Look beyond the repairable asset
March 1st 2011 The value and economics of plant reliability on a macro
basis is something that is being missed by production and
maintenance seniors, site principals and financial personnel.
ERIKS is urging both financial and site management
professionals to look beyond the repairable asset
Maintenance is often seen as a
necessary evil from a financial
management point of view;
maintaining manufacturing machinery,
process equipment or warehousing
equipment, including building services is
always a cost to add to the bottom line.
However, more sophisticated predictive
maintenance techniques used in tandem
with full-service MRO supply and
management service offerings can result in
substantial savings in downtime, increased
output and reduced fixed costs.
With over 30 specialist engineering sites
across the UK, including large scale
electromechanical repair workshops, research
and design centres and its own manufacturing
base to look after, ERIKS provides a wide
spread of maintenance services.
Individual repairs and replacements are a
vital part of ongoing maintenance at any
industrial site, but few senior management
professionals have an intimate technical
knowledge of plant machinery and how it is
maintained; similarly most maintenance
personnel do not have a complete picture of
the corporate KPIs, overall production
output and how production output affects
profitability for a site, or even less likely,
several sites across the country.
This lack of crossover knowledge has to be
addressed in order to direct MRO investment
and achieve the maximum potential
efficiency of a plant. The many software
solutions available can provide management
information based on what is happening on
the production floor or warehouse; MES
software, SCADA systems, and ERP systems
can be used to bridge the information gap
based on an ideal picture of plant operation.
What these systems cannot do however is
to look at the entire plant and then break it
down into its component parts and make
suggestions where maintenance can be
avoided, efficiency increased or reliability
improved beyond that of the original plant
capability.Most plants also now measure
performance against real world figures, not
what was promised by the original
manufacturers or systems installers.
This is where plant-wide electromechanical
and maintenance services can be applied to
effect change in real-world circumstances.
Expensive software systems will be useful to
track improvements that have been made,
once they have been made, or locate
problems on a reactive basis. There still
needs to be a multi-disciplinary team in
place to make pro-active changes and
improvements in reliability of physical plant
and equipment in order to improve
productivity and reduce bottom line costs.
ERIKS, for example, offers a range of
services, from a simple suite of condition
monitoring and predictive maintenance
services; through to national integrated
service contracts where it takes responsibility
for the maintenance of an entire
manufacturing base nationally. The
preventative maintenance services on offer
include partnerships with component
suppliers such as SKF bearings, for which
ERIKS is Certified Maintenance Partner with
full UK national coverage.
Preventative measures start with basic
vibration monitoring, thermal imaging
surveys and oil analysis and extend through
to specifying better quality or more efficient
replacement components and consumables –
through to detailed site surveys and online
maintenance service scheduling of every
component on a site. ERIKS will also tidy-up
engineering stores and replace repair stock
with sale or return items, man the stores,
carry out the repairs, and take responsibility
for key performance indicators on a site.
Gary Price head of the electromechanical
repair service team comments on the culture
change that is needed to improve UK
manufacturing performance and take
advantage of the services on offer: "Reliability
is one of the most undervalued aspects of the
overall financial performance of any site.We
have improved the profitability of huge
manufacturing operations simply by fitting
the correct seal to a critical piece of
equipment – a couple of hundred pounds
spent resulting in tens of thousands of
pounds in increased profits.
"We have replaced the stores in military
and aerospace sites, removing hundreds of
thousands of pounds worth of devaluing
inventory from the company's cost base.
ERIKS Integrated Solutions is responsible for
the MRO supply chain management for
several well known food and beverage
brands, where it delivers fixed cost reductions
over a three and five year basis, providing total
financial surety of maintenance operations."
Using experienced suppliers with a breadth
of knowledge and resources can bridge the
knowledge gap and benefit both parties by
delivering real-world positive changes.
Improvements tailored to the specific needs
of an individual management team or
opportunities for improvement unique to that
site – whether it's making rocket fuel or
storing frozen food – the savings are there to
be made. More articles from ERIKS UK: | 
