Greenfield planning at Cadbury plant

London – Maintenance Teams for greenfield projects should get involved in the commissioning process at the earliest possible stage and also be a part of the team accepting and checking the delivered machines, including tests at vendor sites. This is the view of Bogdan Brozyniak, head of maintenance at Cadbury Poland.

Operating this way, the team is best able to learn the detailed requirements of the machines they will need to service, according to Brozyniak, who previously worked in a similar role at American Axle, an automotive parts manufacturer. His comments came in a presentation at the recent “Maintenance Cost Control Strategies” conference in Amsterdam, organised by TA Cook.

Among other planning steps, the maintenance manager has to establish the number of technicians - mechanical and electrical - required, said Brozyniak, noting that estimates for the number of machines each technician can service vary between five and 15.

One technician can deal with a larger number of single-purpose machines, for example, in a metal working plant, where one machine function might be drilling, turning or milling. However, in a food factory, a machine might comprise a section of a line with a conveyor, liquid pumps, valves, heaters and packaging, so a technician can only deal with fewer units.

In terms of the maintenance team structure, Brozyniak said it was a close call between those comprising electricians and mechanics versus multi-skilled technicians. The former, he noted, required more technicians - in part to cover for absence - while the latter required costly training for more people.

Another question is whether to employ a group leader (GL) on each shift to keep things running and develop the team. The cost, he said, can be reduced by having a GL on just the morning shift to prepare and coordinate the rest of the day. However this, he warned, can impact the team’s “feeling of urgency, continuous improvement process, safety behaviour and long-term plans.”

Reviewing which activities should be done in-house and which outsourced, Brozyniak noted that most utility services could now be easily outsourced as equipment is more standardised, it is easy to find companies to carry out servicing and machines are more reliable Activities that should be outsourced, however, include “anything required by law for employee safety, such as checking electrical installations, ATEX equipment, lifts, hoists and pressure vessels, plus any regular calibration work that needs traceable equipment.”

For predictive maintenance, Brozyniak has found it better to outsource oils analysis, vibration analysis, ultrasonic leak detection and axis alignment checking as the necessary specialised equipment and knowledge would be under-used in-house. However, some tools can be usefully used in-house, such as thermal cameras and insulation checkers for electric motors.

Rounding up these points, Brozyniak said his current workshop had tool costs of around Euro100,000. It comprises electricians and mechanics, with a leader on each shift. The teams are equipped with:
- tools for electricians (each has got his own due to the hazard of electrical shock);
- tools for mechanics ( common tools carts);
- workshop with some basic tools (drilling + turning machines);
- predictive tools ( thermal camera, high speed camera).

TPM pillars
Brozyniak went on to describe total productive maintenance (TPM ) pillars as a good methodology for reducing maintenance costs. For example, he cited savings through autonomous maintenance, by involving the manufacturing team in cleaning and inspection, and in detecting problems before they became expensive to resolve - thereby reducing pressure on maintenance resources.

Likewise, Kaizen methodology has delivered big returns from small changes, Brozyniak explaining how problems with picking up a washer had led to the development of a pipe system that picks one washer at a time. This has reduced the time of the operation six-fold, down to one second, and the manufacturing cost for the assembly station by 10%.

When linking the maintenance plan to the production plan, Brozyniak said it was necessary to define the maintenance activity for each piece of equipment: “This definition [can be] sourced from vendor documentation, detailing requirements/suggestions, from lessons learned from other similar plants, and from our own feelings, having commissioned the plant,” he explained.

Some maintenance scope, he said, was later redefined by technicians in internal documents detailing standard operating procedures.

During the start-up, the Cadbury Poland team decided to check the machinery more often than was required. This enabled it to quickly verify the service plan and remove any non-value-added activities, as well as better define the frequency required for each activity.

“The key point here is to understand that even the best vendor does not have as much actual experience as the user,” said Brozyniak. “There is the opportunity to develop and even redesign the machine, which might be necessary. By involving the maintenance team in the machine build-up process with the vendor, this can build relations, share any doubts or concerns, explain the operations and expectations, plus understand the warranty.”

Cadbury Poland, he noted, subsequently found it much easier to co-operate with that vendor, who appreciated the value of the data in developing new versions of the machine. This has happened, for example, in improvements to the sealing system on one machine, which have been implemented on new versions now delivered to the Cadbury plant.

“This approach consolidates long term relationships with suppliers, which is generally a good, positive thing, but naturally by developing the machines to work more efficiently,” concluded Brozyniak, though he noted “any competitor also buying that machine will benefit from our experience.”