The Impact of Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) on the Efficiency of Steel Manufacturing: Case Study.

• Author: ElKhouly, Sayed ElSayed

INTRODUCTION

This study is about the impact of the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) on efficiency in the steel industry. A maintenance information system is one of the most important aspects of any industrial group in terms of keeping an organization sustainable and competitive. CMMS has evolved to enable system users to share data over an organization. CMMS can help register and maintain the asset histories, which are the basis for future repair/replacement decisions (Bagadia, 2006).

Ezz Steel is used as a case study. Ezz Steel is a leader in the steel industry in Egypt and the MENA region. Nevertheless, Ezz Steel is striving to maximize its market position and productivity. One of these efforts is through the reduction of maintenance costs and improving the plant's production throughout by keeping all machines running properly (ezzsteel, 2018).

The automation of maintenance has been implemented with the introduction of computers that named by CMMS which is the database of the maintenance knowledge such as failures information, data regrading to maintenance types as preventive maintenance schedules, corrective, and predictive maintenance. All those information and knowledge have been used to enhance manufacturing performance hence it helps to better decision making (Fridholm, 2018).

Lemma (2012) states that CMMS is used instead of paper in handling the maintenance work. In turn, CMMS provides more accessibility of data in addition to data accuracy, as well as the facility to quick search maintenance information. Moreover, the use of CMMS provides an efficient way of presenting information by summarizing information with better quality than a manual system.

CMMS can be used also to improve maintenance efficiency and effectiveness of activitie, and to perform "Condition Based Monitoring" in the manufacturing industry, since effectiveness can be defined as "doing the correct thing" and efficiency as "doing things correctly" (Fridholm, 2018).

LITERATURE REVIEW

Maintenance

Rastegari (2012) defines maintenance as a set of activities needed to keep machines, installations, and other capital assets in operation.

Maintenance has become crucial in production systems. It helps manage the efficient use of resources that leads to the incorporation of many techniques, concepts, and technologies in order to achieve higher levels of performance and sustainability. Maintenance is an integral part of any production system, plays a significant role in better operation of the company, and significantly impacts its productivity and significantly influence the success of business (Zilka, 2013).

Maintenance is defined as the function of keeping machines or equipment in or restoring them to serviceable condition, including servicing, testing, inspection, adjustment, removal, replacement, re-installation, troubleshooting, activities, condition determination, modification, overhaul, rebuilding, and reclamation (Mahlangu, 2014).

Maintenance Types

Rastegari (2012) claims that maintenance may be performed according to various actions. One classification of maintenance types and their relationship is indicated as shown in Figure 1. Maintenance is divided in two main actions: preventive and corrective.

The Importance of Maintenance

According to Belanger (2013), the impact of maintenance management is increasing profitability, safety, environmental compliance, asset life cycle, and planning/schedule commitments to the firm's clients and associated reputation. Therefore, many firms have implemented a number of cost-effective measures to help in the protection of eroding profit margins and declining market shares Now proactive organizations/firms are turning to maintenance and evaluating the impact of improvements made in that area. The areas of potential improvements are fully implementing all features of CMMS systems.

Goals and Objective of Maintenance Organization

Lemma (2012) states that the objectives of a maintenance team are increasing production throughput/quality at the lowest cost, following the optimum safety standards, providing accurate historical asset maintenance records, collecting necessary maintenance cost information, effective work load balance, optimize capital asset life, reducing energy usage, and minimizing inventory on hand.

Information Management and Maintenance

All factories require a system of collecting, compiling and interpreting data that defines the effectiveness of all plant functions. This system must provide timely and accurate performance statistics that can be utilized to plan, schedule, and manage the plant. Information management is the effective management of all data and information in the asset management function. This includes the systems, policies, and procedures for identification, gathering, controlling, analysis, feedback, and reporting, as well as the utilization of data and information (Mahlangu, 2014).

The objective of information management is to enable the enterprise to make informed asset management decisions. Organizations are expected to establish, implement, and maintain procedures for controlling all required information (Mahlangu, 2014). The following are the minimum requirements for information management:

* The suitable information must be approved by authorized personnel before it is used

* Information is maintained and adequacy assured through periodic reviews and revisions

* Appropriate roles, responsibilities, and authorities regarding the organization, generation, capture, maintenance, assurance transaction, rights to access, retention, archiving, and disposal are allocated

* Obsolete information is promptly removed from all points of issue and points of usage

* Archival information retained for legal or knowledge preservation purposes is identified and information is secured and, if in electronic form, must be backed up and be recoverable

CMMS Background

Industrial groups strive to stay competitive. Nowadays, industrial groups interested in equipment reliability and operation efficiency improve the maintenance operation in order to gain the benefits through the information and knowledge provided by CMMS (Nilsson, 2015).

Recording and maintaining historical CMMS data is used to predict the repair and replacement decisions (Bagadia, 2006).

Belanger (2013) mentioned that without enough sources of information, it is hard to carry out maintenance activities in a proper way. Therefore, there should be a special system that enables organizations to gather information, manage, and utilize it in the right way. What makes the job confusing is that the building maintenance management requires various sources of information and the integrated output.

Lemma (2012) states that CMMS is a software tool built to support companies in maintenance management. Most businesses that maintain equipment have some sort of CMMS. The growth and evolution in IT has led to a dramatic increase in the capability and availability of CMMS tools to support maintenance and other activities of operations.

O'Brien (2015) mentions that CMMS is an operational tool to help in scheduled maintenance. CMMS software provides a scheduling facility for managing planned preventive work on assets, as well as predictive maintenance. Another common name for this, in addition to CMMS, is enterprise asset management (EAM).

Successful CMMS implementation is simplified internal maintenance processes, greater reliability, higher quality production, improved consumer confidence, and ultimately sustained competitive advantage (O'Brien, 2015).

Lemma (2012) states that the use of computers in maintenance can provide ready access to accurate data and enable users to quick search and find useful information in detail. CMMS provides the CMMS users with summarized information with better quality than a manual system could ever provide.

CMMS generates massive data, e.g., equipment failures, preventive maintenance schedules, maintenance work orders, maintenance cost, consumption of materials and tools, etc. which requires knowledge to provide maintenance management with the information needed to make appropriate decisions in proper selection of the maintenance type chosen. Moreover, the output information from CMMS helps decision makers decide which machine is critical in terms of highest frequency of downtime, failure, and cost by using measures such as Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) or/and Mean Time to Repair(MTTR) (Fridholm, 2018).

The Importance of CMMS in Maintenance Management

Nilsson (2015) states that most CMMSs include the basic features and functions associated with the core modules: maintenance work request/order, equipment management, inventory, planning and scheduling, preventive and predictive maintenance, as well as purchasing. However, in order to carry out the operations effectively, the input from the user should be accurate. The different features in CMMS interact with each other, so if the source of information is inaccurate, it affects each area in the system. Figure 2 illustrates the basic features which are integrated with CMMS.

Why is CMMS an Efficient Tool?

The increasing needs of service and system availability, productivity, performance, managing cost, and product quality have contributed to pushing the importance of maintenance function to higher levels. CMMS can enhance company productivity through efficient use of resources, reduced costs, reduced defects, and reduced downtime (Jantunen, 2009).

As O'Brien (2015) mentioned, the following are some reasons why CMMS is an efficient tool:

1. Effectively Plan Preventive Maintenance

2. Shift from a Culture of Reactive to Proactive Maintenance

3. Access Real Time Information

4. Less Manufacturing Scrap and Rework

5. Reduce Energy Consumption

6. Cost management

   * Effortlessly Track Maintenance Related Costs

   * Gain Greater Control over Parts Inventory

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