How to standardise maintenance processes across multiple plants?

Problem

MaterialsCo. was struggling with increasing breakdowns at its factories, a key reason for that lack of consistent maintenance practices. In order to reduce this, MaterialsCo. wanted to standardize the maintenance processes across all factories. To accomplish this, MaterialsCo. sought to understand existing maintenance practices and identify maintenance management solutions that would allow it to monitor ongoing maintenance processes in the factories.

Situation

MaterialsCo. owned and operated 16 factories, most of which had been acquired. These factories lacked cohesive and standardized maintenance processes. Most of the maintenance activities carried out across factories were reactive or corrective in nature. MaterialsCo. sought to change this reactive way of maintenance work to a more proactive and predictive way in order to reduce production disruptions, save costs and increase productivity.

Outcome

The outcomes of the project were:

• The repairs process map with activities, challenges, and best practices for each activity
• A revised and standardized process map to address all the issues identified within the existing repair process
• A list of maintenance management software in use across different factories, their key features, and new solution capabilities
• Ranked recommended new maintenance management software on the basis of identified process requirements, user insights, and cost comparisons

Methodology

SprintlyWorks team conducted a three-phase project to help MaterialsCo. streamline its maintenance process:

Phase 1 – Mapping current maintenance process to identify optimization opportunities

SprintlyWorks team began by mapping the overall repair process of the 4 factories. There were identified issue areas within the process, categorized them as process or organizational issues, and listed the reasons for their presence. Next, the impact of key issues was identified on each individual factory site. By performing all these activities, the SprintlyWorks team was able to create a revised repair process for all factories, develop a detailed list of steps to ensure routine maintenance, and identify best practices for each stakeholder.

Phase 2 – Scout new maintenance management software

In this phase, SprintlyWorks team analyzed different sources to develop a list of 41 maintenance management software providers. Out of these 41 providers, 12 were then shortlisted based on relevant company criteria. Demo sessions were conducted with these 12 solution providers to understand the key features offered & UI. Finally, 5 of these solutions were selected for a further deep dive.

Phase 3 – Analysis of CMMS requirements and ranking of new CMMS solutions

In this phase, SprintlyWorks team identified all the different CMMS in use across the different factories of MaterialsCo. and developed a list of all their key features. Next, the demonstrated capabilities of the 5 shortlisted solutions were evaluated against prioritized requirements, and these solutions were ranked according to the support they offered across different steps of the maintenance process, their cost, and their user-friendliness.

Results

SprintlyWorks team provided MaterialsCo. with a roadmap to achieve its maintenance process optimization goals and proposed a guideline for the management to choose the right CMMS solution. This project accelerated progress on MaterialsCo.’s maintenance optimization project by 6-8 months.