The article covers the 3 simple and time-tested initiatives the Indian cement manufacturers can undertake to optimise maintenance costs and improve equipment availability.

The author, who has trained at various cement plants in India in maintenance, shares practical recommendations that can be implemented with ease without any capital investments.

It is observed that despite industry’s focus on reducing costs, plant maintenance remains a concern. High maintenance costs continue to eat into profits, and companies need to get the basics right before investing in new technologies. In author’s opinion, companies implementing these recommendations can reap rich dividends within a short time without any additional investments.

• Effective Maintenance Planning and Scheduling

While more and more asset intensive industries across the globe including cement are consistently improving their Maintenance Planning and Scheduling practices, the scenario in far from satisfactory in India. Though functions of maintenance planners and planning engineers exist across plants, the maturity index of planning and scheduling is low. As a result, the wrench time (tool time) of the maintenance work force is dismal and can be estimated to be below 20%. The figure is a distant far from the best-in-class standard of 50% and world class of 62%.

By improving the existing MPS practices, companies in India can easily double the wrench to 40% and above within a time frame of 12-18 months with no additional manpower. Apart from over 100% increase in maintenance technicians’ productivity, the major benefits of an effective MPS process would be,

• Reduction in Breakdowns
• Reduction in Rework
• Increase in Equipment Availability and Reliability
• Reduction in spares consumption and inventories
• Improved Plant safety

• Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO)

Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO) is another critical area which can help cement companies not only reduce costs but also to improve equipment availability and plant safety. While Preventive Maintenance is an important strategy to prevent breakdowns and maintain asset health, unwarranted tasks result in waste of resources and also cause infant failures. PMO helps eliminating unwarranted tasks, adding, or modifying existing tasks and their frequencies. With effective MPS in place, the desired manpower resource shall be readily available in the plants to undertake such PMO exercises regularly.

• Defect Elimination

Defect Elimination is yet another important proactive maintenance strategy the cement companies need to focus upon to reduce breakdowns. With an effective MPS, quality equipment failure data can be compiled in CMMS, and further analyzed to identify bad actors. By conducting RCAs, defects can be eliminated, reducing failures and maintenance cost.

In conclusion, an Effective Maintenance Planning and Scheduling process in integration with PMO and Defect Elimination can go a long way in helping Indian cement companies to reduce maintenance costs and improve asset availability without additional investments.