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Ukrainian company IT-Enterprise implements enterprise asset management (EAM) at Lantmännen

Author
Published on:
Published in: Case Studies
COMPANY SIZE500 employeesKPIOnline asset management 24/7/365
BUSINESS AREAMaintenance, Repair, OverhaulPROJECT DURATION6 months
YEAR2022COUNTRYUkraine
INDUSTRYAgriculture, Food industryCUSTOMERLantmännen Axa

Lantmännen Axa is the Ukrainian office of Lantmännen corporation, Northern Europe’s leader in agriculture, machinery, bioenergy and food products. It is Ukraine’s largest manufacturer of cereal-based breakfast products (START!, АХA, Finn Crisp) exporting its products to CIS countries, Europe, the UAE, Jordan, China and others.

Background and challenges

Lantmännen Axa fosters the Scandinavian traditions of production management in the team. The company has a European type of business organization and relies on the following strengths:

  • Professional team of 200-300 employees;
  • State-of-the-art equipment;
  • Modern management approach and business processes;
  • Significant share in the Ukrainian food market.

The products are manufactured on the equipment of the British company APV-Baker using extrusion technology, which combines the effects of high temperature and sudden pressure changes during grain processing. The production process is closed and fully automated, and the main organoleptic and physico-chemical indicators of the products are tested every 90 minutes.

The company’s equipment fleet needs special attention: monitoring, control, inspections, etc. Naturally, the requirements for asset maintenance are quite high: if some part or unit fails, it might cause a stoppage of the production line and downtime.

Modern smart equipment requires systematic and thorough technical support. With this in mind, the management of Lantmännen Axa asked the SmartEAM (IT-Enterprise) team to help it resolve the equipment reliability issues.

EAM project roadmap

The project for Enterprise Assets Management (EAM) has covered the Enterprise Asset Management & Maintenance and Industrial Internet of Things modules of the SmartEAM system from IT-Enterprise. The implementation involved 3 phases:

PHASE 1
1.1 Equipment classification:
— Created a tree hierarchy of technical places (functional locations), repair objects and equipment models;
— Drill-down to key and numbered units.
1.2 Accounting for unit movements:
— Entered a number of norms (rates) and operating rules to calculate maintenance schedules based on calendar time.
Deliverable: Mobile application deployed.

1.3 Archive of drawings:
— Added standard documents: drawings, diagrams, guides, instructions, photos, etc.
Deliverable: Created an electronic document archive (TDM).

1.4 Maintenance cards (SOP):
— Added detailed maintenance cards and operations with the description of norms.
— Using sets of maintenance cards.
1.5 Norms and operating rules.
1.6 Operation statistics parameters:
— Description and monitoring of parameters for equipment inspections and diagnostics;
— Predictive Maintenance.
Deliverable: Drill-down in the EAM classifier to the level of separate units, parts and materials.

PHASE 2
2.1 Inspection plans.
2.2 Central planning.
Deliverable: Automated scheduling of preventive maintenance jobs.

2.3 Condition-based maintenance.
Deliverable: Control and analysis of inspection results.

2.4 OEE calculation (Overall Equipment Effectivenes).
Deliverable: Control of downtime and compliance with norms/operating rules.

2.5 Managing work requests and purchase requests.
2.6 Planning per unit.
2.7 Failure investigation.
Deliverable: Root cause analysis of failures (RCA).

PHASE 3
3.1 Creating work permits.
3.2 Planning and accounting for maintenance resources.
Deliverable: Justifying the need to purchase parts and materials.

3.3 Safety stock management.
3.4 Planned/actual cost analysis in maintenance.
Deliverable: Planned/actual cost reports.

3.5 Integration with the accounting system.
Deliverable: Data exchange with the accounting system.

Remarkably, the EAM digitization project resulted in 100% of the Lantmännen Axa team using the SmartEAM mobile app. Mobile devices have proved to be a simple, handy and ergonomic tool in the production environment.

The client’s employees quickly mastered the mobile version of SmartEAM. Now they are used to data input and processing on their handheld devices.

Mobile app: key tool in asset management & Industry 4.0 element

Implementing the EAM project involving the SmartEAM mobile app from IT-Enterprise provided Lantmännen Axa with a number of business advantages:

  • Quick access to equipment condition data from mobile devices.
    Digital access to maintenance instructions, user manuals, maintenance regulations and schedules and process control history: failures, malfunctions, inspections, etc.
  • Systemic planning of inspections and control.
  • Based on maintenance cards (SOP), the system automatically creates a schedule for equipment inspections and control: engine oil level, filter purity, etc.
  • Inspection quality control to prevent equipment failures.
    The system generates reminders about maintenance tasks based on the periodicity specified in technical documentation. After these tasks are done, the technicians confirm the execution and enter the inspection characteristics along with any other data required by the system to add and save the inspection card.
  • Quick notifications about equipment malfunctions on the mobile device.
    Any noise, vibration, heating, leakage, short circuit, jamming, and other malfunctions can be reported via a mobile phone. The worker can take a photo and/or record a video, and then create an online work request. Within seconds, this request will get to the technicians responsible for equipment maintenance.
  • Access to equipment data via QR codes.
    Each machine has a QR code leading to the unified digital knowledge base including equipment data, maintenance cards, etc. By scanning a QR code, a worker can open all available data about this equipment. Maintenance technicians have given plenty of feedback about the convenience and efficiency of such an approach.

“Lantmännen Axa contacted us, aiming to arrange continuous operation of production lines. They were particularly interested in Predictive Maintenance technology. Now every employee of our client starts their work shift with getting a maintenance task suggested by the system’s AI, artificial intelligence. This approach has allowed them to minimize the stoppages of key equipment. It also means lower maintenance costs, a shorter purchasing cycle for required parts, and many other efficiency factors”

comments Oleg Shcherbatenko, CEO of IT-Enterprise.

IIoT: process control & Industry 4.0 element

The next project implemented by the team includes the Industrial Internet of Things module. This solution suggests:

  1. Automatic equipment effectiveness control (OEE);
  2. Automatic equipment data collection via smart IIoT devices;
  3. Unified information base available in the mobile app via scanning QR codes on equipment.

The need for IIoT is rationally explained by the need for equipment effectiveness. The company works in 2–3 production shifts and needs to track the effectiveness of its equipment: manufacturing time, energy consumption (data for further energy management), etc.

The key metric is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). It is globally recognized as an indicator to assess equipment operation.

OEE factors include three criteria of effectiveness:
Availability, A;
Performance, P;
Quality, Q.

OEE is calculated according to the formula: OEE = A*P*Q

To control overall equipment effectiveness, the SmartEAM team created the ecosystem “equipment → IIoT device → enterprise asset management (EAM) ← IIoT devices ← equipment”, which ensures connectivity and collection of all equipment operation data.

Next, based on the extended data from IIoT devices, the existing equipment data is enriched and processed. This helps to further manage equipment load through shift-based process distribution, energy management, anomaly detection, and so on.

Results

By using modern EAM and IIoT solutions, Lantmännen Axa got a collection of tools to manage production lines. It became easier for the company to react in real time to market fluctuations and process deviations, as well as find growth areas.

Effects of implementing SmartEAM from IT-Enterprise:

  • Lower risks of equipment failures — SmartEAM ensures maintenance control and normal equipment use.
  • 3 times faster response to the alarm system — statistically, it is much quicker to resolve such issues as equipment failures and malfunctions in a digital environment than relying on traditional methods.
  • Digitized equipment information — all data about equipment operation, control, regulations and best use scenarios is entered and stored in a digital environment.
  • Unified and open equipment knowledge base — minimizes the risk of ‘bus factor’ in case some experienced specialist decides to leave the company. All team members have open access to this information.
  • Online asset management 24/7/365 — access to equipment data from anywhere in the world and at any time.

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