SmartSignal Corp. recently released findings of a new industry-wide research study identifying several key factors necessary to improve availability and capacity in power plants-and the need for most plants to improve levels of equipment performance intelligence. In doing this, plants can maximize these factors and achieve peak performance levels. The results indicate that six factors are almost universally recognized to be of very high importance:
SmartSignal President and CEO Jim Gagnard comments, "These results verify the gap in the industry that we've observed, but we're surprised to see how big this gap still is today. The industry is facing so many pressures. Our focus has been on creating predictive-analytic solutions that power plants can use to optimize their workforces, aging equipment and maintenance procedures. "The good news is that these solutions can really plug the gap. They're flexible, easy-to-use and efficient to deploy. We've proven in hundreds of plants just how successful they can be in improving operations, availability and capacity with virtually no plant time required." The blind study, conducted by POWER magazine, generated nearly 1,500 responses. The study was mailed to a representative sample of POWER magazine's subscriber list in June 2008 with results tabulated in July 2008.
- Aging plants and equipment.
- Manning levels.
- Unplanned outages.
- Maintenance intervals.
- Derates.
- Personnel skill levels.
| Factor | % respondents indicating factor is important to extremely important | % of respondents indicating they have excellent information to optimize the identified factor |
|---|---|---|
| Aging plants and equipment | 89 | 19 |
| Manning levels | 86 | 18 |
| Unplanned outages | 90 | 24 |
| Maintenance intervals | 91 | 21 |
| Derates | 77 | 11 |
| Personnel skill level | 95 | 18 |