The metals and mining industry depends on exhaustible resources. These companies have to face the struggle with product decline and deteriorating product quality while also working in challenging circumstances, often in remote locations with extreme climate conditions. In addition, the industry has to meet rigorous requirements for environmental and safety processes. For both metal and mining, downtime of equipment has serious consequences. Metal operations have to produce large volumes with a relatively small asset base which consists of large equipment. When a machine breaks down production often comes to a full standstill which can consequentially entail product loss and collateral equipment damage. As for mining, the equipment base is large including a sizeable mobile fleet. The type of operations combined with the extreme conditions results in equipment undergoing a high level of stress and strain which results in regular failure. Limited resources, tight margins and unique work conditions result in heightened pressure on asset managers and the maintenance department to improve equipment reliability and availability as well as to continuously improve efficiency.

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How we help

Change to improve

  • Asset reliability improvement: reliability studies, strategies and deployments to improve asset performance

  • Change management: focusing on the workforce adapting quickly and adopting new process that yield results. This includes training, mentoring and technical support to ensure improvements to be embedded for the long term.

  • Industry 4.0 services: independent business advise on steps to take in the digitalization journey, including connecting IT and OT, system selection and program deployment. All connected to your specific operational targets and KPIs.

  • Asset Improvement Program for long-term asset performance optimization. Based on a customized business case and roadmap the program starts small and scales up after proven success.

Get in touch.

Alex Lemuz

Alex Lemuz
Sales Manager - Americas

alex.lemuz@maxgrip.com
T: +1 832-933-1602

APM Challenges for Manufacturing Companies

Future proof workforce

Keeping in mind that operations will change due to Digital Transformation, the workforce will have to adapt their skillset. Working remotely with robotics, mining automation and real-time data and insights dashboards changes the process, routines and approach to asset management. Instead of field technicians who do on-site repairs, maintenance personnel has to be trained to use artificial intelligence for remote inspection and maintenance as well as handle robotics.

Safe workforce

Safety has always been and will stay to be an essential theme in the metal and mining industry. Work conditions can be dangerous and the environment is often considered hostile. It is of pivotal importance to ensure workforce safety and meet regulatory safety standards. Best practices in safety management can be improved by implementing preventive and predictive maintenance for instance. Including these types of maintenance in your strategy will create the opportunity to prevent incidents and accidents at an early stage. Another contributing factor are Industry 4.0 solutions such as remote maintenance and remote inspection which can significantly drive worker safety and demonstrate safety compliance.

Asset reliability

The reliability of equipment is historically low in the metals and mining industry due to the excessive work conditions which makes the machinery susceptible to wear and tear. The resulting unplanned downtime of the equipment highly impacts productivity, maintenance efficiency as well as operational costs.

Industry 4.0

Like all asset-intensive industries, metals and mining companies can highly benefit from implementing Industry 4.0 digitalization solutions. Connected assets through sensors and robotization make remote working possible. Big data can connect the organization and through the enriched use via twin modelling and business logic can open up a host of optimization possibilities. This includes predictive maintenance, asset health monitoring, scenario modelling and more. In the end, digital transformation can significantly contribute to maximizing production and achieving operational leanness.

Asset health insights

As already mentioned before, asset health insights are an important step forward in the digital transformation journey of metals and mining. Accurate, relevant equipment data can predict failure, identify an issue and ensure a higher level of safety. This offers the opportunity to optimize preventive maintenance by resolving problems to avoid costly breakdowns. Condition-based maintenance will also open up the possibility to implement predictive maintenance. The combination of maintenance strategies together with the ability to have shared goals between operations as maintenance as asset health insights are derived from connected IT and OT system data highly improves swift, informed decision making and can drive down the bottom line.

Services for every asset performance management challenge

Asset Improvement Program

Assess your organization, deploy improvements and realize sustainable asset performance

EAM Implementation and Deployment

Have your organization get the most out of your EAM system

Industry 4.0 Implementation and Adoption

Take the next steps in Digital Transformation

Demonstrate Compliance

Prove regulatory compliance and safe practices.

Asset Integrity & Assurance

Safeguard safety with optimized asset integrity management

Asset Management Training and Coaching

Have your maintenance staff raise the bar of asset management

M&RE Resource Augmentation

Bring in MaxGrip maintenance experts to get the job done

Other APM challenges

Is your challenge not mentioned? Get in touch with an expert and we will find a solution together.

Get inspired

benchmarking webinar

NVDO Webinar: hoe benchmarken met data leidt tot besparingen

NVDO Webinar about building a business case for asset performance improvements through a.o. benchmarking (presented in Dutch).

Data gestuurd onderhoud: Learnings van Vitens

Data gestuurd onderhoud: Learnings van Vitens

Vitens and MaxGrip host a webinar in Dutch on data driven maintenance, their process and learnings. Collaboration with the Dutch maintenance organization NVDO.

engineer turning knob and lever

Reliability Metrics 101: Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)

An overview of MTTR, how to improve it, and how to use this knowledge to influence your organizations maintenance and reliability strategy.