World Refining Information Technology... Bonz Hart, Meridium Inc.
The Taxonomy Advantage
I
n an age of tight margins, refineries and
petrochemical facilities must develop
new ways to run their asset-intensive
facilities reliably and at optimum capacity.
One way to accomplish this is by establish-
ing and measuring key performance indi-
cators (KPIs).
The foundation for any system of
measurement is the availability of con-
sistent data, made possible by the cre-
ation of enterprise-wide standards for
classifying equipment and measuring its
performance. This level of standardiza-
tion can be achieved only by imple-
menting equipment taxonomy.
What Is Taxonomy?
Taxonomy is the science and principles
used to consistently classify a group or
subgroup of objects. It can be used to cre-
ate a global system that can be used to clas-
sify significant equipment assets—includ-
ing each piece of equipment, its compo-
nents, and maintenance activities—into an
ordered system of family groupings with
consistent names.
This practice results in the availability
of consistent information regardless of site,
which in turn allows performance bench-
marking. Refiners can then identify oppor-
tunities to improve performance KPIs and
allocate needed resources to those high-
value opportunities, the process being
based on actual data rather than intuition.
Taxonomy enables refiners to obtain better
results from reliability initiatives, such as
root-cause analysis, statistical forecasts, sys-
tem modeling, and reliability-centered
maintenance. It also gives the refinery
workforce a common language and, so, the
ability to compile information across many
different business units.
The Move to Standardize
What is lacking, however, is an industry
standard, thus preventing industry-wide
• World Refining • April 2003
 Copyright, Hart Publications, 4545 Post Oak Place, Ste. 210, Houston, TX 77027 USA (713)993-9320, Fax (713)840-8585
benchmarking analysis. While several
organizations, including the American
Petroleum Institute (API) and
International Organization for
Standardization (ISO), have slowly been
working to create standards for equip-
ment taxonomy, these efforts show no
signs of coming to fruition.
One major petroleum industry play-
er is moving to forge a global taxonomy
strategy. ExxonMobil Research and
Engineering Co. (EMRE) has put consid-
erable time and effort into developing
what may be the industry’s most compre-
hensive standardized method for classify-
ing, measuring, and tracking equipment
specifications and performance across
worldwide operations.
The EMRE taxonomy is structured
into three basic parts. The first part encom-
passes standard names; boundaries and
descriptions for equipment, including
maintainable items; and technical charac-
teristics. The second part consists of stan-
dard maintenance observations and activi-
ties to describe what was seen and done.
The final part of the taxonomy includes
standard ways to measure KPIs and com-
pare performance.
The structure details a wide range of
parameters for consistent tracking of
plant equipment performance across the
enterprise. Specifications are established
by equipment class, including equip-
ment hierarchy (described below); tech-
nical characteristics; maintainability;
boundary definitions; unified codes and
definitions for functional failures; dam-
age reporting mechanisms; and remedial
actions.
The equipment hierarchy consists of
13 functional equipment envelopes (or
families), approximately 550 equipment
classes, and thousands of maintainable
items and technical characteristics, which
are used to classify equipment, mainte-
nance-related observations, and mainte-
nance activities.
In 2002, EMRE made a strategic
decision to make its proprietary taxono-
my solution available to other compa-
nies in the petrochemical and refining
industry.
Asset Performance Management
Meridium entered into an agreement with
EMRE in 2002 to license and market the
EMRE taxonomy. Meridium has also inte-
grated the taxonomy with our own asset
performance management software, pro-
viding critical performance analysis capa-
bilities. When equipment classification is
standardized globally and leveraged with-
in the Meridium system, process operators
have the means to consistently measure
KPIs and users are provided with a richer
view of production trends, such as bad
actors, hidden plant capacity, and unrec-
ognized costs. Armed with this informa-
tion, a refinery is able to make better deci-
sions, reduce the risk of incidents, and
lower operating costs.
In addition, this standard taxonomy
can be integrated into the leading enter-
prise resource planning (ERP) and com-
puterized maintenance management sys-
tems (CMMS). In this way, a manufactur-
er’s equipment taxonomy, asset perform-
ance management software, and CMMS
system, working in concert, greatly sim-
plify the daunting tasks of consistently
measuring, reporting, and analyzing per-
formance; assessing risk and availability
across multiple sites; and ensuring asset
reliability. Simply stated, the end result is
a better bottom line. ●
Bonz Hart is president, CEO, and
founder of Meridium, a leader in enterprise
asset performance management solutions for
process manufacturing industries, including
refining, chemicals, and power. Hart can be
reached at phone (540) 344-9205.
www.worldrefining.com