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Project Goals

Interpipe is an international vertically integrated company that manufactures seamless and welded pipes as well as railway wheels. The company is among the ten largest producers of seamless pipes in the world, as well as the world's third largest manufacturer of rolled railway wheels. The company products delivered to 80 countries of the world through a network of trading offices located in key markets.

The holding structure includes a management company, 5 plants and sales offices around the world.

IT-Enterprise ERP system implemented at the main production sites of the holding. In some cases it replaced the separate IT-solutions that existed before. Among them is the implementation of automated management system of production assets of plants that are part of the Interpipe holding.

Assets management (EAM) of production facilities is a complex and important management task. The yearly costs spend on repairs and maintenance are 2-5% of full technical re-equipment costs of the enterprise. Significant share of these costs is the cost of maintenance, which depends on how well these operations are planned and executed.

The management of Interpipe holding has set a task for IT-Enterprise specialists to improve the efficiency of production equipment management, reduce emergency downtime and reduce repair costs. To solve this problem, the plants have implemented IT-Enterprise.EAM - a system for the automated production assets management.

Project Description

Interpipe has implemented IT-Enterprise.EAM that helps automate the key production assets management tasks. The unified system contains all information on the production equipment of plants and its maintenance: from equipment classification and downtime accounting to the procurement of spare parts in accordance with the developed repair cards, cost analysis, planning and control of repair work.

One of the main elements of an IT system is automated accounting of equipment usage and its downtime. The main equipment operating time data automatically collected by the controllers installed on the production lines. The downtime reasons in the information system inputted by site masters from mobile devices or from the workshop computers. This solution is an effective tool for monitoring repairs, optimizing warehouse operations and the spare parts procurement, conducting a comprehensive analysis of equipment operation, including RCM analysis. The main production assets management module is constantly updated with new information and expands the user experience.

Interpipe Niko Tube

First of all, specialists implemented automated management system of fixed production assets to the Interpipe Niko Tube plant. The project of implementing IT-Enterprise.EAM lasted 16 months, and was completed in October 2015. After successful project completion, it was decided to scale the system to other enterprises of the holding.

Next, a detailed classifier of equipment with reference to technical locations was compiled. This helped to determine the volume of repairs and systematize the data on the technical characteristics of production equipment.

An electronic archive of technical documentation has been created at the enterprise, which halved the duration of the calculations of the materials and components requirements for repairs.

The downtime accounting system, integrated with the planning system, allows to quickly and accurately analyze unplanned downtime, as well as repairs plan based on the operating time. This solution reduces the cost of material and labor resources for repairs.

The RCM analysis of the equipment state, implemented into the daily practice of the enterprise, made it possible to systematize the data on the current equipment state and effectively plan preventive repairs for components and assemblies that soon may fail. As a result of timely diagnostics of equipment, emergency downtime can be avoided, and the resources of the enterprise can be saved by repairing only those nodes that really require maintenance.

For 5 months of IT-Enterprise.EAM operation at the plant the cost of production equipment service per ton of output decreased from $ 11.9/t to 10.8 $/t.

Nizhnedneprovsky Piping Plant

At Nizhnedneprovsky Piping Plant, is the part of the Interpipe holding. The implementation project of the automated production assets management system IT-Enterprise.EAM was carried out in 2016-2017. The project covers the equipment of the main production workshops. Over 120 plant users work in the EAM system.

On average, the automated system performs 110 measurements of indicators of the production equipment state (including diagnostic devices) and records up to 180 downtimes.

With IT-Enterprise.EAM, the data on production equipment updated, the operations sequence of scheduled repairs systematized. The implemented solution optimizes the use of the enterprise maintenance personnel, as well as materials and equipment components. Thanks to the efficient cooperation between production departments and procurement specialists, materials now purchased only for specific pre-planned repair tasks.

The plant proceeded to perform repair work only on request. In a week, 500 new repair requests added to the system. Sources of requests are both scheduled repairs and operational statistics, staff comments and information on equipment downtimes.

The company has implemented a repair work planning technique based on information about the current state of equipment (RCM – Reliability Centered Maintenance). During the year of operation of the system, more than 200 RCM analyzes were carried out and 20 turnover rates and 9 periodic repair rates were applied.

As a result of the introduction of IT-Enterprise.EAM at Nizhnedneprovsky Piping Plant, the cost of scheduled repairs decreased by 2 $/ton of products, technical readiness ratio increased by 2%, although the use of equipment during this period increased by almost 2 times!

Due to the effective planning of repair works and the procurement of materials for them, the inventory for maintenance and repairs has decreased by 3.7 million UAH with a significant increase in production volumes.

Key project factors

Results

Implementation of IT-Enterprise.EAM system let Interpipe holding to reduce maintenance costs, carry out production equipment repairs based on information about their current condition, ensure high reliability of equipment operation with preventive repairs where node failure probability becomes high. As a result, the production equipment indicators increase without increasing the cost of repairs and the purchase of materials.