On a Production Data Plot, you will draw the Process Reliability Line to identify your Reliability Loss Region. Datapoints below the Process Reliability Line help make up the Reliability Loss Region. Typically, the Reliability Loss Region will show large variations in output that can be attributed to problems that impact the production process significantly, such as equipment and location failures, system shutdowns, and intentional cutbacks. For example, if you collect production output data daily and the system is shut down completely for five days during your collection period, then five datapoints will have near-zero values. These values should be easily distinguishable from the rest of the values in the Reliability Loss Region.
To calculate your Reliability Losses accurately, you may want to separate the datapoints associated with shutdowns from the datapoints where losses are attributed to actual equipment slowdowns or intentional cutbacks. You can use the breakpoint tool to separate the Reliability Loss Region into these categories. The breakpoints will be taken into account in calculations so that your Reliability Losses represent losses due to actual equipment and location problems. Breakpoints also can be used to identify areas of distinct change in output when you do not know the reason for the change.
Consider our example of a bottled water production process. In the following example, you can view the datapoints associated with unplanned shutdowns due to uncontrollable issues (e.g., lack of raw material), where the production output is near zero.
To separate this region from the rest of the reliability losses, we can create a breakpoint on the highest Reliability value within that distinct region. After the breakpoint has been created, GE Digital APM automatically shades the different regions of production output.
Now two shaded Reliability Loss regions are visible on the Production Data Plot. The gray area represents losses associated with unplanned and planned shutdowns, and the purple area represents the losses due to equipment and location failures and intentional cutbacks. All reliability losses will be calculated for each region and will appear as Sub Reliability Loss regions on the Production Loss Regions section.
Note: You can create more than one breakpoint when your production output displays more than two regions of shutdowns, Asset failures, intentional cutbacks, or other unknown variations.
