industry segments across the board – from oil and gas to automotive and electronics production which includes remote diagnostic centers with expertise for targeted industries. The company takes a consultative approach that ideally begins with the front end engineering and design process and integrates design data with operational data and maintenance data. This is in line with ARC’s Design, Operate, and Maintain (DOM) concept for plant performance management. ABB has a large database of benchmarking information collected from hundreds of customers, allowing end users to measure themselves against “world class” performance measurements. The company’s “Integrate to Mitigate” approach to Dynamic OEE is gaining ground in both process and discrete industries, and ABB can effectively illustrate to customers how even a small change in OEE can have a big impact on plant profitability.