Brassware factory performance transformed
January 1st 2005 Works engineer/ facility manager Robin Theobold and his team at American Standard Plumbing have transformed manufacturing performance at its brassware factory through planned preventive maintenance using FrontLine, the CMMS from Shire Systems.
Robin chose FrontLine because of its low cost, ease of use and ability to add integrated modules as his project expanded. FrontLine was installed on the network server allowing a work request to be raised at any PC around the site by the 50+ system users.
The major challenges faced were an old plant with no data or asset history and a culture where both the maintenance team and management saw maintenance as something that couldn’t be controlled.
Due to requests now being recorded electronically, we were able to instill a discipline that no maintenance request would be actioned without a valid electronic work request from FrontLine. As a benchmark, we audited the system monthly via FrontLine’s in-built reporting facility. This gave us the data to build on the planned work side of asset management and resulted in a better, more efficient, use of engineers’ time said Robin.
Main performance indices are completed work requests per month within one, four and eight hours.
Before CMMS there was no priority set. Then there is the total number of completed work requests per month, which is now 95%. Previously, data was not collected. Finally, the ratio of breakdowns to planned work is now 50-50, whereas before it was 99-1.
We are currently in the process of raising asset use by transferring work from older assets to new equipment with better reliability and up time.
With the 33% reduction in maintenance man hours gained by better planning there is now time for training. Moreover, the root causes of breakdowns and production losses are now routinely analysed to extend MTBF and drive up OEE. MAINTEC, Stand A46 More articles from Shire Systems Ltd: | 
