Maintenance and reliability assessment

Client challenge

Our client requested a maintenance and reliability (M&R) assessment at its copolymers production plant. The client was performing M&R assessments across its manufacturing network to evaluate the level of implementation of M&R practices. The client requested a detailed M&R assessment including a quantified evaluation of the level of implementation and the value delivered in each of the assessment topic areas selected. In addition, the client requested a prioritised list of practices based on the safety, productivity, cost, and quality goals of the site. A path forward was provided detailing the steps required to improve the highest priority practices.

How we helped

We developed an assessment strategy and protocol based on the client's assessment topics. The strategy was based on the alignment of M&R best practices with industry accepted standards. Each practice had defined levels of both implementation and value delivered, based on descriptions of increasing achievement.

The assessment was delivered through five phases: (1) preparation aimed at obtaining M&R performance metrics prior to the site visit; (2) interviews of the leadership team prior to the site visit; (3) a 5-day site visit covering topic areas selected by client utilising interviews, meeting attendance, tours, day-in-the life studies, CMMS evaluation, and observations of everyday life at the facility; and (5) both a preliminary presentation and final report containing a full evaluation, proposed plan and path forward along with all data obtained during the assessment.

Powerful results

The key messages for the client focused on eliminating critical equipment failures to improve uptime. The assessment indicated the need to:

• Redesign the maintenance work process to efficiently execute asset care tasks and reduce time to repair
• Drive engagement through eliminating communication silos
• Make work process performance transparent through metrics
• Aim for operational excellence through improving competency levels through training gap analysis

Justification for the improvements will be developed from a conservative approach to improvements in uptime that can be expected over a typical two-to-three-year implementation schedule for M&R improvement. Our approach determined that the recovery of 25% of the downtime days from equipment failure that would be eliminated, would be equivalent to 1.5 MM Euros based on the plant's daily contribution margin. A portion of these savings could be invested in additional resources to guide the facility through the path forward developed by Vysus Group.