This global organization is a leading provider of tubes and related services for the world’s energy industry. Their industrial system integrates steel production, pipe forming, and finishing across 16 countries as well as product testing facilities and service centers in over 25 countries. MaxGrip was asked to map the asset improvement and savings potential.

By carrying out an Asset Improvement Mapping (AIM) at one of their sites, MaxGrip identified areas with low organizational maturity, developed a customized asset management improvement plan, and forecasted return on investment through reduction in emergency work and downtime.

MaxGrip’s AIM systematically examines the client’s maintenance organization across multiple dimensions: managerial, maintenance and inspection, and production output. Doing an AIM creates organizational awareness by highlighting strengths and weaknesses set against the specific business background and company objectives. By evaluating the organization maturity score through multiple characteristics, MaxGrip identifies areas that can be improved relatively easily to achieve results. 

Following the results from the Asset Improvement Mapping, MaxGrip delivered a business case with ROI and a pragmatic asset management improvement plan. Actions (technology and processes based) for this site include:

• Optimize the registration of assets, hierarchies;
• Standardize failure modes and mechanisms;

• Assign criticality using greater granularity;
• Apply RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) to 10% of critical assets;
• Reduce unscheduled downtime with improved maintenance procedures.

Next to these actions the roadmap included one other essential component for success: people. A change program

• Adoption: pointing out ‘what’s in it for me’ helps to motivate people and accelerate adoption of the change.

• Way of working: adapt to changes, including an assessment of the roles and responsibilities.
• Company culture: how is this embedded in the maintenance organization and how can we take it into account.

All of these recommendations – people, processes and technology- represent the ability to execute for this site and were shared accordingly with the client. The next step would be a partial deployment. Usually this encompasses optimizing one unit or production line, or starting with the low-hanging fruit (the quick fixes). 

Based on our recommended action plan and roadmap, this manufacturer expects to see their work efficiency increase with 50-55%. This comes down to projected savings of around $1,120,000 in three years for this site alone. Additionally, the client expects downtime reduction to be as high as 65%, with additional savings of $420,000 projected over the same three years.