Feature article - Asset reliability: How to break out of the maintenance loop
Submitted by:
Andrew Warmington
Andreas Doerken and Joachim Krohn of Efeso Consulting explain how chemical manufacturers can increase productivity and reduce running costs.
Manufacturers across Europe will be familiar with this scenario. Machinery is ageing and reliability is declining, but budgets are tight and the company’s priority is to keep up the rate of production. Faulty equipment is fixed on a case-by-case basis so businesses find themselves in an endless loop of corrective maintenance. As a result, machine availability, asset value and profit margins are falling while maintenance costs are going up. As a long-term strategy, this is a disaster.
External challenges are adding to the strain. High and unstable energy costs are complemented by unpredictable international import tariffs. At the same time, new high-capacity plants outside Europe are creating an over-supply of products and putting additional pressure on prices. In this environment, poor asset reliability is not just an inconvenience – it can become a threat to productivity, safety, competitiveness and profit.
It is a tough environment, but a structured, sustainable system for reliability can be achieved. By aligning people, processes, data and technology, manufacturers can keep production levels high, maintain product quality and protect margins.
Make reliability a strategic priority
Breaking the short-term maintenance cycle requires a deliberate reassessment of structures, processes and employee behaviours. The first step is to make reliability management a strategic priority, sponsored from the top and embedded across the operation.
In some cases, a complete turnaround project is the fastest route to restoring performance. Closing an entire plant to replace critical equipment and overhaul processes is a major undertaking, but it is also a proven route to improved reliability and operational performance.
Even with a less radical approach the path needs to be the same: establish a fact base, redesign the operating model, reinforce new behaviours and use technology to augment human capabilities.
Establish the baseline
The starting point is to gain a thorough understanding of the company’s current operating position. This involves an assessment of machine reliability, maintenance costs, work management, compliance and safety across all sites to map out where risks are concentrated and which gaps need addressing most urgently.
Our own experience shows that it helps to conduct observations, interviews and data analyses simultaneously and to establish a close collaboration with the team on the ground. Everyone can then be clear about the operational priorities behind the initiative and is more likely to be engaged when new processes are rolled out.
This need not be a lengthy process - a typical ‘rapid’ assessment takes only two months. As an example, we conducted a rapid assessment across eight sites in Europe and the US for a global thermoplastics organisation in just six weeks, enabling the company to assess each area of its business against a reliable benchmark. In another case, an eight-week project for a PVC producer identified €2 million of potential savings.
People make change possible
The next step is to design a new set of processes and to roll them out across the organisation. Defining roles and implementing human performance processes is a large part of this. For this to succeed, management must be aligned in the understanding that reliability is critical to operational performance.
Whatever form the new structure takes, it’s essential that every individual knows what is expected of them, and that these expectations are consistent across the organisation. To ensure that the desired processes and behaviours are sustained we also implement performance measurement and control systems that will endure in the long term.
Technology & data: Making better decisions
While new technology has an important role to play in improving reliability and productivity, that does not mean that core systems have to be thrown out. Your ERP may be working well, but there are many additional digital systems that can help improve productivity and machine reliability.
Sometimes these are very simple. One organisation saved hours of time daily just by introducing tablets to capture observations during equipment rounds. Work orders could be generated automatically and data was captured immediately.
Data too is a key factor in reliability. In many cases organisations have data in abundance but are not using it to provide the insight they need. Take for example the use of predictive maintenance (PdM) technology.
A PdM system may be monitoring an entire plant and producing terabytes of data. Yet 90% of this is being ignored by the team, who are interested only in the date of the next upgrade or routine part replacement. In these cases the business gains little value.
A PdM system should not just check machinery and spot anomalies. It should use agentic technologies to select and present that data so that underlying root causes of problems can be identified and risks evaluated. Most importantly, an individual human needs to be accountable for acting on that information.
Long-term operational resilience
Changing a company’s culture and processes does not happen quickly - it means recalibrating the way your organisation works and adjusting its culture accordingly.
Transforming reliability practices and behaviours can take 18 months or more, but it is time well spent. With a motivated, well-structured team, you can build more efficient operations and achieve a higher level of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), improved asset reliability, broader margins, lower operating expenditure and higher prices.
This translates into financial savings too. A recent two-year project achieved savings of up to $25 million by restructuring the business, developing new processes, introducing autonomous maintenance technology and establishing new performance management programmes for staff.
Even these difficult market conditions bring opportunities for some. As more companies close down crackers, or go out of business entirely, an opening emerges for more nimble manufacturers to step in and pick up unexpected work.
The message for manufacturers is to act quickly to escape from the maintenance loop and introduce a long-term, structured approach to reliability. Until that happens, the value will continue to leak out of the business.
Contact:
Sabrina Laborde
Efeso