A Study into configuration management's effect on production volumes and maintenance Rapupe Collen Mootane, Louwrence Erasmus

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1 A Study into configuration management's effect on production volumes and maintenance Rapupe Collen Mootane, Louwrence Erasmus Graduate School of Technology Management, University of Pretoria Copyright 2012 by R.C. Mootane, L.D. Erasmus. Published and used by INCOSE SA with permission. Abstract This is a report on a study at a South African petrochemical complex to determine the impact of awareness and training on plant configuration management. It also investigates the impact of compliance to plant configuration management and participation on activities related to configuration management in relation to maintaining a proper plant configuration. Further, the study determines the effect of configuration management within a company in relation to production volumes and maintenance costs. The objective of the study is to analyze the effectiveness of the company s configuration management process and its correlation with the production volume as well as maintenance costs through using a study questionnaire that is based on the configuration management model of Hsin Chou. The study found that a proper plant configuration contributes to an increase in production volumes and a decrease in maintenance costs. This study contributes to the engineering field in general, the knowledge and acknowledgement of maintaining a proper configuration on engineered systems if they are to meet or maintain their design objectives. Introduction Over the last few years, it was found that most of the technical documents within the Sasol Secunda complex were not updated and not showing the true reflection of the actual plant they represented. Since the technical documents within the Sasol Secunda complex were regarded as legal documents, the Sasol management was prompted to take an initiative to investigate the problem. The results of this problem were noticed when projects were delayed or could not be completed, production schedule that couldn t be attained due to operational deviations caused by inaccurate procedures, high maintenance cost due to inaccurate documents and poor system reliability. The objective of the study is to analyze the effectiveness of Sasol s configuration management process and its correlation with the production volume as well as maintenance costs. The intended outcome of the study is to investigate whether there is a correlation between proper

2 configuration management and the production volume as well as the correlation between proper configuration and maintenance cost. This study contributes to the engineering field in general, the knowledge and acknowledgement of maintaining a proper configuration on engineered systems if they are to meet or maintain their design objectives. Objective of the study The objective of the study is to investigate the research questions using proper research methodologies and conceptual methods while applying the proposed research model of figure 1. The research questions are: What is the impact of awareness and training on the plant configuration management in relation to maintaining a proper plant configuration? What is the impact of compliance to plant configuration management in relation to maintaining a proper plant configuration? What is the impact of participation on activities related to configuration management in relation to maintaining a proper plant configuration? What is the effect of configuration management within Sasol Synfuels in relation to production volumes and maintenance costs? Proposed model for the study The proposed model for this study is I. Hsin Chou s configuration management model as indicated on figure 1. Figure 1: Overview of configuration management process Source: I. Hsin Chou According to I. Hsin Chou s configuration management model the following activities during each

3 phase need to be complete for an organization to maintain a proper configuration on its engineered systems. Institutionalized phase Activities There must be a team assigned to evaluate the effect of any change request or proposal. This team must make sure that the change request or proposal will not have any negative effect on the system requirements. Assessment on the system must be done to identify any shortfalls on its life cycle. This assessments may include risk assessment, risk analysis and risk management. Both the configuration management (CM) team and the configuration control board (CCB) team members must be trained and declared competent. Planning phase The CM/CCB teams use the results of system assessment to identify configuration items and functional performances. Baseline maintenance phase CM/CCB teams must do the design verification to ensure that the configuration items are included into the system specification. Change management phase The CM/CCB teams must do the change review according to the configuration management process. Implementation verification must be carried out. Audit and accounting phase Functional test must be done and change statistics must be send to CM/CCB team to compile a change accounting report. Research methodology According to B. Blumberg, D.R. Cooper and P.S. Schindler, 2008, Business research methods, the ultimate test of the sample design is how well it represents the characteristics of a population it purports to represent. B. Blumberg et al furthermore argued that the sample must be valid and that the representativeness of the sample depends on two considerations namely: Accuracy the degree to which the bias is absent from the sample. Precision this is measured by the standard error of estimate and a type of standard deviation measurement. The smaller the standard error of estimate the greater the precision of the sample. The ideal sample design produces a small standard error of estimates. A quantitative approach is applied for this study. This is because a quantitative approach is a scientific approach that places a greater value upon information that can be numerically manipulated in a meaningful way (C. Page and D. Meyer, 2006, Applied research design for business and management, Page 1 326).

4 Targeted research population For the purpose of this research study, the targeted population was limited to only Sasol Synfuels technical employees. This meant that the unit of analysis would be the Sasol Synfuels technical employees who were mainly playing a role in the configuration management process or Management of Configuration ( MOC) process within the organization. The relevant population for this study included area managers, divisional managers, engineers, technicians and application specialists from different engineering disciplines (i.e. mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and process). This people were randomly selected. The plan was to send all targeted participants a questionnaire that would be used as a method for collecting data. The judgmental sampling method is used for this study as this is a non-probability sampling method which conforms to a certain criteria. This type of sampling is normally used when a researcher wishes to contact only certain persons or cases that atypical. Research sample size When selecting a sample size, it is very important for a researcher to consider the following principles which may influence the sample size: The greater the dispersion or variance within the population, the greater the sample will be needed. The greater the desired precision, the larger the sample is needed. The greater the number of sub-groups within the sample, the greater the sample size will be as each sub-group must meet minimum sample size requirements. If the calculated sample size exceeds 5% of its population then the sample size may be reduced without sacrificing precision. These designs are said to be quantitative because the descriptive researchers tend to convert their data into numerical indices and to employ statistical analysis techniques to generalize the findings from a sample of respondents to a population. The sample for this research study was collected from the population of Sasol Synfuels technical employees who were responsible for the operational and maintenance or different Sasol Synfuels plants within the Sasol Secunda complex. The Sasol Synfuels business comprised of 8 different areas namely gas production plants, gas circuit plants, tar - phenol and sulphur plants, refineries plants, Synfuels catalytic cracker plant, water and ash plants, utilities plants and engineering cluster. Research instrument For the purpose of this research study, the research questionnaire was send to the targeted population. This questionnaire was based on the measurement of the attitude and perception of Sasol Synfuels technical employees on configuration management as well as their opinions on the subject matter. The questionnaire was designed in such a way that it would be able to gather information around the following concepts that were perceived to play a role in the configuration management process. The

5 concepts were: General information about the participants. Awareness and training on configuration management. Compliance to configuration management. Participation on activities related to configuration management. Effect of configuration management within Sasol Synfuels with regard to production volume and maintenance cost. The total number of people that were randomly approached to participate in the research study was 161. These people we asked about their positions and level of experience in the organization, their awareness and understanding towards configuration management, the training they received on configuration management as well as their participation towards configuration management. Technical people from Sasol Synfuels were approached and encouraged to participate in the survey. These people were grouped into six categories which included divisional managers, area managers, engineers, specialists, technicians or technologists and technical officers. Results Table 1: Population per business area Business Area Population Number of respondents % Response % Contribution Gas Production % 10% Gas Circuit % 21% Refining % 8% Utilities % 6% Water and Ash % 13% TPS % 7% Engineering Cluster % 22% Central Maintenance % 6% Other - 6-7% Total % 100% The category Other is as a result of people who are employed by other business groups like Sasol Shared Services and Sasol Technology. These people, although employed by a different business group, are actually offering their services to different business areas within Sasol Synfuels and they do have an influence on configuration management within the Sasol business areas. Hypothesis testing 1 (The awareness and training on configuration management questions) Hypothesis testing is required in order to determine whether the patterns visible in a sample also exists in the population at large (C. Page and D. Meyer, 2006, Applied research design for business

6 and management ). The research question relating to the hypothesis testing 1 is what is the impact of the awareness and training on the plant configuration management in relation to maintaining a proper plant configuration? The two hypotheses that are involved in the hypothesis testing are: Awareness and training on plant configuration management is not important for maintaining a proper plant configuration H0. Awareness and training on plant configuration management is important for maintaining a proper plant configuration H1. Since the calculated Chi-square value of for the measured results is greater than the critical value of (d.f.=25, p=0.05), one can conclude that the observed results is most likely significant and thus the null hypothesis that the awareness and training on plant configuration management is not important for maintaining a proper plant configuration management is rejected. The data indicate that there is a relationship between the awareness and training on plant configuration management and maintaining a proper plant configuration management Hypothesis testing 2 (Compliance to configuration management questions) The research question relating to the hypothesis testing 2 is what is the impact of compliance to plant configuration management in relation to maintaining a proper plant configuration management? The two hypotheses involved in the hypothesis testing are: Compliance to plant configuration management is not important for maintaining a proper plant configuration management H0. Compliance to plant configuration management is important for maintaining a proper plant configuration management H1. Since the calculated Chi-square value of is greater than the critical value of (d.f. = 55, p=0.05), one can conclude that the observed results is significant and thus the null hypothesis that the compliance to plant configuration management is not important for maintaining a proper plant configuration is rejected. The data indicate that there is a relationship between the compliance to plant configuration management and maintaining a proper plant configuration. Hypothesis testing 3 (Participation on activities related to configuration management) The research question relating to the hypothesis testing 3 is what is the impact of participation on activities related to configuration management in relation to maintaining a proper plant configuration? The two hypotheses involved in the hypothesis testing are: Participation on activities related to plant configuration management is not important for maintaining a proper plant configuration H0. Participation on activities related to plant configuration management is important for maintaining a proper plant configuration H1. Since the calculated Chi-square value of is greater than the critical value of (d.f. = 15, p=0.05), this means that the observed results is significant and thus the null hypothesis that the participation on activities related to plant configuration management is not important for

7 maintaining a proper plant configuration is rejected. The data indicate that there is a relationship between the participation on activities related to plant configuration management and maintaining a proper plant configuration. Hypothesis testing 4 (The effect of Configuration Management within Sasol Synfuels in relation to production volumes) The research question relating to this hypothesis is What is the effect of Configuration Management within Sasol Synfuels in relation to production volumes? There are two questions that are being asked by the questionnaire and the first two hypotheses involved in hypothesis testing of the first question are: Poor configuration management on plant will not lead to low production volumes H0. Poor configuration management on plant will lead to low production volumes H1. Since the calculated Chi-square value of is greater than the critical value of (d.f. = 4, p = 0.05), one can conclude that the observed results are significant and thus the null hypothesis that poor configuration management on plant will not lead to low production volumes is rejected. The data indicate that there is a relationship between proper configuration management and increase in production volumes. Hypothesis testing 5 (The effect of Configuration Management within Sasol Synfuels in relation to maintenance costs) The two hypotheses involved in hypothesis testing of this question are: Poor configuration management on plant will not lead to high maintenance cost H0. Poor configuration management on plant will lead to high maintenance cost H1. Since the calculated Chi-square value of is greater than the critical value of (d.f. = 4, p=0.05), it can be concluded that the observed results are significant and thus the null hypothesis that poor configuration management on plant will not lead to lead to high maintenance cost is rejected. The data indicate that there is a relationship between proper configuration management and decrease in maintenance cost. Conclusions and recommendations This study shows the importance of proper configuration management and its effect in the operation of engineered systems in Sasol Secunda complex. It highlights how the awareness and training on configuration management, the compliance to configuration management as well as participation by all parties concerned including top management is important to maintaining proper configuration management in the industry. It also highlights that there is a correlation between Configuration Management and production volumes as well as maintenance costs. The following are some of the benefits of maintaining a proper plant configuration management: Increase in production volumes and Decrease in maintenance costs References

8 B. Blumberg, D.R. Cooper and P.S. Schindler, Business research methods, Second European edition, McGraw-Hill, Page 1 685, C. Page and D. Meyer, Applied research design for business and management, McGraw-Hill, Page 1 326, I.-Hsin Chou, Secure software management process for nuclear safety software development environment, Annals of Nuclear Energy, 38, Page , 13 July 2011.