Background
The client is an integrated provider of waste management, logistics, technical and facilities management services to the chemical sector. At one large integrated site in western Germany the client is responsible for a significant proportion of all waste management and is also heavily involved in plant maintenance.
Over the last few years T.A. Cook Consultants has undertaken a number of technical asset and plant-related projects for the client. One of these projects focused on optimising the processes covering production and technical asset maintenance. All of the maintenance-related IT process steps ran on SAP PM/WCM. Once the entire process had been reviewed, improved and several hundred staff in the various production units trained in its use, it was necessary to set up a management control and reporting system to ensure that it was not only in place, but used and implemented in a sustainable fashion.
Scope
T.A. Cook was contracted to determine the quality and efficiency of work undertaken and to develop - within the SAP PM - an appropriate process control and management system to provide a regular status report of the gap between the "as is" and "should be" performance. This measure of the quality of the process was to be graphically displayed so that it could be easily incorporated into management reports. Having set up and tested the system, it was to be handed over to staff on a ready-to-run basis. In order to ensure a smooth handover, the development and testing phases were to be documented in the same detailed manner as was normally required for training manuals.
Approach
As well as tracking technical system ad-herence and quality (e.g. field checking), the process control and reporting system is also set up to spot-check qualitative (field content) process adherence and hence quality.
In the first concept stage, emphasis was placed on developing appropriate technical system attributes. This was undertaken as follows:
• Relevant elements of the process were identified
• Quality criteria (critical path, priorities, technical location, abbreviations and longhand text etc.) defined
• Evaluation methodology defined
• Process KPIs derived and described
• Evaluation tool developed and tested
• Status report set up
• Status report quality checked
• Process and working steps documented
Training completed for those in the IT area accountable for its running a maintenance.
The solution
T.A. Cook supplied two easy-to-use tools to measure and display the quality of the maintenance process:
The first of these tools, the evaluation tool, allows a regular status report to be called up easily and quickly. The evaluation is established in five steps:
1. Manual selection of the database from SAP using drop-down menus
2. Automatic import of data to MS Access
3. Automatic generation and evaluation of the process KPIs
4. Automatic export of the data into the IT report
5. Automatic creation of charts via interface to the graphic tool
In the second tool, the graphics tool, the generated report output is displayed using simple charts which allow the user to readily determine major variations to plan. The contents of the charts and diagrams can be tailored to individual requirements as can the report interval therefore allowing history and trends to be viewed as required.
The report, consisting of process KPIs and charts, allows corrective action to be determined. This is further enhanced by the ability of the system to create and maintain a centralised, consolidated list of significant deviations and corrective actions to date.
Client benefits
The process control and reporting system ensures that problems are identified, collated and documented appropriately. The creation of a central database has allowed corrective actions designed to increase productivity to be tracked such that management can be sure that they are implemented and effective.
The process control and reporting system, its ease of use and choice of simple KPIs allows weaknesses in the notification, plan and execute processes to be readily identified so that specific corrective actions can be drawn up and implemented with confidence.
The installation of the system has facilitated a 15% reduction in cycle time from notification to execution as well as a 20% reduction in the job cost. This has contributed greatly to achieving sustainable competitive advantage in what is increasingly a cost and performance-conscious environment.
For more information contact:
Rupert Clark
Marketing Manager
Direct: +44 (0) 1183 260 229
Mobile: +44 (0) 7792 926 696
r.clark@tacook.com |
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