BavariaImprovement in technical availability of 2% and a reduction in maintenance costs of € 800,000 per year

The Task
Bavaria asked Mainnovation to improve the performance of the maintenance organization. The company was not satisfied with the technical availability and there was tension between maintenance and production, Due to the major importance of this aspect, a steering committee was created chaired by the company’s CEO (Jan-Renier Swinkels).

The Approach
On the basis of a VDM^XL audit and a benchmark, Mainnovation demonstrated that in addition to the possibility of creating a great deal of value by improving technical availability, there also was a great deal of potential for improving maintenance costs. The steering committee, which meets once a month, at the recommendation of Mainnovation decided to initiate three sub-projects:

1. Implementation of Reliability Engineering: It was decided to hire three Reliability Engineers. An interim Mainnovation Reliability Engineer structured this department by implementing the associated processes and by teaching a number of RE techniques.
2. The Planning and Scheduling sub-project primarily focused on gatekeeping, and on planning and scheduling. After the processes were documented and the SAP system modified, a Mainnovation consultant implemented this new way of working by means of coaching and training.
3. Aside from various coaching meetings, Mainnovation’s consultant, in cooperation with the steering committee designed a new organization, whereby dedicated maintenance organizations were established for the different departments. Furthermore, the number of technicians was critically reviewed and due to the improvements realized by sub-projects 1 and 2, a personnel reduction of 7 persons was implemented.

Mainnovation’s Added Value
The result after 2 years consists of an improvement in technical availability of 2% (93% -> 95%) and a reduction in maintenance costs of € 800,000 per year (3.23% -> 2.53%). In addition, maintenance and production now work together well in a harmonized way. Aside from safeguarding the results achieved, the steering committee wants to initiate a continuous improvement process. The company is going to implement performance management with the help of VCP.

 

The result after 2 years consists of an improvement in technical availability of 2% (93% -> 95%) and a reduction in maintenance costs of € 800,000 per year (3.23% -> 2.53%).