Taking Predictive Maintenance from Business Case to Full Roll-Out

With the market steadily approaching saturation, the Company made it a strategic goal to reduce maintenance expenses as part of an overall cost reduction exercise. It wanted to explore whether Predictive Maintenance (PdM) could contribute to this reduction. The expectation was that unplanned maintenance interventions would be decreased as a result and the overall operation of assets would be improved – particularly the reliability and availability of critical assets.

The following improvements were anticipated:

• Reduced level of urgency associated with reactive maintenance and equipment failures
• Reduced cost of preventive maintenance for machines that are still in good condition
• Increased Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of the production lines

The project would be initiated at the site which was most mature in terms of data availability. The target was to transfer and scale solutions to similar or identical assets in other sites. Alongside the implementation of a technical solution and the establishment of a new way of working, an important goal was to build up the company's competences so its internal teams could carry out the rollout independently as far as possible.

The Client was explicitly searching for a vendor-independent partner who could provide support from the first feasibility study through to a global rollout across 12 sites. This had to include reviewing the solution concept, selecting a vendor, overseeing the roll-out and supporting the introduction of this new way of working – while building up new internal capabilities.

EFESO was selected as the partner and carried out the following major steps during the project:

• A two-week feasibility study assessing the potential for the methodology on site. This included analyzing and classifying the equipment and the available data – as well as the readiness of internal resources. In just two weeks EFESO was able to make a first business case estimate that proved to be 90% accurate when the project ended.
• The solution concept was developed in close cooperation with the internal IT and maintenance departments so that it could be integrated seamlessly into the IT landscape – and also, the everyday work of the maintenance staff.
• Additional machines were gradually transferred to the PdM strategy and brought online.
• A test phase lasting several months served to prove added value and to draw up requirements for the final technical solution.
• This was followed by an RFI/RFP phase to select the right software solution from the market for a global roll-out. In the end, the Client opted for an in-house solution – i.e., scaling the solution on the common proof of value.

The basis for this was a jointly prepared business case – both for the plant in Spain and for a global roll-out.