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In an interesting turnabout, Bentley has been given an award from one of its clients. One of the 2014 Be Inspired finalists - the category they competed in was, appropriately enough, ‘Innovations in Asset Performance’ - recently awarded Bentley with its Best Vendor Award (2014), under the ‘Services Category’.

The award was presented by Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) Generation headquarters in September 2014, and Bentley achieved the highest score, as rated by their engineering staff and management for delivery and implementation that met tender specifications and TNB requirements in all of the main criteria:

• Quality and skill in services rendered
• Documentation
• Adequate staffing and resourcing for services implementation
• Teamwork and feedback
• Safety compliance
• Product and quality of goods implemented.

Bentley was chosen above 1,000 other TNBG contractors and suppliers, emphasising the absolute scale of operations that software like Bentley's AssetWise was designed to handle, with large and dispersed power generation sites, power transmission facilities and all of the supporting equipment, personnel, accommodation and supplies.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad is the largest electricity utility in Malaysia, with 33,500 employees serving 8.3 million customers, and almost MYR 87 billion in assets (the Malyasian Ringit is approximately 5.2 to the pound). Prior to taking AssetWise APM Ivara on board, the company held vital information in multiple databases of paper-based records. It was decided that centralising all asset information would enable managers to make timelier and more informed decisions, thus reducing reactive maintenance.

Reactive maintenance is probably the most inefficient method of conducting large-scale maintenance - responding to failures in equipment as they occur, which can cause unplanned stoppages in supply, breakdowns in schedules and disruption to working patterns, loading unbudgeted and unforeseen costs on the operator.

Centralising all asset information within a single source, and making that available to maintenance engineers, planners, co-ordinators and suppliers, gives operators the ability to respond more quickly to incidents and therefore immediately provide accurate asset information to maintenance engineers, enabling them to arrive on site armed with the tools and knowledge that they need.

More importantly, it also provides a means of analysing asset lifecycles, wear rates, breakdown histories and so on, and to use that information to prepare maintenance schedules based on time, wear and other factors, mitigate against unscheduled shutdowns, organise staff better and, basically, run a leaner and more efficient operation. With information about the reliability of equipment to hand, TNBG was able to implement a full Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM2) approach to its maintenance programme. The end result was a better return on operating expenditure, better use of resources and happier customers.

TNBG, therefore, implemented AssetWise APM (Ivara) to incorporate asset prioritisation into some of their other business processes, allowing the benefits to be shared throughout the utility, whilst leveraging existing investments. Tightly integrating the software with other systems provides a single platform that captures real-time plant data. This allows the utility to integrate information from multiple data sources - the system is employed by plant operators to collect critical asset condition information, using a range of handheld devices.

Commenting on why TNB chose Bentley, Shahed Latif, senior manager, TNBG, said: "Having decided to implement the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM2) approach to our infrastructure maintenance program, TNB Generation (TNBG) searched for an industry leader in asset performance management solutions to help achieve their strategy. Bentley's AssetWise APM was chosen as the preferred solution and we have awarded them Best Vendor 2014, as recognition for their implementation of the solution, which helped TNB Generation meet all of its project technical, timing and cost objectives. We chose Bentley over 1,000 other TNBG vendors as the organisation that best delivered tender specifications and TNBG requirements for resourcing, documentation, safety compliance, and product and quality of goods implemented."
www.tnbg.com