RECAP | ROUNDTABLE | Managing Refreshes and Major Equipment Upgrades

Even the best maintained equipment eventually needs to be replaced. In a world where downtime is not an option, equipment replacement can be like walking a tightrope without a net. In this roundtable, attendees interacted on best practices around major equipment upgrades and replacements.

Do you have an end-of-life strategy that drives major equipment replacements? What are the major considerations to be taken into account before embarking on an equipment upgrade project? What strategies and steps should be used to manage the project? Do you conduct full commissioning as a part of the project?

Discussion:

The first part of the session evolved around equipment end-of-life planning. Attendees agreed an infrastructure equipment end-of-life plan, which is part of a detailed Life Cycle Management process, is vital and a great place to start when considering equipment upgrades and replacements. End-of-life planning discussions typically start to occur around now, Q3 of each year, leading up to capital expenditure (CapEx) decisions being made for the coming year. Based on the amount of capital you have available, projects tend to get prioritized for implementation. A good end-of-life replacement plan should also go out at least 3 years.

To establish equipment end-of-life, attendees indicated they typically start with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recommendations and then make adjustments based on equipment condition and maintenance practices, essentially turning the decision on replacement to one based on operations and maintenance verses strictly based on time. Location and climate should be taken into account because it can play a role in equipment condition. One attendee indicated they perform annual health assessments on equipment prior to kicking off the annual CapEx discussion process. Another attendee indicated they look at equipment incident reports and percentage of failure rates as well to help them make adjustments to equipment end-of-life estimates. In order to save on CapEx, they try to push the boundaries within reason. The question was asked as to who owns and is responsible for the end-of-life plan. Consensus is it starts with Operations and rolls up so it can be looked at holistically across all sites. Final ownership more than likely falls with Finance, but the Facilities and Operations teams play a primary and critical role in making the replacement decisions.

Considerations and strategies before embarking on an equipment upgrade project, as mentioned by attendees:
• Look at your equipment redundancies, essentially get a full picture of your infrastructure so you are familiar with your ability to shift load and take the component or system down for replacement.
• Check to make sure SOPs/MOPs are available and tested in order to implement the isolation of components or systems.
• Consider doing a full preventive maintenance inspection, along with IR scanning and other predictive maintenance, prior to moving forward with project equipment and system isolations.
• Make sure you have detailed procedures to start fresh and verify all IT equipment to be impacted. Validate there is an alternate power source. Also, consider a final check to revalidate right before work on the raised floor is to occur.
• Keep your customer (IT) in the loop. Start discussions with IT early. Provide the necessary notifications to IT throughout. Upfront and continuous communication with your customer is vital.
• When working through a replacement or upgrade, consider taking baby steps, try and test, and always have a good backout plan in case something unexpected happens.

The question was raised about who actually manages the project. The consensus answer is that it depends. Project scale and complexity tend to determine who is responsible and how the project is managed. If it is something small, onsite Operations teams tend to be responsible and run the project – locally implement but with assistance from expertise remotely when necessary. If larger scale, engineering and/or construction teams tend to be responsible, utilizing a project management team as well; however, onsite Operations needs to be involved throughout and must buy-in. The tipping point tends to be when more extensive project management and multifaceted coordination (power, controls, multiple trades, etc.) is needed, project has a high dollar amount, or when onsite Operations doesn’t have time.

Issues encountered during equipment upgrades, as mentioned by attendees:
• Project coordination was sighted as a primary issue typically encountered, perhaps showing the need to utilize project management teams more.
• Roles and responsibilities during a project are not clearly established. There tends to always be a pull on the Operations team. Setting clear expectations is needed. This will also help eliminate scope creep.
• Issues with replacing equipment on the raised floor due to discussions with IT. IT asset and application implementations cause work windows to constantly change making it difficult to implement the equipment replacement. Therefore, the project schedule constantly gets impacted.
• The onsite Operations team tends to bite off more than they can chew, meaning they sign up to implement and/or support the project but constantly run into availability issues. This could be tied back to clearing defining project roles and responsibilities, but it also could mean there is an issue with the quantity of onsite staff.
• The mindset of the Facility Manager tends to be a lot different than that of a Project Manager. They tend to have different priorities (ex., uptime and availability verses meeting project schedule and budget), which ultimately could impact the outcome.

Lastly, the question was asked do you conduct full commissioning as a part of the project. The consensus answer from the attendees again is it depends on the project. The group admitted they are not able to do full Level 5 (Integrated Systems Testing) commissioning in all cases because of the risk of doing this in a live production environment. They are doing as much as they can without causing extreme and unnecessary risk. It essentially depends on where the equipment or system being replaced lies in the distribution pathway of the infrastructure and what redundancies are in place. For example, if a UPS system or module is being replaced, full Level 5 commissioning can usually be performed. However, if a PDU, STS, or RPP is being replaced, full Level 5 commissioning is most likely not being performed because the risk outweighs the value. Also, it was pointed out that your customer (IT) should be involved in the commissioning discussion and included in the decisions.