• CORE to exhibit and present at SMRP Annual Conference in Louisville, KY, October 7-10, 2007: CORE will exhibit at the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Practitioners (SMRP) Annual Conference in Louisville, KY. J. K. August, PE, CMRP, and President of CORE, Inc. will be presenting, "What is Critical about Critical Equipment?" Many equipment reliability processes start by developing critical equipment (CE) lists. Ultimately they seek to improve performance developing their monitoring and scheduled maintenance plans. What utility do such CE lists offer? What outcomes are actionable? What is the real utility of knowing what equipment is critical? What types of equipment are non-critical? Also, August will discuss PM tasks and strategies to maintain equipment functions and performance reliability. For more information on the conference, go to: www.smrp.org/conference/2007/
• CORE to present at Utility Working Conference on Amelia Island, FL, August 5-8, 2007: How do critical equipment lists simplify or create work? CORE explores how initiatives from INPO and others have changed the industry. For more information on the conference, go to: http://opd.ans.org/UWC_files/Timetable.pdf or https://secure.ans.org/meetings/uwc/registration/
• CORE to host Seminar to NRC in Washington, DC. June 25, 2007: The seminar reviews lessons learned from the HTGR licensing of the FSV plant in the 1970's and 1980's for the NRC staff in Washington DC (Rockville Office). Registration for the seminar is only open by invitation. If you are interested in attending the seminar, please forward your request ASAP to J.K. August.
• CORE to present half-day course at ASME POWER 2007 Conference in San Antonio, TX, July 17-21, 2007: This half-day course, taught by Jim August, PR, President of CORE, Inc., called "Finding the Plant Performance Information that Improves Your Plant's Performance," will review information resources like GADS, FERC, EPIX and other reporting systems' operating and maintenance costs for their potential to identify plant reliability losses and techniques used to correct them. This workshop will briefly survey operating data collection, how to transform that into performance information, and methods to interpret the information, and will stress using data to implement real-time performance improvements. Emphasis will be to identify the most significant operational changes that improve plant performance. Datasets and reference information for the workshop will be provided.

  This session is for engineers, CMMS/EAMS users, schedulers and planners, and others charged with improving plant performance who translate operating data into useful failure risk information that improves plant performance. Attendees will receive a professional version of RCT 3990 scheduled maintenance development software with ninety redeveloped equipment templates and will learn to:

  • Convert hard data into PM rounds and task performance improvements that reduce plant operating losses; and
  • Separate the critical few opportunities from events that cannot be effectively controlled.
  For more information on the conference, go to: www.asmeconferences.org/power07/
• Reliability Availability Maintainability (RAM) Chair August Releases Draft for ASME Power 2007 Conference in July, 2007: J.K. August, RAM Chairman, 2007, has announced that the committee will meet on July 17 during the ASME conference, and has releases a draft for review.

  The ASME Reliability Availability and Maintainability (RAM) subcommittee to Power Division has drafted a program level reliability standard for industry. The standard fills the dual roles of providing high level program requirements guidance, while identifying methods that make effective scheduled maintenance and monitoring programs possible, the foundation for facility reliability.

  Standard for Performance-Based Equipment Reliability Summary: This standard provides managers, engineers, accountants, and executives guidance on characteristics expected in high-value production reliability, availability and maintainability-based maintenance programs. Emphasis is on program requirements, not implementation method. For the full text of the standard, contact J.K. August, RAM Chairman.
• ANS Committee to present new draft of standards at June meeting The ANS Committee 28 on MHR PRA Standards will present its new draft of the PRA-based standard "Safety Standards for MHRs" at the Nuclear Facility Standards Committee meeting in Boston at the ANS national conference, June 24-28, 2007. NFSC will deliberate on adequacy of the standard for public comment review. Committee 28 will also meet reviewing PRA standards as they apply to risk informed, performance based technology neutral nuclear plant operations.
• CORE to present session during Electric Power 2007 Conference in Chicago, on May 2, 2007: CORE will present "8D: Nuclear Supply Chain to Support New Nuclear Plants," on May 2, 2007 from 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m., in Room 10. Equipment classification directly affects parts procurement requirements and new reactor designs have less safety-related equipment. Further, risk-informed regulation has potential to change how procurements are done. For reliable new plant operations, safe, practical, and effective equipment maintenance programs depend on clear equipment classification requirements. Learn how new nuclear plants can benefit from thirty years of practical learning.
• CORE will exhibit at SMRP Annual Conference Oct 22-24, 2006: September 21, 2006: CORE will exhibit at the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Practitioners (SMRP) in Birmingham Oct 22-24. CORE Inc will be demonstrating our new application, ER-plus with RCT at the SMRP Annual Equipment Maintenance Conference in Birmingham Oct 22-24. CORE's J.K. August will be explaining the developmental paths behind the design features of RCT 4.0, providing demo copies of the new ER-plus augmented template database.
• Equipment Reliability Users Group Conference (ERUG) Cincinnati, OH: Sept 10-13, 2006: CORE exhibited RCMtrim for the Equipment Reliability Users Group Generation Industry conference in Cincinnati September 10-13. EPRI's generation sponsored ERUG conference provides a forum for users of Equipment Reliability software and systems, like ER-plus, to present results as well as plan industry coordination. RCM trim becomes the first fully integrated Plant System ER software. Atlanta based INPO proposed utility generation industry consolidation efforts around standard use of common reliability processes and metrics. One unsurprising outcome of the conference was a call for more process standardization and automation - using databases like Trim^TM.
• Latest Version of RCMtrim is faster, easier, and more robust: August 20, 2006: CORE announces Equipment Reliability RCM Trim 4.0 development, with improved MS SQL Server relational connectivity, template application and loading development capability, and faster speeds:

  CORE's new version RCMtrim 4.0 allow users to have multiple template applications, offer better industry experience documentation, and fully incorporate network servers into operations. Faster speeds, easier navigation and more robust server environment - and more templates are just a few of the reasons RCT 4.0 is friendlier than ever for work planners, engineers, and other users.

• CORE's new template database demonstrated at Utility Working Conference: August 6, 2006: CORE Releases New Template Database with 88 templates at the Utility Working Conference in Amelia Plantation, FL.

  With 88 comprehensive equipment plan templates, CORE's Template Demo offers an unprecedented generating station equipment database development review. The demo includes equipment risk tree analysis, comprehensive regulatory basis (for 891 Federal Regulatory Rules basis) and final PM review. Automatic work order assembly capability is provided in the database modeled for equipment in a two unit generating PWR. The demo provides Equipment Reliability failure modes listed in public domain failure mode databases in depth.

• Amelia Island Laptop Contest Winner! Microsoft's Bill Gates jokingly calls his MS Excel spreadsheet application "the world's most popular database!" Well, Bill, armed with laptops, Excel challengers broke that paradigm using MS Access in ER-plus RCT. Pitting wits with each other, a dark horse winner emerged. Congratulations to Duke Electric Power's Bryan Dolan -- first to turn in a perfect score on the maintenance challenge. Bryan took home a Toshiba Satellite A100 Laptop loaded with ER-plus and RCMtrim for his efforts!

  To those who took CORE's challenge, "Well, done!" The winner had limited maintenance expertise, familiarity with databases, and no direct maintenance performance experience. How did he win? Following help guidance, using the database and showing persistence loading the database and familiarizing himself with its user tools made all the difference. Maintenance expertise was not a factor! The winner:

  • loaded the contest database CD database on his laptop
  • asked lots of questions to help gain familiarity
  • challenged - and won!
• New Microsoft Vista^TM (Office 2007) Migration: July 1, 2006: CORE began RCMtrim 4.0 migration into Microsoft's new Vista Operating system Access Platform, to be released at the end of the year. RCT Vista^TM will allows users to (1) edit template data directly in reports; (2) customize user interfaces more easily; and (3) navigate data more easily easier to use GUI interfaces. Vista users will be able to move and view data easier in familiar spreadsheet entry presentation formats, emulating Excel-style data presentation.
• CORE helps specify maintenance policy design for the new Dept of Energy /Nuclear Regulatory Commission New Generation Nuclear Plant initiative American Nuclear Society: June 10. 2006: CORE, under the support of the American Nuclear Society, helped industry coordinate outline development and technical inputs for the Department of Energy's "New Generation Nuclear Plant" design. In conjunction, CORE presented "Defense in Depth for new reactor designs: how many levels are appropriate?" to the ASME's International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE): "Defense-in-depth" applies to new technology-neutral power reactor designs, as well as currently-licensed plants. Applying defense-in-depth challenges designers and future plant operators to specify failure-prevention margins and practical redundancy levels. Defense-in-depth principles, design margins, and design redundancy relationships seek practical defense-in-depth to manage risk. For reliable plant operations, safe, practical, and effective equipment maintenance programs depend on clear defense-in-depth principles.

  Current regulation doesn't allow use of redundancy in designs to reduce costs - NRC "defense-in-depth" policy. Of course, the outcome is expensive. Additional design investment can't justify lowering maintenance activity and corresponding costs. The principle blocks developing advanced reactor designs that promise greater safety by requiring construction like Concrete Containments around plants where it adds no value, according to probabilistic risk assessments (PRA). By changing these laws CORE expects to help the nuclear industry emulate the airlines, where safety and cost are complementary. Learning using Trim to quantify nuclear plant risk and maintenance requirements contributed substantially to this white position paper.

• Equipment Reliability Interface for Systems: May 1, 2006: RCM Trim now extends risk assessment measurement into Systems, as Equipment Reliability applications, by regulations like 10CFR50.65, the Maintenance Rule become widely user for cost reductions potential. With CORE's Equipment Reliability-plus ^TM inclusion, RCMtrim^TM becomes the first fully integrated Plant System Equipment Reliability software. Trim users can now roll up standard reliability, user-defined systems descriptions, reporting requirements like 10CFR50.65, as well other new customization features that allow NERC reliability and FERC cost accounting rules. With CORE's inclusion of Equipment Reliability-plus, trademarked ER-plus, RCM trim becomes CORE extends Systems Equipment Reliability application making RCMtrim^TM the first fully integrated Plant System ER software.
• CORE Releases New PM Software: September 1, 2005: CORE releases RCMtrim^TM XP2006/4.0, with new multi-template partitioning, process flow modeling, and faster reports. Simpler user interfaces, faster performance and simple separate pre-RCMtrim^TM 4.0 functions now integrate. For the first time, users experience a common workstation environment. Simpler, faster, easier report generators and risk profilers allow reviewers to work making decisions faster.
• CORE files patent: CORE's patent pending PM development software is the first preventive maintenance work order scheduling software patent ever filed. From first principles, CORE's RCMtrim^TM software process integrates comprehensive cost modeling and risk control. Maintenance strategy work order cost accounting flexibility allows planners to organize Work Orders under tag-outs or other groups.
• CORE endorses ASME Reliability Standard: ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPV) Code Section VIII, "Reliability, Availability and Maintainability Implementation" addresses reliability. This standard discusses specific techniques to perform rounds, condition monitoring, and scheduled maintenance that deliver reliability. Realizing inherent reliability benefits now has specified implementation methods.
• CORE Supports President Bush's NGNP Hydrogen Plant Design: Passage of the Bush Administration's Energy Bill September 3, 2005 put the country on the path to energy self-sufficiency. The bill funds a new generation nuclear plant (NGNP) Department of Energy Idaho prototype to demonstrate new passive safe reactor design and Hydrogen generation. Combined they support a hydrogen economy. CORE sits on the ANS/DOE plant high-level requirements design committee.
• CORE bids on Navy DARPA: Defense Agency Review Proposal Agency Request for Proposal (RFP)

  Sailors historically performed maintenance under maintenance work orders, with hardcopy technical materials (process and instrumentation control drawings, equipment functional block diagrams, one line electrical and control drawings), diagnostic procedures, disassemble/reassemble procedures, subordinate vender technical materials, and custom instructions developed by a work planner. The NAVY seeks to automate work plan delivery by PDA or Tablet laptop.

  Delivering work packages as single, interactive files (text, pictures/drawings, and interactive media) by PDA or tablet laptop computer provides all information needed for work. Obtaining the maintenance work order, planning and assembling the work package, tag-out, and package delivery eliminate travel, speeding work performance. Wireless work plan delivery real-time with a computerized maintenance management system reduces job turnaround.

  Non-productive time is a large fraction of average industrial work. Eliminating planning trips, tool wait time, and tag-out delay drops start-to-finish work duration. In high-travel maintenance environments, productivity improvements are substantial. Productivity challenges are common for the NAVY and commercial applications.

• CORE presents Risk Papers at the SMRP Annual Conference 4.0: October 24-26, St. Louis: CORE presents industrial streamlined RCM (SRCM) experience paper at the Society of Maintenance & Reliability Professionals conference in Saint Louis. CORE presented ways of making practical risk-planning development tools feasible for & available to end-users who have never developed reliability plans. Engineers now electronically route plans, obtain reports, and allow full workgroup participation over the network. Methods that load CMMS PMs require careful planning, preparing for unforeseen complications.
• CORE presents ASME Power Division/RAM Committee "Critical Equipment" white paper at Electric Power 2006: "Critical equipment" holds widespread appeal. A typical plant CMMS holds over 1000 components, and nuclear ones hold as many as 100,000. Critical equipment promises simple PM equipment selection and corrective maintenance work order prioritization. However, critical equipment carries subtle problems. With multiple equipment failure modes, FMEA critical equipment simplification value diminishes.
  
  Outline:
  • Critical equipment: What is critical?
  • Direct failure consequences
  • Single Point Vulnerabilities/Defense-in-Depth
  • Multiple failure causes
  • High-priority CM work backlogs
  • High-criticality work prioritization
  • Exponential WO completions decay

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