Innovation saves $ at Keesler Medical Center energy plant

Published Jan. 5, 2015
By Lisa Campbell
Base Operations Support Civil Engineering

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Keesler Medical Center and its energy plant have hundreds of programmable logic controller devices.

A PLC is a digital computer used for automation of industrial electromechanical processes. Though relatively small, these devices perform various functions to keep the medical center's essential chillers, heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, and any water, gas, or air controlled system up and running.

PLC controlled devices in the medical center's energy plant range from actuators and transmitters to temperature probes, and a number of these devices can be found within each highly complex system.

Like all systematic machinery, one faulty component can cause the entire system to fail.

"We could lose performance of an entire chiller due to just one PLC controlled device malfunction," said Joey Wehrman, the energy plant's lead electrical technician. "These are big machines, so trying to figure out where the issue is and what's causing it can take a lot of time."

The medical center may not have time with its critical mission and stringent safety requirements, so it's imperative that PAE's operations and maintenance team keeps the medical center and supporting systems at peak performance at all times.

"We knew there was a better way to troubleshoot issues and run diagnostic tests, one that had less impact on live system performance," Wehrman pointed out.

With a little creativity and less than a thousand dollars, Wehrman and his team found a solution. They acquired a calibration multi-meter and built a mini test bench in-house for conducting PLC controlled device tests.

The multi-meter can be taken into the field for diagnostic testing or used with the test bench. The bench allows technicians to troubleshoot control actuators and other PLCs in an artificial environment that replicates live performance. The clinical/controlled environment of the test bench protects the equipment and permits technicians to take each device through a full spectrum of testing scenarios.

Using the equipment for troubleshooting, as well as preventative maintenance, benefits both the O&M team and the medical center. Once consumed with reactively fixing broken equipment, Base Operations Support electricians can now identify potential failures before they happen, allowing more time to develop long-term solutions, order parts and schedule repair outages.

"This initiative goes hand-in-hand with the base civil engineering initiative to develop a comprehensive reliability centered maintenance program," said Don Kinman, Base Operations Support civil engineering manager. "These advances in technology allow us to save time, energy and money by being a step ahead of equipment breakdowns."

Wehrman calls the new equipment a "golden goose" due to the tremendous savings. Three to five times a year, a third party service technician had to be called in to run a similar series of loop calibration testing that cost the government at least $1,500 per visit.

"Within the first month of owning the calibration multimeter, it already paid for itself and put money in the bank," Wehrman stressed.

As the plant continues to age and require more part repair and replacement, he said the number of service calls would have increased exponentially.

This new testing equipment and proactive maintenance process dramatically reduces system downtime too - from days down to hours - meaning less impact on the mission and less man-hours spent troubleshooting. The cost and time savings go back into RCM program development.

To further enhance the value of their investment and benefits to the medical center, the Base Operations Support O&M team plans to expand employee training, further develop their preventative maintenance program and establish an adequate bench stock for critical items.

Innovation means savings at Keesler Medical Center energy plant