Merging top-down and bottom-up planning approaches

This weblog sequence discusses the complicated duties power utility firms face as they shift to holistic grid asset administration to handle by way of the power transition. The primary publish of this sequence addressed the challenges of the power transition with holistic grid asset administration. The second publish on this sequence addressed the built-in asset administration platform and knowledge change that unite enterprise disciplines in several domains in a single community.

Breaking down conventional silos

Many utility asset administration organizations work in silos. A holistic method that mixes the siloed processes and integrates varied planning administration methods supplies optimization alternatives on three ranges:

Asset portfolio (AIP) degree: Optimum mission execution schedule

Asset (APMO) degree: Optimum upkeep and substitute timing

Spare half (MRO) degree: Optimum spare elements holding degree

The mixed planning workout routines produce budgets for capital expenditures (CapEx) and working bills (OpEx), and set minimal necessities for grid outages for the upcoming planning interval, as proven within the following determine:

Asset investments are sometimes a part of a grid planning division, which considers expansions, load research, new clients and long-term grid necessities. Asset funding planning (AIP) instruments convey worth in optimizing varied, typically conflicting, worth drivers. They mix new asset investments with present asset replacements. Nonetheless, they comply with completely different approaches to threat administration through the use of a threat matrix to evaluate threat in the beginning of an optimization cycle. This top-down course of is efficient for brand spanking new belongings since no details about the belongings is accessible. For present belongings, a extra correct bottom-up threat method is accessible from the continual well being monitoring course of. This course of calculates the well being index and the efficient age based mostly on the asset’s particular degradation curves. Dynamic well being monitoring supplies up-to-date threat knowledge and correct substitute timing, versus the static method used for AIP. Combining the asset efficiency administration and optimization (APMO) and AIP processes makes use of this enhanced estimation knowledge to optimize in actual time.

Upkeep and mission planning happen in operations departments. The APMO course of generates an optimized work schedule for upkeep duties over a mission interval and calculates the optimum substitute second for an present asset on the finish of its lifetime. The upkeep administration and mission planning methods load these duties for execution by discipline service departments.

On the upkeep restore and overhaul (MRO) aspect, spare half optimization is linked to asset criticality. Failure mode and impact evaluation (FMEA) defines upkeep methods and related spare holding methods. The principle parameters are optimizing for inventory worth, asset criticality and spare half ordering lead occasions.

Conventional planning processes give attention to disparate planning cycles for brand spanking new and present belongings in a top-down versus bottom-up asset planning method. This method results in suboptimization. An built-in planning course of breaks down the departmental silos with optimization engines at three ranges. Optimized planning leads to decrease outages and system downtime, and it will increase the environment friendly use of scarce assets and price range.

Learn extra about IBM® Maximo® APM for Vitality and Utilities