Supervision, Maintenance, and Asset Management
Supervision, maintenance, and asset management
Supervision is mostly systems: clear expectations, documented procedures, training, and follow-up. Standard operating procedures reduce variability and are the backbone of onboarding. Operators need certification tracked, continuing education, and a succession plan - many utilities face retirements that remove institutional knowledge.
Maintenance strategy: reactive (run to failure), preventive (time- or meter-based), predictive (condition-based), and reliability-centered. Criticality ranking focuses effort on assets whose failure threatens permit compliance or safety. A CMMS tracks work orders, backlog, spare parts, and history; MTBF and availability are key metrics. A backlog above four to six weeks of craft hours signals under-resourcing.
Asset management: an asset register, condition assessment, life-cycle cost, and a capital improvement plan. Replace versus repair decisions should use life-cycle cost, not first cost alone.
Traps: confusing preventive with predictive; measuring maintenance by activity rather than reliability; stocking every spare just in case; and ignoring energy as the largest controllable cost in pumping and aeration.
Worked example: four pumps ran 8,000 hours each over two years (32,000 pump-hours) with three failures. MTBF = 32,000 / 3 = about 10,700 hours. If the target is 20,000 hours, investigate alignment, seal flush, and operating point before buying new pumps.