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by Lauren Gibbons Paul, Contributing Editor   | Abstract: | Oil and gas producers shift from preventive maintenance to predictive and condition-based asset management to cut unplanned downtime. |
Unplanned shop floor downtime is an expensive fact of life for any manufacturer. In the oil and gas industry, though, downtime is not just costly, it's prohibitive. Oft-quoted estimates put the hourly cost of unplanned refinery downtime at $50,000 or higher. With that kind of money at stake, oil and gas companies naturally are keen on using software as a weapon in the never-ending fight to reduce or eliminate unexpected downtime. But, where once it was enough to use enterprise asset management (EAM) applications to assign work orders and track assets, advanced oil and gas companies today are shifting their focus to manufacturing reliability, an umbrella term for an effort to maximize plant uptime. Asset Self-Awareness [Click to continue] |