Failure Coding at Merck
by Ray Kastle, CMRP, Reliability Lead - Americas

After identifying the strategic advantages associated with using a standardized data approach, in 2007 Merck began implementation of SAP across all sections of the company, both domestically and internationally. This decision was viewed by the company's dedicated plant maintenance module users as an opportunity to align the Merck maintenance strategy with a more proactive maintenance model.  One of the major areas identified for improvement was failure coding.

Failure codes for the previous maintenance module had been developed by the company's IT department.  Consequently, the codes were often too basic and hindered data analysis efforts. A new aspect of the proactive model being introduced was a heightened emphasis on data analysis. Prior experience demonstrated that without proper failure coding, optimization of system data for asset performance management would be difficult.

An assigned team comprised of representatives from the SAP PM module, reliability, and maintenance identified goals, as well as the advantages and disadvantages seen as potentially affecting program success.

Advantages included:

• Full understanding of the importance of hierarchies that incorporated some of ISO 14224
• Well defined list of equipment types (equipment technical object types in SAP)
• Well defined rules for system boundaries
• Partial understanding of what was not known

Challenges included:

• Lack of SAP knowledge -  although a test database was available, the configuration was subject to change, and the team members had only been on board for a few months
• How to create a product that would provide data useful to the engineer for analysis, yet be streamlined enough to encourage adoption by field personnel

The initial framing of a path forward had begun when the timeline was suddenly shifted, necessitating having a preliminary product ready within only a few months. In order to expedite the process, Meridium was enlisted to share their failure coding expertise.  The first step was a Meridium workshop to ascertain the status of current failure coding efforts, identify gaps, and construct a plan forward for the development of a failure coding taxonomy supporting Merck's overall asset management strategy.

Although the implementation of a reliability culture at Merck was in its early stages, general reliability goals and concepts were fairly well defined. As mentioned earlier, the hierarchal structure of the data was already aligned with recognized best practices; however, it was determined that the identified equipment types had several gaps and also some redundancies. A gap analysis performed by Meridium uncovered that the list for the maintainable items (also known as object parts) was practically non-existent and that the proposed damage codes were too confusing and complex. Additionally, since the group was not very familiar with the inner workings of SAP, some initial concepts were found to be impractical.  However, the team was familiar with some SAP functionality. In order to leverage this existing knowledge, Meridium provided a highly practical, easy to understand, diagram of how failure coding flowed within SAP, as well as the concept of activity coding, enabling better reporting and analysis capabilities when using SAP.

Once gaps were identified, basic coding development began. The first step was the identification of object parts. It was decided that an overall list of the parts for mechanical, instrument, and electrical would be created, and then specific equipment types would undergo further granularity.  Several equipment types, such as pumps, were felt to have a large enough population, or were so complex (such as robots), that they would get object part lists specific to that equipment type.

One of the challenges in developing failure codes is meeting the needs and expectations of a variety of groups.  For example, one of the larger concerns was that if the failure coding became too complex, it would discourage use by field personnel; at the same time, if the developed failure codes were too vague, as in the past, they would not support the level of desired data analysis.  Similarly, there was an overall desire to minimize the use of "Other" on all of the lists, in order to streamline data analysis efforts; however, their usefulness to field personnel was also recognized. Since SAP supported text comments for any entry, almost all the lists had "Other (Explain in detail)" included.

The first list was created by brainstorming the various possible parts of anything electrical that were identified in the equipment types, resulting in a very long list. The next stage was to work to consolidate similar or redundant items. The goal was that most lists would easily display on a single screen when the pull-down menu was used. The knowledge and experience of the Meridium team during this phase was invaluable. Applying their understanding of human factors influencing SAP usage and their extensive knowledge of maintenance, the list was quickly consolidated down to approximately 25 entries.

This process was repeated for instrumentation. After a short period of time, it became obvious that there were many overlaps in the electrical and instrumentation lists, and the decision was made to combine them into a consolidated list of object parts. It required some serious discussion to narrow the list down, but eventually it was reduced to 31 items.

The final generic object list was for mechanical and followed the same flow path as the previous groups. It was also during this period that the group decided that the equipment types requiring a specific parts list would be done by individual team members outside the team setting, and then vetted by the team. This allowed leveraging of the specialized knowledge of the various team members, while not bogging down the overall development process. The final mechanical list ended up being 42 items long.  While longer than desired, the team felt it would be hard to narrow it down much more and still maintain an acceptable level of analysis capability.

Next was the development of a damage list. Since electrical and instrumentation were combined in the object list, the same methodology would be applied to the damage list. Additionally, due to the regulatory environment for certain parts of Merck, a separate list would be created for use with calibrations. As mentioned earlier, the proposed damage codes were very complex and confusing. After disputes over what should be kept, the team finally decided to toss the proposed codes and start fresh.

At this point, Meridium's guidance was essential in introducing the basic types of failure occurrences. While there was still intense discussion, it took only a few hours to agree upon an electrical and instrument list 12 items long, and a mechanical list 24 items long.

Individual team members worked separately over the next few days to come up with object parts for what was deemed common or important enough to have dedicated lists. These included equipment types such as hoist/cranes, pumps, compressors, turbines, valves, boilers, motors, and several types of ventilation and refrigeration equipment. The final lists for those were resolved primarily via email and teleconferences.

Some additional activities took place outside the initial development activities.  Since Merck is a multinational company, the various lists had to be converted to the regional languages for the first sites going live in SAP. Also, for business reasons, it was determined that some equipment types would not be tracked for failure analysis. Some were due to cost effectiveness, some to limited failure modes, and others because the maintenance of the equipment was consistently outsourced. Finally, a set of codes were put in place to capture when a PPM (predictive/preventive maintenance) activity could not be performed.

 Lessons

There were some lessons learned once the first group of sites actively began using SAP. Since the core idea behind much of the failure coding effort was to support a more proactive maintenance model, predictive maintenance (PdM) techniques were eventually going to be very important. It was soon apparent that a few additions were needed, although minor in nature. The larger challenge was spelling out in detail what the various failure code selections meant, so that field personnel could be properly trained in their use. For example, the difference between 'erosion' and 'corrosion', or 'dirty' vs. 'fouling', had to be described, as well as what was considered 'normal wear and tear'. The education efforts in this area continue.

The last and most important aspect of a successful fault coding effort is getting the end users - the field personnel doing the work - to enter the failure codes consistently and correctly. In reality, this continues to be the greatest challenge - managing the cultural changes required to make the tools effective.

About the author

Ray Kastle, CMRP, Reliability Lead - Americas, Merck & Co., Inc.

Ray is a reliability and business process engineer for Merck & Co., Inc.  He began his career in the Navy, working in the engine room on nuclear submarines.  He has nearly 30 years experience in maintenance, reliability, and projects in the military, commercial nuclear power, housing rehab, and the pharmaceutical industry.  Ray has several years of experience in the SAP PM module and has been heavily involved in its implementation and subsequent business process for the last 3 years.

Click here to download the whitepaper Understanding the Basics of Failure and Event Coding for EAM and CMMS.

Click here to download the whitepaper Eight Steps Promoting User Adoption of Failure and Event Codes.

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Click here to read about Kimberly-Clark's enterprise-wide adoption of SAP.

Click here to register to hear Gordon Jonas, Master Black Belt, Manager, Lean Six Sigma, Merck, speak on Learning How Merck Developed And Deployed A Continuous Improvement Strategy at the 9^th Lean Six Sigma for Pharmaceutical, Biotech and Medical Device Excellence.

Click here to register to hear Paul Casto, Vice President, Value Implementation, Meridium speak on Doing the Right Things and Doing Them Right - Achieving Sustainable Improvement at the 9^th Lean Six Sigma for Pharmaceutical, Biotech and Medical Device Excellence.

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