RCM DELIVERS A 26% REDUCTION IN ANNUAL O&M COST

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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