A specialty chemicals group with 14 plants in 9 countries faces enormous challenges when it comes to plant availability: The deficits in overall plant efficiency not only endanger the company’s growth targets, but also its reputation as a premium supplier to the energy industry. In order to improve the availability of manufacturing facilities in the global plant network, ROI set up a comprehensive program to introduce a central maintenance organization consisting of three workstreams that build on each other. An excerpt from the project report ...

WEEK 4

About four weeks after the start of the project, the analysis of the existing basic data and already known availability problems in the individual plants has been completed. Together with the customer’s project managers, a set of key figures/KPIs was also defined for evaluating the OAE, including OEE, MTR/MBR or TMC. In the meantime, the assessment phase has started in all plants. First, the maturity level of the maintenance organization is determined with the help of the ROI Maintenance Excellence Scan. The project team then uses the ROI OAE Check to document machine downtimes and thus determine the optimization potential of the planned maintenance measures. In addition, the consultants collect and document best practices at the various locations so that they can later share them with other plants.

WEEK 12

After completion of the assessment phase, the results were discussed in a management workshop. Six plants showed particularly high deficits in machine availability and maintenance maturity. In these “focus plants”, ROI consultants are currently conducting one-week “deep dive assessments” in which they examine the causes of efficiency losses and the status quo of maintenance processes together with the experts on site. The previously collected data is supplemented by on-site observations and impressions in order to arrive at a comprehensive and meaningful evaluation of the maintenance activities in the respective plant.

WEEK 17

Based on the insights gained from the assessments, the ROI experts have compiled a tailor-made tool kit that is ideally tailored to the requirements of the individual focus works in recent weeks. It contains various tried and tested maintenance tools, project management tools and problem solving techniques to enable local managers to take measures to reduce waste. A one-week training course is currently taking place in the ROI learning factory in Prague to ensure that these so-called “task force managers” have the necessary know-how to successfully use the tools. There they not only learn the basics of lean maintenance, but also define the joint procedure for implementing measures at the respective locations. For the first time, a company-wide maintenance network and professional exchange across the various plants will be created.

WEEK 21

Back at the plants, the task force managers have started to implement the 10-week optimization program. Initially, further inventory analyses were carried out and cross-functional project teams put together. The measures derived from the root cause analyses will be implemented in the coming weeks. Centralized project management and standardized tools and templates ensure comparability of implementation progress and optimal know-how transfer across all plants. At the same time, a comprehensive Maintenance Excellence Program is being set up to ensure that the Group-wide maintenance organization is anchored and further developed on a sustainable basis. In a joint workshop with the ROI experts, maintenance strategies and guidelines for selected lines and components were defined and instructions with the corresponding machine classifications, key figures and process descriptions were developed.

WEEK 28

The task force deployment is completed after 10 weeks. The first measures are already being implemented and their progress is regularly reported. The first successes have already become visible. Now the rollout begins in further areas or lines; the task managers hand over the control and monitoring tasks to the regular maintenance and reliability managers. At the same time, the establishment of a comprehensive Maintenance Excellence System is progressing by creating the technical, organizational and personnel prerequisites for a locally controlled but globally coordinated maintenance organization. On the one hand, this includes a future-proof IT infrastructure geared to maintenance processes, which supports real-time-based maintenance processes through a modern MES architecture and Smart Data Analytics. Secondly, organizational structures and management processes as well as a training and qualification concept at all levels that ensures sustainable implementation.

WEEK 70

One year after completion of the planning phase, the Maintence Excellence System has been rolled out in large parts of the Group and is being applied successfully. ROI experts accompanied the pilot phase as trainers and sparring partners and helped prepare the rollout. The regular reports show that the OAU has now risen from 77% to over 85%. As a result, the maintenance costs could be reduced considerably within one year.