How CMMS Maintenance Management Software Evolved
Any industrial facility, howsoever small or big, needs to remain operational if it aims to maximize the returns for investors. The most common reason a plant/facility stops production is to undertake planed or un-planed repairs. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to have in place a well-crafted maintenance strategy backed by digital technology like CMMS that aims to avoid breakdowns through continuous monitoring of assets in order to nip the problem in the bud. In this article we are going to share with an overview today on how a production facility of the 1980’s rose to fame and achieved phenomenal success just because of a pragmatic maintenance strategy that was adopted by the management right from a very early stage.
Having begun operations in 1980, Alumax of South Carolina is an aluminum smelter with an annual capacity of over 180,000MT. No Greenfield aluminum smelter has been opened in the U.S since it began production. Alumax SC is a part of Alumax Inc, which has its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Ranked as the third largest producer of primary aluminum in the U.S, it also stands fourth in the same category in North America.
The general management had envisioned their new manufacturing unit to have a pre-planned maintenance system when it started production. In those times, there was no major player in the market offering a ready-to-use computer-based maintenance system (now a days we commonly refer as CMMS Software ), to help them achieve this objective. Therefore, they hired TSW of Atlanta, Georgia to develop a computer maintenance management system that would not only streamline and manage maintenance tasks but rather integrate all the activities related to their business and make it accessible for all employees.
This online system, when it went into use after development, became a roaring success. It received national as well as international acclaim in plant maintenance management. For the first time in 1984, Plant Engineering magazine carried a feature article about CMMS system. This was followed by A.T Kearney, who as part of a study, included it in their list of 7 best maintained operations in North America, and it was in 1989 that Maintenance Technology magazine honored Alumax of SC with the title of best maintained operation in this category as well as across all categories in the U.S.
At an elementary level, maintenance can be handled in two ways. The first is the reactive system that will be set in process after the generation of a work order. The reactive way of maintenance works on the premise that the response will be swift so as to cause minimal or no loss of production efficiency. Reactive maintenance aims to keep the response time to a bare minimum and thereby significantly reduce the asset downtime.
The other way is using pro-active technology that will help the operation to work out a comprehensive preventive maintenance strategy. This pro-active strategy requires an operation to develop the ability to monitor equipments regularly and to keep working on predictive procedures. The pro-active strategy of maintenance will ensure whether equipments are showing optimum performance, will keep the production going without long interruptions and will also explore opportunities for improvement.
Alumax of SC implemented a pro-active maintenance strategy. Its management had a maintenance management strategy in mind that would help to prevent a breakdown and keep the facility operational as much as possible. Instead of classifying maintenance as an expense, while most of the management teams consider implementing CMMS Software as a cost, they treated it as an investment that would deliver returns in the form of better earnings.
Today when cloud base technologies have take over the business world, web hosted CMMS Software are widely used from small to large business around the world to improve productivity and quality as well improve machine lifecycle. With Maintenance 4.0 allows sensor integration, IoT is the next buzz in maintenance technology.
It is therefore as much imperative to have a proper strategy for maintenance as it is to have production strategies or for all the other line functions. Managements may find it difficult to exert any real control over maintenance expenses, but they could counter it by deploying the best strategy and implement CMMS systems to improve the profits.