RCM DELIVERS A 26% REDUCTION IN ANNUAL O&M COST
Updated: Mar 29, 2021
Contributing Re.engineer Partner:
Pinnacle, www.pinnaclereliability.com
Challenge:
A ten-year-old wastewater and water distribution facility in California needed to optimize its Operations & Maintenance (O&M) program due to issues that were negatively affecting profitability and performance. These challenges included:
A reactive maintenance strategy, which led to overstaffing
Design issues, including lack of adequate redundancy of critical systems
Too frequent and too early failure of assets
High O&M costs
Solution:
Pinnacle reliability experts conducted an Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) study and O&M Task selections to proactively structure the O&M program activities based on risk and reliability, rather than reactive response. Their safety review and program development ensured compliance with state and federal safety regulations. They also conducted a full facility condition assessment to confirm the client knew the condition and expected remaining lifespan of their assets, with capital improvement recommendations for better budgeting and long-term planning. Additionally, Pinnacle conducted an energy and process audit to provide further recommendations for cost savings and performance improvement.
Results:
By leveraging RCM strategies and programs, Pinnacle was able to improve quality of service while reducing staffing to just 3.5 full time equivalent operators and one maintenance technician—supporting the maintenance-centric philosophy. The RCM-based O&M approach helped to save the facility almost $250K annually, based on the previous contract, helping the facility to reduce annual O&M costs by 26 percent.
Impact:
$250K annually