Chemical Processing - November 2007 - (Page 30)

the physical location of the equipment for scheduling maintenance rounds effectively. The results were quite interesting. We had equipment on the drawings that hadn’t been there in 20 years, equipment in place that hadn’t made it to the drawings, pipes that went through walls that didn’t actually exist, and many nooks and crannies that didn’t appear in the plans. Of course, we also were missing documents for existing equipment but had documents for obsolete and retired equipment. Overall, it took the engineering group about one year to complete and update the physical layout plan and to update its own document database with the current as-built/as-modified and performance characteristics. Once we had the performance characteristics we then could perform capacity planning and analysis, which is why we had started the project. And, yes, we did see significant improvement in throughput once we were able to integrate the production schedule with the capacity information. The human element A plant markedly lagged most of its peers in equipment uptime but spent more on maintenance. Its maintenance strategy SERFILCO® SERFILCO® SERFILCO ® Centrifugal ‘3x2’ Pumps focused mostly on emergency repair. What little maintenance that was scheduled tended to take place on the weekends because all the skilled trades were busy with emergency repair during normal working hours. We addressed this problem by implementing an integrated EAM system. We started simply — just scheduling preventive maintenance and, more importantly, doing that maintenance on schedule. By knowing what equipment wasn’t being used, if preventive maintenance hadn’t been done, and which trades weren’t currently assigned to a task, we were able to send the trades people to perform preventive maintenance on the equipment, thus reducing the likelihood of it breaking down when next used. Once this cycle was established, less equipment was breaking down, which meant less emergency repairs, which meant more trades people were available to do more work during normal operating hours. Eventually all routine maintenance was done in the regular working day. We also trained the operators to do some basic everyday maintenance tasks and to take some simple measurements. This freed up time for the skilled trades during prime shifts. There was one unexpected side effect. The trades people over the years had grown to expect a signi cant portion of their income to come from overtime work. As we were able to transfer the maintenance work from the weekends into the normal working day, the company saw a signi cant reduction in overtime costs. This, of course, meant that the trades people saw a drop in their pay packets. All efforts toward the perfect plant will both positively and negatively affect your staff. Don’t forget the human element — always consider the impact on your most important asset, your people. Unfortunately, in this case, there wasn’t much we could do to mitigate the lower paychecks. We did try to give what little overtime there was to the worst cases. If we had thought through the full rami cations, we could have informed the trades people long before the impact was felt so they could plan their nances accordingly. A never-ending journey As you realize your vision of the perfect plant, what was a dream of perfection becomes today’s reality — and brings all the problems that reality entails. What’s interesting is that this new reality, along with its new problems, offers the opportunity to create a vision of the “new” perfect plant. Today’s vision is tomorrow’s reality. A continual renewal process is part of the perfect plant. Just as all companies, even within the same industry, differ, so, too, does each’s vision of the “perfect plant.” Everyone sees their problems with different importance and urgency. For example, Nova Chemicals primarily wanted to address three problems: 1. executives’ limited visibility into manufacturing capacity constraints and their impact on margins; 2. production personnel’s and business line managers’ lack of real-time visibility into performance www.chemicalprocessing.com FILTRATION FILTER MEDIA SERDUCTOR PUMPS www.serfilco.com email: sales@serfilco.com 847-509-2900 800-323-5431 FAX: 847-559-1995 http://www.serfilco.com/ http://www.serfilco.com/ http://www.chemicalprocessing.com

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Chemical Processing - November 2007 Contents From the Editor ChemicalProcessing.com Field Notes In Process Energy Saver Compliance Advisor PAT isn't Standing Pat Pursue the Perfect Plant Eliminate Exchanger Tubing Troubles Portable Conveyor Speeds Paint Production Process Puzzler Plant InSites Equipment & Services Product Spotlight/Classifieds Ad Index End Point

Chemical Processing - November 2007

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