September-October 2018 NPJ

Nuclear Plant Journal, September-October 2018 NuclearPlantJournal.com 35 relieved maintenance burdens within Quad Cities’ Electrical Maintenance department, which already was overloaded with planned maintenance activities. Optimizing corrective vs. preventative maintenance cuts total maintenance costs: The Quad Cities team focused on more than lengthening maintenance intervals and eliminating maintenance tasks. In the spirit of VBM, it also compared corrective and preventative maintenance tasks and costs for specific components. The data visualization tool helped the teamdetermine that PM tasks for some motors were not in alignment with corporate templates. A follow-on review of the maintenance strategy for several motors led to the frequency of some inspection tasks being increased in an effort to improve component reliability and, ultimately, cut total maintenance costs (as a result of a larger reduction in corrective maintenance versus preventive maintenance costs). Cost comparison between sites helps streamline reviews and audits: The site also found EPRI’s data visualization tool beneficial to view PM tasks associated with various components, systems, and criticality—and to compare costs between different Exelon sites. The tool’s Work Order Details functionality was used often to pull data for audits, reviews, and more. Forecasting and Capturing Cost Savings with an Advanced Feature Exelon and other participating utilities have worked with EPRI to develop an “Advanced Feature” that enhances the data visualization tool’s preventive maintenance model work order data and maintenance plans. The feature helps forecast maintenance resources and costs, capture savings related to changes in maintenance tasks frequencies, and compare maintenance programs at different Exelon sites. Moreover, the advanced feature supports specific initiatives such as evaluations related to 10 CFR 50.69: Risk-Informed Categorization and Treatment of Structures, Systems and Components for Nuclear Power Reactors. The tool’s advanced feature can look across a wide range of inputs and standardize how data is displayed, delivering PM forecast data out several decades. At Exelon’s fleet level, the tool is greatly simplifying the team’s ability to examine and use data to make important business decisions related to maintenance staffing and budgeting. Exploring Broader Applications EPRI’s VBM supplemental project intends to expand member benefits beyond those experienced at Exelon to date. Additional work management and outage analytics capabilities for the data visualization tool are being examined, including other tools that could be developed to visualize large data sets tied with plant outage schedules, work planning, and work management. Since members gained access to the WO Data Visualization tool in March 2017, historical usage indicates that an average of more than 250-member sessions occur each month. As additional advanced features are developed for utilities across the globe, usage rates continue to increase. This tool represents EPRI’s first big step to help the industry use data to drive and improve decision-making when it comes to implementing a value-based maintenance methodology. EPRI will continue to work with our members to see what additional value can be gained through data visualization and analytics. Contact: Jeff Greene, EPRI, 1300 West WT Harris Blvd | Charlotte, NC 28262; telephone: (704) 595.2666, email: jgreene@epri.com. The EPRI tool allows plants to make maintenance cost decisions at their sites. EPRI’s tool assists its members develop value-based maintenance strategies.