The PPC Group, a division of Barloworld, has awarded a R4.2 million contract to asset performance management specialist PRAGMA Africa for the development and implementation of an asset care compiler tool (ACCT) to optimise asset care management across 15 sites of the company.
The contract includes a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) to support day-to-day maintenance management with online integration to PPC`s BaaN enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
PPC manufactures cement, lime and limestone products distributed by Barloworld Logistics.
The combination of the ACCT and CMMS enables an accurate duplication of the "real world" in a system that can be dynamically configured with the minimum effort to mimic changes to assets and asset requirements as and when they happen.
The ACCT links up generic asset building blocks through inheritance into detailed asset types with asset care plans (ACPs) to construct an asset care network across the company`s sites. Each generic building block has its own ACP which automatically links onto physical assets across all sites.
"The ACCT is designed to transform asset care management from a traditionally stagnant environment to one where rapid adaptation to a fast changing business environment can be achieved," says Joe Naud'e, PPC`s chief engineer: operations.
"Maintenance philosophies are reworked and captured in ACPs for more than 60 000 assemblies across PPC sites. With this approach, only 1 500 generic assemblies have to be addressed to cover the company`s more than 15 000 maintenance-significant installations, achieving time and cost savings." Continual asset care improvements have a single point of entry in the system and dynamically roll out to all applicable assets on all sites of the company.
"We can now adjust our maintenance approach to suit production requirements, so that when market demand shifts, the most suitable asset care plans, that are ready for use in the system, can be activated to achieve the required operational uptime," says Naud'e.
The introduction of an international coding convention in conjunction with the ACCT approach allows for more advanced performance analyses to support continual improvement and standardisation across sites.
"The Asset Care Compiler Tool provides a good link between asset care management and asset performance management," says Alan Tait, business development director at PRAGMA Africa. "The building blocks that form the generic network now in place at PPC look at the root causes of failure to determine recourse. The problem is identified and corrected, then channelled automatically through the entire system so that every site enjoys immediate benefit of the shared knowledge."
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