With drastic developments around the world, power demand has tremendously increased. Power plants are important and the central unit of power systems and responsible for producing power to be transmitted and distributed to users. If power plants are not maintained correctly and not reliable to be operated, a significant number of damages would occur causing power shortage. Plant managers need a robust maintenance system to help maintain the efficiency of equipment while meeting regulations.

FlyAbility published an article discussing two types of systems used in power plants:

  • SCADA(Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition). SCADA is a complex industrial control system that uses computers and network data communications to monitor plant and machinery conditions. SCADA is used in several industrial processes, including power plant maintenance, refining, fabrication, and manufacturing.
  • CMMS(Computerized Maintenance Management System). Because there are so many different things to keep track of at power plants, engineers in charge of maintenance using a CMMS to help them track, share, and archive maintenance schedules and reporting.

Integrating a plant’s CMMS with its SCADA systems is quite normal. With this integration, certain dates or events will lead to automatic work order creation for recurring items, such as preventive maintenance or inspections. The integration is also often used for sharing information about security-related issues like fault detection, alarms, and abnormal conditions detected within the plant.

Knowing what maintenance tasks is required for power plants one can look at the following items that a Power Plant Maintenance Manager is responsible for:

  • CMMS and SCADA coordination and integration
  • Maintaining documentation about the plant’s maintenance procedures
  • Technical support in anything maintenance-related at the plant
  • Developing and making sure personnel adhere to preventive maintenance schedules
  • Ensuring that inspections and maintenance are being conducted in compliance with relevant industry standards
  • Being the connector at the plant between those doing the work (i.e., engineers and other plant workers), management, and outside parties like regulators who require insight into the plant’s maintenance procedures
  • Preparing to report and sharing it with stakeholders at the plant

It is important for maintenance teams at a power plant to have a proactive plan in place should a breakdown happen, or they must practice preventive maintenance, which should lower the chance of a breakdown happening and help to sustain the life of expensive equipment. Preventive maintenance is, however, sometimes only an ideal for power plant personnel and not a reality.

According to Keith Berriman (2020) in a PowerMag article, many organizations aim to do planned, preventive, predictive, or proactive maintenance, but cannot move on from the never-ending unplanned, reactive maintenance caused by breakdowns. The solution to moving away from this reactive type of maintenance is to implement a comprehensive CMMS system that will schedule work orders and prompt maintenance personnel to do the necessary maintenance work on the plant equipment. Doing work on operational equipment, before it breaks down, is the essence of preventive maintenance.

Berriman said the following four-quadrant maintenance management matrix has proven to be a very effective communication tool.

Image Source: Experience POWER

It is nearly impossible for maintenance personnel to keep track of every asset and its maintenance needs, especially at a huge site, like a power plant. Just as difficult, is keeping track of a plant’s resources; to know when which resources have been depleted. By implementing a CMMS as a solution for power plant’s maintenance and inventory issues. Maintenance managers or engineers use a CMMS to help them keep track of and share maintenance schedules with maintenance teams.

Not only is a CMMS all-inclusive maintenance and data capturing software platform, but it is also advanced enough to detect, through Building Automation Systems, that maintenance is necessary, which automatically creates a work order and prompts an appropriate technician to come out and fix the maintenance hazard. The whole process takes place without human intervention, meaning, precious time is saved for the maintenance team that might have to do other work, and money is saved by prolonging assets’ life.

To find out more about how Proteus CMMS can help with power plant maintenance, call Eagle at 262-241-3845, send us an email, or schedule a demo now to learn more about the software.