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Reliability-Centered Maintenance: A Case Study

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DOI: 10.1080/10429247.2000.11415089

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 EVALUATING A RELIABILITY CENTERED MAINTENANCE PROGRAM
FOR SUBSTATION EQUIPMENT AT NEW CENTURY ENERGIES
Randall G. Wilmeth, P.E.1
Substation Engineer, Southwestern Public Service
New Century Energies
Michael W. Usrey, Ph.D., P.E., C.P.I.M.
Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program
University of Colorado
Abstract - Energy markets are deregulating rapidly and the
price of energy is expected to decrease. Energy suppliers
that traditionally operated as regulated monopolies must
now find ways to improve their productivity. Energy
utilities are typically asset-intensive, so maintenance
activities present a potential area for productivity
improvement.
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) was
developed in the commercial aerospace industry
approximately 3 decades ago. In the 1980's, the Electric
Power Research Institute (EPRI) initiated studies for the
application of RCM to generating facilities. Recently,
EPRI has begun supporting the investigation of RCM
methodology in the transmission and delivery of electric
power.
New Century Energies (NCE) recently completed the
first phase of a pilot maintenance program for power
delivery equipment based on RCM methodology. Results
from the first-phase pilot study indicate that previous
maintenance strategies resulted in instances of both under-
maintenance and over-maintenance of the subject
equipment. Opportunity cost savings are illustrated,
though it will be necessary to implement RCM on a larger
scale before these savings can make a significant impact
on the bottom line.
1. Introduction
The anticipated deregulation of the electric utility
industry has prompted numerous utility mergers. New
Century Energies (NCE), was formed in 1997 from the
merger of Southwestern Public Service, Co. (SPS) and
Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCO). Just
recently, NCE announced plans to merge with Northern
States Power (NSP) based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. If
this merger is successful, the combined utility will stretch
from the border of Canada to the border of Mexico.
1 1995).
C/O Lockheed Martin Engineering Management
Program, CB 433, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
80309-0433. Phone: 303-492-2570, Fax: 303-492-1443,
E-mail: randallw@swps.com
When deregulation is completed and utilities are
competing at the wholesale and retail level, only the most
efficient utilities will prevail. During the SPS/PSCO
merger, merger teams reviewed all business processes for
potential cost savings. Numerous areas were identified for
downsizing or outsourcing and the new company was
separated into functional based business units. Since
operation and maintenance (O&M) costs are a major item
in every utility cost structure, the Delivery Business Unit
was charged with creating new processes to reduce O&M
costs.
One area that the merger team identified for
additional after-merger savings was substation equipment
maintenance. The merger team suggested that a combined
substation equipment maintenance program for both
operating companies be developed. The Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI) Reliability Centered
Maintenance (RCM) Platform was recommended to be the
basis for the NCE program. A team was formed to
develop a combined maintenance program for both
operating companies based on RCM methodology.
A review of the origins and evolution of RCM is
presented. The benefits of using RCM as the basis for a
maintenance plan are discussed. Successes and failures
experienced by other utilities while attempting to
implement RCM and corresponding insights are outlined.
Results of a pilot implementation at the subject company
are presented. Management issues, including those related
to recent merger and acquisition activity, are examined.
2. Reliability Centered Maintenance Methodology
2.1. RCM Evolution
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) was
developed by the commercial aircraft industry about thirty
years ago. In the process of obtaining Type Certification
for the new Boeing 747 jumbo jet, it was determined that
applying the maintenance strategies of that time made the
jet impossible to operate profitably (Smith, 1993). The
huge size of the 747, compared to previous commercial
aircraft and the numerous technological advances led the
aircraft industry to develop new approaches to aircraft
maintenance. Maintenance engineers at United Airlines
led the effort to reevaluate preventive maintenance
strategy and helped develop the basic concepts and
processes that has become known as RCM (Matteson,
The initial RCM development was based on failure
history databases that the commercial aviation industry
had accumulated. By studying documented failure
histories, United Airlines proved that the classic "bathtub"
shaped failure curve of time vs. # of failures was not
accurate for the aviation industry’s nonstructural
equipment. They determined that 89% of all nonstructural
components failed in a random nature and that only 11%
experienced an aging characteristic (Smith, 1993). From
this observation, the percentage of components that are
replaced on “hard-time” units has been reduced from 58%
in 1964 to 9% in 1987 while “condition-monitored”
component replacements went from 2% in 1964 to 51% in
1987 (ibid.). The effects of these changes allowed the
commercial airline industry to reduce maintenance costs
and hold them at a flat rate through the early 1980’s
(ibid.).
The FAA accepted the new approach to aircraft
maintenance and it has been used on virtually every new
or retrofitted aircraft to obtain licensing (ibid.). The new
methods were labeled “Reliability-Centered Maintenance”
by the Department of Defense (DOD) in 1977 and the
DOD directed that RCM be adopted for all major military
systems (Matteson, 1995). In the mid-1980’s, the Electric
Power Research Institute (EPRI) initiated RCM pilot
studies on nuclear power plants.
Since that time, RCM has been adapted for
application at all types of facilities. Over the past five
years, EPRI has funded RCM pilot projects in the power
delivery sector and has developed supporting technical
references and Computerized Maintenance Management
Systems (CMMS). Approximately 40 EPRI member
utilities are in various stages of implementing RCM in the
power delivery sector.
2.2. Reliability Centered Maintenance Definition
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is a
resource optimization method that is used to develop and
refine maintenance programs. The RCM process is a tool
that allows a maintenance manager to focus scarce
maintenance dollars on supporting only the critical
functions of a piece of equipment required to ensure
reliable operation. Maintenance tasks generated from
RCM analysis are justified by actual equipment
performance data, rather than relying solely on
manufacturers’ specifications or past company practices.
According to Schwan (1999), “the goal of RCM is to
create routine maintenance strategies that preserve
important system/equipment functions in the most cost-
effective manner”.
Traditionally, substation equipment preventive
maintenance has been time directed and scheduled on
specific hard-time intervals. When it is time to do
maintenance, the equipment is tested, inspected, cleaned,
lubricated and re-calibrated. Maintenance tasks scheduled
on hard-time intervals are based on the premise that
equipment wore out at a specific rate and required periodic
overhauls to return the equipment to like-new condition.
EPRI and its member utilities researched failure histories
of utility equipment and proved that utility equipment, like
airline equipment, often does not have defined age-related
failure rates.
As maintenance budgets are cut, maintenance
managers are realizing that they do not have a basis to
justify their current time-directed preventive maintenance
programs. Since the RCM process requires each piece of
equipment or system to be analyzed and every
maintenance task to be justified, a maintenance program
based on RCM has documented technical justification for
each maintenance task.
2.3. Main Steps of an RCM Analysis
The original RCM model is now called classical
RCM and is still commonly used by the aerospace and
nuclear power industries. As RCM methodology has been
applied to different industries, the process has evolved to
fit the needs of each application (August, 1999). Most
RCM applications outside of heavily regulated industries
utilize a streamlined version of RCM.
Streamlined RCM skips the time consuming process
of building a failure history database for each piece of
equipment and allows the user to rely on the experience
and knowledge of subject matter experts for failure modes
and causes. The streamlined RCM process allows a utility
to start the RCM process quickly and then add changes
later through a formalized feedback process called a living
maintenance program.
The seven steps below are the main steps of
performing a streamlined RCM study using the EPRI
model for Power Delivery applications as defined by
Schwan (1999).
1) Establish the scope of the study. Boundaries are
established to define the limits of the work.
2) Identify interfaces. Interfaces are identified to further
define the limits of the study by specifically listing the
required inputs or connections that will not be studied.
3) Specify important functions. RCM seeks to preserve
only the most important functions of a system or
equipment.
4) Identify dominant failure modes. Dominant modes of
failure, that fail an important function, are identified for
evaluation.
5) Identify critical failure modes. The consequences of
failure are evaluated for each dominant failure mode to
determine their severity. If severe, then the failure mode
is deemed critical. Non-critical failure modes are not
considered further in the study.
6) Identify dominant failure causes. Dominant causes of
failure are identified for only the modes of failure
deemed critical. Only maintenance preventable causes
of failure are considered.
7) Select maintenance tasks. Using decision logic,
routine maintenance tasks are selected to directly and
 cost-effectively address each dominant cause of failure.
Changes in design and operation are also considered.
Allowing equipment to operate until failure is also
considered. This process is discussed in more detail in
Section 5.7.
2.4. CMMS and Living Maintenance Program
The maintenance tasks developed during a RCM
study are driven by multiple mechanisms that have unique
frequencies. To create and manage the various tasks, a
Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS)
is required. A CMMS database should be three
dimensional, with information on the equipment asset, the
equipment type and location of the asset (Picknell, 1997).
The equipment asset database should contain
nameplate data and other physical attributes required. By
including equipment failure symptoms, cause codes,
failure modes, and corrective action codes, an equipment
failure history can be built. When the incurred costs are
included, a cost history of the equipment item can be
produced (ibid.).
The equipment type database contains information
such as parts lists, specifications, and standard
maintenance procedures to be stored only once for a
particular type of equipment. An integrated CMMS will
allow the user to check if parts on the parts list are in stock
(ibid.).
A location database allows the user to track
environmental and operating condition effects on
equipment performance. Cost and performance can then
be shown by location, district, division, and operating
company (ibid.).
In order to manage the mechanisms that set the
frequency of tasks selected in the RCM process, EPRI has
developed a Maintenance Management Workstation
(MMW). The MMW is designed to work with any existing
CMMS and consists of the four major elements listed
below (Vujovic, 1999): Historical Information Warehouse,
Performance Assessment Module (PAM), Maintenance
Ranking Assessor (MRA) Module, and Universal Data
Integration
The MMW integrates operating and condition
monitoring data from numerous sources including
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems
(SCADA) and test equipment. As maintenance triggers
are hit, the MMW ranks the resulting maintenance tasks
and can automatically issue work orders.
EPRI has also developed a living preventive
maintenance (PM) program for continual optimization of a
maintenance program. They define a living PM program
for substations as “a programmatic approach to
maintaining and improving the PM program such that the
functionality of equipment and systems is preserved in a
cost-effective manner” (Schwan, et al, 1996). The living
PM program is used not only to measure the effectiveness
of individual maintenance tasks, but also the effectiveness
of the whole maintenance program. New maintenance
technologies are evaluated and feedback from the
maintenance personnel is reviewed. Recommendations for
design and operation changes are made through the living
PM program.
3. RCM Examples
The utilities discussed below are examples of both
successful and unsuccessful attempts at basing a
maintenance program on RCM.
3.1. Puget Sound Energy
Puget Sound Power & Light Company was
motivated to develop new ways to maintain equipment
after large budget cuts were made by management. Puget
Sound Power started the RCM process in 1991 and has
applied the RCM process to substation equipment, circuit
breakers, transformers, voltage regulators, transmission
and distribution line maintenance (Skog, 1994).
In 1994, Puget joined five other utilities and
participated in an EPRI sponsored Substation Reliability
Centered Maintenance Project. After completion of the
EPRI project, Puget Sound Power adopted the EPRI
workstation software tool to validate previous RCM
findings and to document them (Skog, 1995).
In 1995, they reported that the planned preventative
maintenance for substation equipment at Puget Sound
Power had been reduced significantly. The drivers of their
LTC maintenance program had changed from time to
operational, loading, and condition monitoring. For circuit
breakers, they reported that maintenance intervals had
been extended considerably with more emphasis being
placed on the operating mechanisms (ibid.).
Puget Sound Power felt their liability due to
equipment failures decreased by using the RCM process to
document their maintenance program. Their insurance
companies viewed the process as a risk management
approach and were comfortable with the new maintenance
approach plan (ibid.).
In 1997, Puget Sound Power & Light Co. merged
with Washington Natural Gas Co. to form Puget Sound
Energy, Inc. The new organizational structure of Puget
Sound Energy did not include RCM. Most preventive
maintenance has been eliminated and a run to failure
approach is being used. The company has discussed
revisiting the RCM approach; however, no formal action
has been taken (Tam, 1999).
3.2. Bonneville Power Administration
Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) also
participated in the 1994 EPRI Substation Reliability
Centered Maintenance project to develop RCM methods
for transmission and distribution facilities. The existing
maintenance program at BPA had been primarily time-
based (Sarkinen, et al, 1996). For the EPRI project, BPA
chose to use the RCM system approach for a pilot project
at Santiam Substation.
The results of the BPA pilot project convinced BPA
to recommend implementation of a RCM based substation
maintenance program for the rest of their system. They
estimated that cost savings of up to 40% would be realized
and that the benefits will provide a payback within one
year (ibid.).
In order to implement the project, BPA felt they
would require a management steering committee to
oversee the RCM project, a four to six member RCM
analysis team and basic scheduling tools (ibid.).
Today, BPA feels that their RCM implementation
has been a success. A key finding was that their previous
preventive maintenance program included many
maintenance tasks that were of no value (ibid.). As it
turned out, BPA found that their maintenance personnel
had already realized that some tasks were not productive
and had stopped performing them. Even with their
maintenance personnel not performing all the written
maintenance tasks, a large maintenance backlog was on
the books. The large backlog kept BPA from realizing the
estimated 40% in a cost savings originally predicted
(Sarkinen, 1999).
Buy-in from maintenance personnel was enhanced
when they understood that the RCM-based maintenance
tasks were efficient tasks with a technical purpose. BPA is
not currently using a living maintenance program, but has
implemented a trouble reporting database. The database
will be used to trend failures and modify the current RCM
based maintenance tasks as needed (ibid.).
The success of the RCM program at BPA has been
based on reducing maintenance tasks and maintenance
backlog. Due to the difficulty of measurement, additional
benefits from reliability and equipment availability
improvements have not been identified.
3.3. BC Hydro and Power Authority
BC Hydro started following the use of RCM in the
electrical industry in 1987. In 1994, BC Hydro joined the
1994 EPRI Substation Reliability Centered Maintenance
project. For the EPRI project, BC Hydro chose to study
substation battery maintenance. At the time of their
report, they had not finished their study, but were
evaluating new technologies to see if battery maintenance
could be reduced significantly (Fernihough, 1995).
Since 1995, BC Hydro has been implementing a
RCM program. They reported savings of 20% to 50% in
job site hours on circuit breakers and about 15% on
transformers. BC Hydro is evaluating impedance testing
of batteries in an effort to prove that discharge tests are not
required and to reduce battery maintenance costs
(Fernihough, 1999).
Fernihough suggests that the cheapest way to start a
RCM program is to buy maintenance procedures from a
company that has already implemented RCM, but he does
not recommend that approach because employee buy in
might not occur. The continued success of the RCM
program is dependent on buy in from the maintenance
personnel. To achieve buy in, he recommends that
knowledgeable field personnel be included in the RCM
analysis (ibid.).
A company must develop a formal process of
organizing the RCM tasks into maintenance documents,
distributing them, and incorporating them into the work
management system. If the computerized work
management system is not capable of integrating the RCM
results, implementation will fail (ibid.).
3.4. TXU
TXU started evaluating a RCM based program in
1994. At that time, TXU did not have a computerized
maintenance management system and most substation
maintenance tasks were scheduled by time only. Over the
past five years, TXU has implemented a computerized
maintenance management system and now bases most
maintenance tasks on equipment operations. The
transformation from time based to operations based
maintenance has yielded large cost savings. TXU is now
evaluating how to incorporate the RCM process into their
existing program to develop a “Smart Maintenance
Program”. An additional 10 to 15% in savings is expected
after RCM implementation (Ryman, 1999).
TXU is splitting the power grid into sections and a
reliability goal will be set for each section. A minimum
level of maintenance for continued operation of equipment
will be set and additional maintenance tasks will be
performed in areas where higher reliability is cost
justified. A Maintenance Guide Task Force is leading the
overall effort and sub teams are being used for evaluations
of each section. The EPRI RCM workstation is being
evaluated (Rose, 1999).
4. Equipment Selected for Study
For NCE, DC power supplies were chosen for RCM.
DC power supplies were chosen because of their relative
simplicity and correspondingly low cost of RCM analysis.
In spite of their simplicity, DC power supplies are
considered to be the most important piece of equipment in
any substation, because they provide the power needed to
operate protective equipment.
5. Application of RCM to Substation DC Power
Supplies
The RCM process described in Section 2.3 is applied
to DC power supplies in this section.
5.1. Scope of Substation DC Power Supply
 The DC power supply in a substation includes a A dominant failure mode describes how a piece of
battery charger and a storage battery. During normal equipment is likely to fail. During the equipment walk-
operating conditions, the battery charger powers DC downs, known failure modes were discussed. The failure
operated equipment in a substation and keeps the battery modes identified were then compared to the dominant
fully charged. If the battery charger fails or AC input failure modes listed in EPRI’s RCM Technical Reference
power is lost, the storage battery provides emergency DC for Substations (Schwan, et al, 1996). The dominant
power to the equipment. failure modes are shown in column one of Exhibit 2
A DC power supply is actually defined as a system
because it consists of two separate and distinct pieces of Dominant
equipment. Instead of performing separate equipment Failure
Modes Failure Effects Criticality
studies on the battery and battery charger, the equipment
Loss of Circuit breakers will not trip for faults. Critical
will be grouped together and a system study will be Battery Possible public/employee safety
performed. Two substations are considered; the only Conduction hazard. Possible damage to protective
major difference is that Indiana Substation is equipped Path equipment.
with remote alarms while Hendricks Substation is not. Loss of Shortens duration that storage battery Critical
A system walk-down was completed for both DC Battery can carry load. Circuit breakers will
power supplies to learn about their design, operation, and Capacity not trip for faults.
the actual maintenance tasks being performed. The first Incorrect/No When charger fails, storage battery is Critical
author and the person responsible for battery maintenance Output from only source of DC power. After
performed the walk-down. Battery battery is exhausted, circuit breakers
Charger will not trip for faults.
5.2. System Boundary and Interfaces Monitor Fails Unaware of battery condition. Critical
A boundary is defined so that the limits of the RCM to Provide
Alarm
study are known. The battery, battery charger, and (Indiana only)
interconnecting cable encompass the physical boundary of Exhibit 2 Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality
the system.
The interfaces are items that originate outside of the
5.5. Failure Mode Criticality
equipment boundary and are assumed to always be A criticality determination for each dominant failure
available to support equipment or system operation. The mode is made so that maintenance resources are applied
following interfaces were identified for the battery system. only where the consequences of failure warrant. The
1) AC input to battery charger. criticality levels for this study are shown in the Exhibit 3
2) Ground connection to battery charger. When a dominant failure mode is deemed non-
3) Cable to DC bus. critical, it is less costly to apply corrective maintenance.
4) Remote SCADA alarms (Indiana study only) For every critical dominant failure mode, a predictive or
Exhibit 1 illustrates the system boundaries and interfaces. preventive maintenance regime is sought that will avoid
the failure.

Criticality Level Criteria

Exhibit 1. DC Power Supply System Block Diagram
5.3. Important System Functions
Only the important functions of a system are
included in a RCM study. One determines the important
functions by evaluating why the equipment was installed.
A DC power supply has only one important function
and that is to provide DC power to substation equipment
(Schwan, et al., 1996).
5.4. Dominant Failure Modes
Minor operational inconvenience.
Non-critical Effects of failure costs less than $250
Public/employee safety risk; customer
Critical outages; damage to adjacent
equipment; adverse publicity.
Exhibit 3 DC Power Supply Failure Criticality Levels
The failure effects and criticality determinations for
the DC power supply are shown in columns two and three
of Exhibit 2
5.6. Dominant Failure Causes
A dominant failure cause describes why the
equipment failure mode occurs. The failure cause must be
understood so that the type of maintenance resources
applied can effectively avoid the failure mode. The
dominant failure causes listed in EPRI’s RCM Technical
Reference for Substations (Schwan, et al, 1996) for
batteries and battery chargers were reviewed and assigned
to all failure modes. For example, the dominant failure
causes for "Loss of Battery Conduction Path" are shown in
column one of Exhibit 4
Dominant RCM RCM
Failure Recommended RCM Task Task
Causes Task Type Description Frequency
Loose Condition Resistance test
connection Monitoring (Micro-ohm) Annually
Clean corroded
Corrosion Time Directed connections & coat Quarterly
w/oxidation inhibitor
Measure voltage from
Grounding Time Directed + & - terminals to Annually
ground
Exhibit 4 Failure Causes and Maintenance Tasks
5.7. Maintenance Task Selection
The task selection logic mentioned in Section 2.3 was
used to determine if a cost effective maintenance task
exists for each dominant failure cause. A brief description
of the decision logic follows: If cost effective condition
monitoring is available, then a predictive maintenance
program is indicated. If condition monitoring is
unavailable, then a time-based, preventive maintenance
task is recommended. If a preventive maintenance task is
not applicable, then one decides if the failure can be
tolerated. When a failure can not be tolerated, a system
design change is requested from engineering. If a failure
can be tolerated and is not evident, a periodic failure
finding task is specified. When a failure can be tolerated
and is evident, the item is run to failure then and a
corrective maintenance task is performed. This decision
process is followed for each dominant failure cause. The
resulting list should be reviewed to verify that each task is
the most cost effective and technically correct to prevent
the associated failure cause.
While the RCM process does an excellent job of
creating an optimum task list, it can not set task
frequencies. Selection of the optimum maintenance
interval for a system or device is dependant upon a
thorough understanding of how periodic maintenance
tasks prevent a failure mode and the ability to accurately
model a device's aging process (Skog, 1995). Failure
costs including customer impact costs and the probability
of failure should also included (ibid.). The goal is to find
the maintenance interval where total costs are minimized.
When a utility does not have all the information that
Skog (1999) recommends, employee knowledge,
documented failure histories, and vendor
recommendations appear to be the best sources of
information for setting task frequencies. The RCM
recommended task type, task description, and task
frequency for the DC power supply are shown in columns
2 through 4, respectively, of Exhibit 4
5.8. Task Comparison
After the RCM analysis and recommendations are
finished, a comparison is made between the RCM
recommended tasks, the existing maintenance tasks, the
vendors' recommendations and regulatory requirements.
During the comparison, the tasks from each source are
evaluated to see if they address critical failure modes. If a
task does not support a critical failure mode, is not
mandated by a regulatory authority, and does not
invalidate a warranty, then the task is deleted.
The remaining set of tasks and their frequencies are
consolidated so that maintenance personnel can efficiently
complete the tasks. The resulting set of tasks will usually
identify some areas where former practices were deficient
and show other areas where the previous maintenance
approach was excessive (Fernihough, 1995).
5.9. Comprehensive Maintenance Strategy
Comprehensive maintenance strategies for the DC
power supplies at Hendricks and Indiana Substations were
recommended.
At Hendricks, the discontinuation of one task and the
addition of one new task were recommended.
Recommendations were made that would modify six of the
remaining thirteen tasks. In each case, the modification
was to reduce task frequency.
At Indiana Substation, the discontinuation of one
task and the addition of two new tasks were
recommended. Recommendations were made that would
modify five of the remaining twelve tasks. Again, each
modification was to reduce task frequency.
6. Analysis of DC Power Supply Study Results
The station inspection personnel consulted for this
project estimated that savings of 3 man-hours per year
would be gained by adopting the recommended
maintenance strategy. Although these savings sound
insignificant, they are in fact quite substantial when
repeated across all of the DC power supplies utilized by
SPS.
Exhibit 5 shows the estimated savings and
expenditures to implement the RCM study to the 437 SPS
DC power supplies. The estimated first year net savings
will be $38,727. The return on the initial investment will
be an estimated 640% in the first year.
Estimated Hourl Year 1 Annual
Cost Category Hours y Rate Savings Savings
Maintenance
1311 $33 $43,263 $43,263
Personnel

Supervision 24 $42 $1,008 $1,008
Clerical 24 $21 $504 $504
RCM Analyst -
32 $42 ($1,344) - the same, the maintenance interval has to be shortened to
Initial Study
RCM Analyst -
112 $42 ($4,704) - equipment located in the worst operating environments.
Migration
TOTAL $38,727 $44,775
Exhibit 5 Maintenance Strategy Financial Analysis
7. RCM Study Conclusions
The RCM studies for Hendricks and Indiana
Substations indicate that some components of the DC
power supplies are being over maintained, while others are
not being maintained at all. These results concur with
typical RCM study results (Fernihough, 1995).
In order to capture the maximum savings, the
completed RCM studies will have to be migrated across
the entire population of DC power supplies at SPS. Also,
if management’s goal of having a combined maintenance
plan for both SPS and PSCO is to be met, the results of the
SPS studies will need to be reviewed to determine if the
final maintenance strategy is feasible for the PSCO DC
power supplies.
Substation inspections at SPS are being performed on
a monthly basis and many items besides DC power
supplies are being checked and recorded. In the future, as
more functions are automated, the number of monthly
substation inspections will be reduced. The current
research indicates that when battery alarms are available,
DC power supply inspections can be reduced from 12 per
year to 4 per year. Even though the number of trips to
substations for inspection purposes will not be reduced at
this time, the amount of time required to inspect each
location will be reduced.
8. Management Issues
8.1. Limitations of Existing Preventive Maintenance
Program
The streamlined RCM process for power delivery
equipment developed by EPRI has been proven to be an
effective analysis tool upon which to base a substation
equipment maintenance program. Puget Sound Power,
Bonneville Power Administration, and TXU are examples
of utilities that were using time based maintenance
programs for their substation equipment. RCM analysis
showed these utilities that a combination of condition
monitoring, time directed, failure finding, and corrective
maintenance tasks would not only provide a more reliable
equipment base, but would also save money.
Currently the SPS operating company schedules
substation equipment maintenance primarily on a time
basis. A blanket approach of performing maintenance at
specified time intervals does not take in to account the
different operating conditions visited upon the equipment
or the differences in design between equipment types or
manufacturers. When every piece of equipment is treated
attempt to prevent failures for the poorest designed
The time driven maintenance schedule has kept SPS
maintenance managers from taking advantage of the
reduced amount of maintenance that some designs permit.
The DC power supplies utilized at Indiana and Hendricks
substations offer a good example of the value of RCM;
batteries at both substations are designed to require less
maintenance than conventional units, but they were being
maintained in the same manner required of less
technologically advanced batteries.
The simplicity of a time based program allowed for
easy implementation, tracking and supervision, but ends
up over-maintaining some equipment while leaving others
susceptible to failure. With the development of
computerized maintenance management systems, the
difficulty in implementing RCM can be reduced.
8.2. Implementing a RCM Based Maintenance
Program
In the authors' opinion, there are several important
items that need to be addressed to successfully implement
a RCM based maintenance program. First is the
company’s culture and willingness to accept and support
change. Without acceptance and support from
management and maintenance crews, any new program
will be difficult to implement. Second is developing and
maintaining a Computerized Maintenance Management
System, and a Living Maintenance Program for continual
optimization. Third is a way to measure success. Fourth
is establishing realistic goals and expectations.
8.2.1. Corporate Culture
The corporate culture of NCE has not had time to
fully develop since the merger of SPS and PSCO was
completed. Before the merger, PSCO went through a
competitive reorganization in 1994 and reduced their
workforce by 17% using layoffs and early retirement
incentives (Public Service Company of Colorado, 1994).
In 1997, the merger process reduced the PSCO employee
base an additional 19% (Southwest Public Service, 1997).
On the other hand, SPS had been reducing its work
force through attrition since having an early retirement in
1986 (Southwestern Public Service Company, 1986). The
merger resulted in an additional 19% reduction (Southwest
Public Service, 1997). Before the merger, SPS had a
typical regulated monopoly mind set. The goal of SPS
was to provide reliable electric service and a stable return
to the stockholders (Southwestern Public Service
Company, 1996). New technologies were implemented
only after the utility industry had proven their
effectiveness.
After the merger was completed, a business unit
structure was adopted and the company was reorganized to
be more competitive in a deregulated environment (New
Century Energies, 1998). The pending merger with
Northern States Power is a source of uncertainty. With
NCE being in a constant state of flux, PSCO and SPS
continue to have two distinct cultures.
The emphasis of NCE’s management has been on
earnings and profitability and a continuous improvement
policy has been implemented. Under this policy,
management is open to accepting new ideas and actively
promotes employee ideas that result in savings to the
bottom line (New Century Energies, 1999).
Maintenance personnel may not be so accepting.
Optimizing maintenance activities will possibly result in
lower employment levels and the job duties of many
maintenance personnel will change. With RCM, they will
be responsible for keeping better records and updating
CMMS system. In order for RCM to be successful, these
individuals will need to understand how the change will
benefit them. For instance, the RCM tasks will utilize new
technologies that require skilled employees. As
employees gain skills, they become more valuable and are
less likely to be replaced with contract labor. Another
benefit is that RCM will reduce some of the mundane
tasks that have no meaning. The tasks that will be
performed will be done with a specific purpose. This will
increase job satisfaction because an employee will be able
to see that their contributions make a difference to the
performance of a piece of equipment.
8.2.2. CMMS and Living Maintenance Program
Before a RCM based maintenance program can be
fully implemented, a Computerized Maintenance
Management System (CMMS) needs to be in place. The
utility must verify that the CMMS that is being used will
be able to handle the output of the RCM studies and
accommodate the different tasks between equipment types.
The CMMS should also be able to store and interpret test
data from condition monitoring tasks.
Once a RCM based program has been implemented,
the maintenance program can not be carved in stone.
Additional failure modes and failure causes will be found
and maintenance tasks and frequencies should be adjusted.
A process to modify the existing preventive maintenance
program needs to be available.
The living PM program provides a formal two-way
communication path between field personnel and the
maintenance steering group or task force. Information
flows must easily allow maintenance related equipment
failures to be analyzed. When problems arise, decisions
must be made quickly and maintenance task changes
redistributed to remote areas easily.
8.2.3. Measurement
If the success of a RCM program is to be measured,
there has to be a process available to measure the
effectiveness of the existing preventive maintenance
program. A baseline measurement is needed to accurately
compare the results of the RCM based program to the
existing program. According to Richardson and Giesecke
(1999b), an ideal system would include:
 Preventive and Corrective maintenance costs accounted
for on an individual equipment basis
 Outages caused by equipment failures (including total
outage costs and failed equipment ID)
 Failure rates and reliability of equipment
 Equipment availability
 Avoided costs prevented by maintenance program.
 Estimated cost of worst case, possible case and probable
case multiplied by the probability of each.
At most utilities, information is not available for
many of the items listed above (Skog, 1995). Usually, one
system has some of the data while another has a few other
items and neither system is capable of integrating the
information. In the absence of detailed information, about
the only way to measure the cost of a preventive
maintenance program is the yearly maintenance budget.
8.2.4. Realistic Goals and Expectations
In order to establish realistic goals, an organization
structure must be in place to manage the RCM process. A
formal program should be established with an entity or
individual designated to lead the effort (Richardson and
Giesecke, 1999a). The Maintenance Steering Group
(MSG) at NCE is a likely candidate. RCM
implementation will require financial support not only to
perform the RCM analysis, but also to promote employee
buy in, purchase condition monitoring equipment and fund
design changes in equipment that result in reduced
maintenance expenditures. Management approval of a
multiple year RCM budget should be a top priority.
After funding is obtained, the MSG should develop
short-term goals for completing RCM equipment studies.
Then long-term implementation goals should be set with
periodic evaluations to justify program continuation.
A maintenance manager must avoid the pitfall of
assuming estimated cost savings will be realized
automatically. Reducing the number of maintenance tasks
on any piece of equipment will not immediately reduce
maintenance costs. Even though the RCM study for the
SPS DC power supplies indicated significant savings
potential when migrated across the entire SPS equipment
population, the actual reduction in time per substation
inspection is very small. SPS is split into 3 divisions and
thirteen districts due to the long distances between the
small communities that are served. Since payroll is the
biggest expenditure of operation and maintenance budgets,
the only way to immediately achieve cost savings is to
eliminate positions. The RCM analysis of nearly all the
substation equipment should be completed before the
maintenance staff requirements are reviewed. For the
estimated cost savings to be realized, a manager will have
to reorganize the substation inspection personnel.
Additional equipment will have to come under RCM
before integer headcount reductions can be realized.
Management needs to realize that implementing a
RCM program is a multi-year project and that results will
not be seen overnight.
8.3. Improvement Technology
Building a world class organization is the goal of the
improvement process that NCE has implemented. Rooted
in Deming’s work on quality management, the
improvement process incorporates the plan-do-check-act
cycle for continuous process improvement. The RCM
process also maps to the plan-do-check-act cycle.
During the plan phase, the failure modes are
analyzed to determine what maintenance needs to be done.
The do phase occurs when the RCM based maintenance
tasks are implemented. The living maintenance program is
used to check the results, to determine actual versus
planned. Based on the check, the maintenance steering
group will act, either to refine, change, or implement fully.
8.4. Replicating RCM Processes between Operating
Companies
There are two factors to consider when replicating
RCM processes between the operating companies at NCE.
First, the workforce at SPS and PSCO are unionized and
each operating company has a separate contract with its
local union. Although both unions represent utility
workers, the labor contracts are very different for each
company. Since the union contract excludes some groups
of employees from performing certain tasks, the
consolidated task list for an equipment item could be
different for each operating company. When work rules
reduce the cost effectiveness of the maintenance program,
management will have to decide when it is feasible to
renegotiate items with each union.
The other factor is the geographic differences
between the metropolitan area of Denver and the rural
areas that are characteristic of the SPS service territory.
Maintenance tasks that are cost effective in the high load
density areas of Denver might not be justifiable in remote
areas. For example, PSCO currently uses a centralized
system test group to perform tests on substation equipment
before and after maintenance crews perform their work. If
this process were to be implemented in SPS, test crews
would incur costs for overnight stays.
Ideally, NCE would implement identical maintenance
tasks for each operating company and the organizational
structure of maintenance personnel would be identical for
both utilities. With these differences, the cookie cutter
approach utilized in other industries may not be cost
effective for substation maintenance at NCE.
9. Conclusions
The results from the RCM analysis performed on the
SPS DC power supplies illustrates that the existing battery
maintenance program at SPS can be improved by applying
RCM. Some critical failure modes were not guarded while
other maintenance tasks did not provide benefits. The
authors are confident that similar results will be found
when other substation equipment is studied.
A successful transformation from two maintenance
programs to one combined NCE program based on RCM
will be a tremendous change effort. Although several key
factors have been identified as critical success factors,
there will be unique problems encountered at NCE. A
Maintenance Steering Group embracing diverse
maintenance and technical backgrounds will have the best
chance of leading a successful Reliability Centered
Maintenance implementation project. As noted by
Pottenger (1998), “The difference between great ideas that
work and great ideas that don’t work out is in the
implementation. The only way to make great ideas come
into the real world is with teams of professionals who do
more than the bare minimum.”
References
[1] August, Jim, 1999. "RCM Implementation"
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Substations, Transmission and Distribution
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[2] Fernihough, William J., 1995 "BC Hydro’s
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[3] Fernihough, William J., 1999. "Substation RCM –
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[4] Matteson, Thomas D., 1995. "The Air Transportation
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"Utilizing 'Avoided Costs' for ROI Calculations," currently a Substation Engineer with Southwestern Public
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Substations, Transmission and Distribution Energies. Mr. Wilmeth is a registered professional
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[12] Rose, D., 1999. Personal communication, 8/13/1999.
[13] Ryman, R., 1999. Personal communication, Michael W. Usrey has a BS in Mathematics and a
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Nichols, 1996. "RCM Method Validation," University of Minnesota. He is currently an assistant
Proceedings of 1996 Doble Client Conference, professor in the Lockheed-Martin Engineering
Boston, MA, pp. 1-3.1 - 1-3.7. Management Program at the University of Colorado. He
[15] Sarkinen, Roger A., 1999. Personal communication, is also on the Board of Directors for EnergyWindow, Inc.
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[16] Schwan, Clair A., 1999. "Introduction to Reliability His related publications include "A Process for Analyzing
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Maintenance. McGraw-Hill, New York (1993).
[22] Southwestern Public Service Company, 1986. Annual
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