The Impact of Downtime on Operational Efficiency
Our client, one of North America's leading potato processors, was facing difficulties related to uptime. In industrial operations, achieving operational excellence often hinges on uptime and efficiency. In the competitive food processing industry, addressing these challenges is vital.
In our client’s case, up to 12% of their production time was lost due to downtime (7% planned and 5% unplanned), this loss of production having a direct effect on plant profitability.
Addressing Challenges with Asset Health and Maintenance
A key factor in process efficiency and reducing downtime is maintaining the health of individual assets. However, this can be challenging without a reliable system in place for identifying maintenance work, inspections, cleaning, or improvement tasks.
Designed by Emerson, the Catapult EAM System Launcher addresses these obstacles by simplifying the development, evaluation, and enhancement of reliability programs. This encompasses everything from gathering asset and inventory data to optimizing maintenance strategies.
The comprehensive solution we delivered entailed the development of a Master Equipment List comprising 6000 equipment records and the creation of a functional hierarchy structure based on P&ID and detailed drawings. Additionally, our team undertook Parts & Bill of Material (BoM) development, leveraging the Catapult EAM System Launcher, consulting hours, past practices, and our in-house knowledge of best practices.
Beyond Financial Gains: Enhancing Operational Reliability
The initial results of this solution have been promising, with the company seeing a minimum 1% improvement in both planned and unplanned uptime. This will result in recurring savings of $2.9 million, providing a significant return on their initial investment in time and software.
Beyond the financial gains, the enhancement of operational reliability is poised to manifest a substantial spin-off effect on Quality, Health, Safety, and Environment (QHSE) performance. Reliable sites are characterized by clean, well-lit workspaces, predictable working hours within maintenance, and better preserved and operating assets.
Looking Ahead: Future Improvements and Expansion
As we continue to work together, we are confident that our client will see further improvements in process efficiency and profitability. Seeing the success of this case, they foresee extending these practices across more sites, further benefiting their overall operations.
