Fewer failures for flooring firm

When flooring manufacturer, Forbo, introduced a CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System), plant breakdowns reduced from 90 per month to less than 20, increasing plant availability from 89 to 97%

Forbo Flooring Systems is a manufacturer and supplier of world class flooring, including Linoleum, Project Vinyl, entrance matting systems, Flotex and carpet tiles. The company is committed to sustainable development and responsible raw material procurement and manufacturing processes. Its factory in Derbyshire employs 200 people and manufactures 3million square metres of flooring a year.

Need The need for a CMMS was recognised by the new engineering manager at the Ripley site - Steve Green. He says: "I came from an aviation background. I was used to having detailed working records and asset management systems, and the paper-based system that I found was outdated and inadequate for our needs. The system promoted poor communications between departments, and lacked tracking and therefore accountability." As part of a project to reduce the number of plant breakdowns from 90 per month to less than 20, Forbo needed a source of data to track improvements in maintenance and repair strategies. Knowing that there were software systems available that could do the job the Forbo team started to research the market. After investigating various CMMS it identified Agility, with its simple web-based user interface, as an interesting option.

Forbo's key objectives in implementing its Agility CMMS were to improve reliability, productivity, product quality and plant availability. In addition it needed to improve inter-departmental communications and the quality of data available.

"We needed the system to enable the maintenance and engineering department to use hard data to identify and justify capital projects and modification programmes," said Green. "I wanted to prioritise maintenance work based on reliable data, removing the emotion around resource allocation. Before implementing Agility we had limited data to back up decisions so we couldn't be sure we were making the right ones."

Solution After selecting Agility, system implementation was a two-part process. It included general implementation guidance and then further specially tailored training.

The system is used on the plant floor by operators and engineering staff, and data can be easily extracted to create reports and evaluations. The company has approximately 15 engineers inputting data and managing the work and 120 operators (factory workers and warehouse staff) who can all enter work requests, each using a tailored introduction screen which reflects the user's area of interest.

The report function tracks activities over varying timelines and provides consistent report functions for detailed analysis. It also allows engineering managers to assess proactive and reactive repair activities and provides correlation between the two, making it valuable in assessing the maintenance strategies in place and identifying areas of weakness. The simple operator interface is also easy and quick to use at any computer terminal.

Benefits Productivity is the most obvious benefit for Forbo. Since implementing the system, the same team with the same resources completes over 200% more logged maintenance requests and actions. Eighteen months before the system was implemented plant availability was 89%. It has now increased to 97%.

Green says: "Before implementation our team would complete approximately 120 maintenance tasks a month. As soon as the system went live there was an enormous jump and the average over the last year is 383 maintenance tasks a month. Another KPI for me is reactive vs proactive tasks and we have swung from 70% reactive to more like 70% proactive." Agility is a now a key source of data used in tracking performance in maintenance and repair strategies in Forbo. Green adds: "Agility played a vital role in our project to reduce the number of plant breakdowns from 90 per month to less than 20.Without Agility it would not have been possible."