Basf switches up a gear
21 Sep 2006
BASF is rolling out a new asset and maintenance management project at its Antwerp site — the chemical group's second largest facility worldwide. The aim is "to reorient the maintenance into more preventive and predictive maintenance towards a final goal of world-class maintenance, whatever that may mean," said Herman Baets, head technical governance, BASF Antwerp.
Failure analysis
The company already employs a predictive maintenance strategy across the Belgian site. This, said Baets, focuses on rotating equipment — vibration analysis, oil analysis — electrical junction boxes (infrared view), pressurised components; wall thickness measurements and all the normal instrumentation to test and inspect pressure vessels and piping
The target now is to optimise the strategy, based on criticality analysis and Root Cause Failure Analysis.
Baets comments that the "new possibilities" created by the modern DCS systems will play a key role in this project.
As a general overview, Baets defines the current maintenance regime at BASF Antwerp as: corrective 53%; preventive, time-based and usage-based, 22%; predictive, condition-based, 25%. Three years ago corrective maintenance was more dominant, at 65%.
This "is probably not the fact that there is more preventive maintenance, but that the different departments are much better at interpreting their costs: the bookings are better. The real improvement into more preventive must still take place," he commented.
BASF's expert went on to list some significant achievements from the Antwerp site's predictive maintenance activities to date. These include a 50% drop in consumption of bearings; significant reduction in breakdowns and, thereby, production losses, while MTBR (mean time between repairs) for big rotating machines has climbed from two to four years.
Asked about the advances he would like to see from suppliers of predictive maintenance technologies, Baets said "We want the suppliers to make the link between the classical methods and the modern ones: more pro-active maintenance, but based on the classical instruments and not on "avant-garde" systems which aren't yet suited for the process and chemical industry."
For example, he suggested "link vibration analysis to process parameters for critical pumps/machines."
Vibration monitoring
The CM regime at Antwerp includes collecting and analysing vibration data using technologies such as Emerson's CSI Machinery Health Analyzers for maintaining the health of rotating machinery, according to Johan de Wever, BASF rotating engineering specialist.
He cited, for example, how BASF applied the diagnostic technologies to detect a defective bearing cage in a fan used for drying chalk, where a failure could have caused two days of lost production worth around $12,800 and a damaged machine.
BASF has also been able to use vibration monitoring to extend the period between bearing replacements on fertilizer production machinery.
"These tools have allowed our team to grow our core competencies to include troubleshooting, multi-channel analysis, and ODS (operating deflection shape) analysis," the BASF specialist explained.
Failure analysis
The company already employs a predictive maintenance strategy across the Belgian site. This, said Baets, focuses on rotating equipment — vibration analysis, oil analysis — electrical junction boxes (infrared view), pressurised components; wall thickness measurements and all the normal instrumentation to test and inspect pressure vessels and piping
The target now is to optimise the strategy, based on criticality analysis and Root Cause Failure Analysis.
Baets comments that the "new possibilities" created by the modern DCS systems will play a key role in this project.
As a general overview, Baets defines the current maintenance regime at BASF Antwerp as: corrective 53%; preventive, time-based and usage-based, 22%; predictive, condition-based, 25%. Three years ago corrective maintenance was more dominant, at 65%.
This "is probably not the fact that there is more preventive maintenance, but that the different departments are much better at interpreting their costs: the bookings are better. The real improvement into more preventive must still take place," he commented.
BASF's expert went on to list some significant achievements from the Antwerp site's predictive maintenance activities to date. These include a 50% drop in consumption of bearings; significant reduction in breakdowns and, thereby, production losses, while MTBR (mean time between repairs) for big rotating machines has climbed from two to four years.
Asked about the advances he would like to see from suppliers of predictive maintenance technologies, Baets said "We want the suppliers to make the link between the classical methods and the modern ones: more pro-active maintenance, but based on the classical instruments and not on "avant-garde" systems which aren't yet suited for the process and chemical industry."
For example, he suggested "link vibration analysis to process parameters for critical pumps/machines."
Vibration monitoring
The CM regime at Antwerp includes collecting and analysing vibration data using technologies such as Emerson's CSI Machinery Health Analyzers for maintaining the health of rotating machinery, according to Johan de Wever, BASF rotating engineering specialist.
He cited, for example, how BASF applied the diagnostic technologies to detect a defective bearing cage in a fan used for drying chalk, where a failure could have caused two days of lost production worth around $12,800 and a damaged machine.
BASF has also been able to use vibration monitoring to extend the period between bearing replacements on fertilizer production machinery.
"These tools have allowed our team to grow our core competencies to include troubleshooting, multi-channel analysis, and ODS (operating deflection shape) analysis," the BASF specialist explained.
