KADUNA ELECTRIC FRONTLINE... JANUARY EDITION

Predictive Maintenance, The Future of Maintenance

The business of Asset Management is beyond ensuring that transformers and sub-stations are maintained but also determines whether electricity reaches its end users. In this interview, Engr. Aliyu Lawal Mashi, who is the Team Lead, Asset Management made even more interesting revelations from his participation in an Asset Management Summit to educating us on the what the future of maintenance is. Read on…


CCD: Engr. Aliyu Lawal Mashi, you are the Team Lead, Assets Management. Tell us how it all began for you at Kaduna Electric.

ALM: I studied Electrical Engineering. Shortly after graduating I joined the services of the then NEPA, which became PHCN and currently part of Kaduna Electric after PHCN was unbundled. As at 2017 I have spent 20 years in the power sector.

When I say power sector, I mean I have trained in transmission, generation, distribution and the commercial sectors of the industry. 

During this time, I underwent trainings, some lasting as long as 2 years. These trainings were in different areas of transmission, generation and distribution.

CCD: A lot of people still do not understand what Asset Management all about is. Can you throw more light on this?

ALM: The term “Asset Management” is a relatively new concept in the power sector. It used to be O&M (Operations & Maintenance) but with the new arrangement (post privatization) came Asset Management which is a broader concept covering a wide range of activities.

It has to do with maintenance, keeping our network fit and availability; it has to do with technical assets. When we say assets, people may think it includes all assets of the company, but we only deal with the technical assets of the company ranging from power transformers, distribution networks, switchgears and distribution substations.

Generally, we maintain these assets through our Area Offices. All the Distribution Engineers (DE), the Lines Men, the Power System Technicians, the Power Cable Technicians are somewhat staff of the Asset Management Unit.

These assets are scattered all over, so by extension the DEs in-Area Offices are staff of Asset Management Unit.

Talking about the kinds of maintenance we have, there are about two to three types. Basically, for us we do what we refer to as Planned Maintenance (shutting down equipment for the purpose of maintenance) and Unplanned Maintenance (due to a sudden fault or breakdown). Then we have the Predictive Maintenance, although, we do not have the kind of equipment for this kind of maintenance. It is being supported by modern day technology, which is installed in a transformer. This technology has the ability to notify you of an impending fault before it develops, real time with a two to three months’ notice; for instance, it can tell you that the coil inside a transformer is developing a problem so as to enable you to arrange for maintenance. 

This is some of the information we shared during the just concluded workshop in Abuja. Most power industries have gone past Unplanned Maintenance kind of maintenance where a fault suddenly occurs and there has to be shutting down of a network unless there is a disaster; otherwise, what they do is Planned and Predictive Maintenance.

 

CCD: You have just returned from a workshop organized for Maintenance Engineers, what lessons did you learn? If the lessons are useful, are there plans to train your colleagues internally?

ALM: The workshop was all about maintenance and network reliability; it was designed to build capacity in the area of Maintenance and Network Reliability, even though in the process we discover that it was beyond that because we went to even the safety aspect of our operations and on network expansion.

And yes, the training was very useful as the facilitator is versed in the subject area and it was also a train-a-trainer workshop. Apart from the feedback I am bringing in form a report submitted to the Head of the Department, what I have learnt has to be passed to our colleagues down the ladder. It might interest you to know that plans are underway to train especially the DEs who are going to pass the knowledge down.

The emphasis for us is going to be on Planned Maintenance of our network because of the challenges we are having, in terms of the level of the decay in the network, which we have been deploying our meagre resources tackling.

CCD: There is a general notion that one of the major challenges of the power sector is the bad state of the distribution network, how true is that?

ALM: Frankly speaking, the power sector has been neglected for long especially when compared with international best practices or standard of network.

It is important to say that it is not easy to manage a network such as ours. However, we cannot say it is too bad, it might be described as short of standard and that is why we are doing all we can, with the use of our experience and available resources to maintain it while we build and plan towards attaining international standards.

CCD: Does it mean that when the distribution network is fixed, we can now be guaranteed a more regular and steady supply?

ALM: Like I said earlier, you have to consider the meagre resources available to us. This is a problem that is nationally known, every player is faced with the same challenges and this is largely due to level of our liquidity.

However, the management is doing its best. You must appreciate how much we have achieved in refurbishing our injection substations, where we have our major assets. 

As you very well know, in this business, the transformer is key and that is why the focus has been on our injection substations where we have our power transformers. There have been major rehabilitations, even with the little resources available to us.

We have been carrying out maintenance; take the over headline for instance a lot is being done to address all the observed problems all in a bid to reduce technical losses. Same effort has been put into maintaining some of our Feeders too.

CCD: Achievements…

ALM: If you compare level of technical losses pre-privatization and now, you would agree with me that some progress has been made.

Even though technical loss is not something that can easily be measured however I believe with the little maintenance we have been carrying out, we have been able to reduce to a great extent technical losses. 

For the overloading as a contributory factor to technical losses, so much is being done to tackle these issues even though we have the problem of liquidity.

CCD: You just mentioned overloading, is that what is responsible for load shedding?

ALM: Load shedding is relative, because sometimes load shedding does not mean we don’t have the capacity to accommodate our customers; rather we are doing what we refer to as energy management. 

Of what use is a 24-hour supply to a customer who does not need it and does not have the capacity to pay? This can be likened to opening a tap and leaving it to run. This is why the energy must be diverted to where it is needed.

We are currently working on how we are going to perfect this energy management which will be done by classifying the customers according to their needs. It will be in a such a way that supply will be directed to customers on need basis by grading our feeders into class A, B and C.  Highest paying customers will have a dedicated feeder to supply them 24/7; a middle class, those that have need for 14-16 hours supply will have theirs, then possibly the rural areas where power is not needed in the mornings because they would have gone to the farm, will get supply from 6pm to 12 midnight and they will be comfortable.