ABB is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of distribution transformers, power transformers and associated insulation products, electric motors and power electronics equipment. It also manufactures medium-voltage drives and converters for environmental rail transport and wind power converters for wind farms.

In Poland, ABB employs more than 3000 people and is a specialist in the power generation and automation sectors. More than half of the output from ABB companies in Poland is exported.

The scale of the ABB facilities in Łódź and Aleksandrów Łódzki is vast. Łódź is one of the largest manufacturing plants in Poland, employing more than 1200 people across three plants.

ABB implemented SoftSols' Agility as its system to manage its Operations Maintenance whilst providing Human Resource Management Support, including timesheets and employee records.

Implementation

The implementation of Agility allowed a full Asset Register of equipment and parts to be created including:

•  Full and detailed records of equipment in the factory; including equipment name, unique code, description location and replacements. This information also appears in the Operations and Maintenance Documentation.

•  Details of the equipment group including: type, manufacturer, inventory number, model, serial number, commissioning date, warranty period, type of warranty, date of purchase of equipment, cost, equipment availability, photographs of the equipment, comments, reports and analysis concerning efficiency, availability and suppliers.

•  Raising of work orders for equipment and facilities; including PPM (Planned Preventive Maintenance) schedules, and reactive work raised through the helpdesk including emergencies and unforeseen breakdowns.

•  The ability to identify employee/group specialist skills, which can then be used to select a specific employee from the group or a specific specialisation.

•   Information on; current work orders, outstanding work orders, rejected work orders with a full history of work carried out.

•  Full implementation of maintenance warehouse management and stock control with minimum/ maximum stock levels and stock level calculator.

•  Detailed analysis, KPI reports and data sets, including: Warehouse value, warehouse value by warehouse goods, warehouse restocking report, warehouse use and inventory use, supplier purchases by time, and total supplier purchases.

•  Graphic representation of reports and KPI’s using 3D graphs and diagrams.

Benefits

Across the two facilities, Agility is being used by more than 400 users. ABB now has a full record of its assets and equipment, with visibility of their performance enabling the company to identify areas for improvement.

Using Agility’s powerful reporting functionality ABB was able to understand asset performance regarding MTBF, MTTA, MTTR and Pareto Analysis and equipment depreciation. ABB was also able to understand the performance of its people with an analysis of the time taken to carry out work orders.

Through using Agility as its warehouse and stock management system, the company was able to understand performance against KPIs, including warehouse stock value, replenishment reports, stock utilisation and supplier spend.

Through using Agility, ABB was also able to understand the causes of its reactive maintenance, allowing it to take a more structured approach.