RECAP | ROUNDTABLE | Making Use of Abnormal Incident Reporting (AIRs) Data (1994-2018)

The Making Use of AIRs Data roundtable held December 4, 2018, included basic information about AIRs for new Network members who wanted to learn more about AIRs and detailed breakdowns of 2018 results for attendees who had experience accessing AIRs. One attendee in particular helped Uptime Institute’s Juan Orozco explain how his organization used AIRs to resolve a recurring engine generator problem, including a catastrophic failire that consultants identified as a bearing problem with OEM equipment.

As Orozco and the end user discussed the problem, the usefulness of AIRs and Uptime Institute slowly revealed itself. For instance, in several recent cases, Network members were able to identify a pattern of equipment failures. In this particular case, the end user hoped that Uptime Institute data and participation would help open the channel of communication to the OEM, as incident data were slow to come from the manufacturer. At one point in the conversation another roundtable participant recognized that he had experienced a similar bearing failure.

At this point, Uptime Institute Chief Editor noted that AIRs data could be used to shed light on a number of facets of data center operations, with recent successes in the areas of staffing, incident reporting, and causes of downtime.

Orozco noted that recent AIRs analysis had found a decrease in manufacturing quality. This, he said, underscored the growing importance of commissioning, even as Uptime Institute gathers data to see if it can pinpoint the cause of the trend.

Finally, Orozco noted the growth of fan failure incidents. These, he said, were hard to prevent, but provided more than sufficient justification for moving towards electronically commutated fans and motors. Several of the attendees were not well informed about these motors, so Orozco presented a brief description.

With just a few minutes left, the two Uptime Institute facilitators noted that the uses of AIRs could be almost countless, as long as there is sufficient data to get valid results. Uptime Institute staff pointed to the AIRs topology chart and noted their willingness to help structure useful queries.