WHAT COGITO RELIABILITY OFFERS
Cogito Reliability provides advanced analytical solutions in Reliability Engineering
Target customers include industrial operations seeking to quantify the future performance of their assets in order to optimize financial budgets, production output and resource allocations (capital, work force, spare parts, etc.).
Reliability Modelling
Also known as Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) Modelling, this concept breaks down an operation or system into significant blocks and quantifies the interactions and ultimate contribution of each block to the total output of the operation (e.g. m3 of finished product, manufactured goods, mining ore, etc). Once established, the model can inform the operator on various improvement opportunities related to each block including availability bottlenecks, maintenance optimization, spares parts management or maintenance resource allocation. The RAM model is also a tool of choice to estimate the benefits of changes to an operation (e.g. adding redundancy) as it is cheaper to review the change on paper rather than in real life.
Reliability Analysis - Life Analysis
Life analysis often known as “Weibull analysis”: The concept uses statistical tools to define life characteristics of assets or components. Using historical variables such as operating time, one can define characteristics of equipment informing an operator of the future number of failures, probabilities of failures.
Reliability Analysis - Barringer Process Reliability
Barringer Process Reliability: this concept is defined as a 10,000 foot overview of an operation and uses only production output data such as barrels per day, widgets produced per day etc. It is essentially a management tool and can help the operator establish the operating characteristics of the asset as well as the real losses experienced by the asset.
Cogito Reliability is an independent affiliate of Strategic Reliability Solutions Ltd.
" Consult / Assess / Analyze / Recommend / Train "
DETAILED PORTFOLIO OF CUSTOMER SERVICES
Pipeline performance evaluation using Barringer Process Reliability
Work summary: Evaluating pipeline performance over a multiyear period and quantifying the gains. There was also a drill down into what loss factors were improved. The intent was applying improvement strategies on those lost factors in order to get the maximum throughput back.
Company/Customer: Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
Tangible benefit: Quantitatively confirm increase in pipeline performance. This also included the identification of failure modes contributing to this improvement. The identified failure modes would then be applied to other pipelines.
Cogito Reliability service category: Reliability Analysis (More information @ ACCENDO Article).
Pipeline Shutdowns estimation and development of Commercial Contract Terms
Work summary: The RAM model was designed able to quantify the duration of each downtime event for the pipeline as well as the frequency of the downtime events beyond a specific threshold. This information was used by the pipeline operator to gauge the risk they were willing to take on and establish the contractual terms accordingly. The basis of this study is highlighted in an ACCENDO Article.
Company/Customer: Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
Tangible benefit: Ensure that the risk taken by the pipeline operator was understood by both parties. This help establish a contract with realistic and achievable terms.
Cogito Reliability service category: RAM Modelling.
Optimum Spare Part Management Strategy
Work summary: Using RAM modeling, a series of Pressure Control Valves on a pipeline were modelled and the economical shelf spare quantity established. This corresponds to the Mix/Max and reorder quantity in a warehouse.
Company/Customer: Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
Tangible benefit: The spare part budget was optimized leading to improved cash flow management as well as reduced risk on not having spare when required. Additionally, spares could be help in the vendor’s location further reducing inventory costs. Because a pipeline is geographically spread out, strategic locations could be identified to hold set amounts of inventory. (More information @ ACCENDO Article)
Cogito Reliability service type: RAM Modelling.
PF Curve for Power Transformers
Work summary: Power Transformers are crucial in various industries for example in pipeline industries as pipelines use a lot of electrical power to run pumps to push the product through. Transformers are seen as critical infrastructure and because of that they are monitored very closely. Transformers are expensive and not off the shelf items. They require a lot of planning to install. A PF curve was developed for power transformers using IEEE C57.104-2019 Standard and Life Analysis. The basis of this study was presented at LRVS 2022.
Company/Customer: Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
Tangible benefit: The PF curve allowed the maintenance team to understand how long they had to plan a transformer replacement when a certain Dissolved Gas analysis (DGA) value was achieved.
Cogito Reliability service type: Life Analysis.
Performance improvement using Confidence Boundaries
Work Summary: Newly installed vertical pumps were failing prematurely due to a shaft manufacturing defect. Upgraded pumps were installed and using life analysis, I was able to calculate the failure free timelines when we could certify that the defect was eliminated. The new pumps would be run and past this date we could inform the manufacturer that the issue was solved.
Company/Customer: Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
Tangible benefit: Ability to have a robust test plan for defect elimination.
Cogito Reliability service type: Life analysis (more information @ ACCENDO Article).
Estimation of Optimal Replacement times for equipment
Work Summary: Some companies have a significant amount of similar equipment all commissioned at the same time. This means that they will all become obsolete at the same time. This is also called the “tsunami effect”. These units are expensive to replace and multiple units compound the capital cost. More so, replacing to early is a waste of money yet replacing too late increase the risk of failure. The optimal replacement time should be calculated for those unit so that the future capital budget can be adjusted accordingly.
Company/Customer: Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
Tangible benefit: The optimal replacement interval strategy avoids massive spend in one go as well as interruptions to the operation. It also allows capital spending to be phased over a long period of time and planning exercises to be conducted well in advance.
Cogito Reliability service type: Life analysis (more information @ ACCENDO Article).