Aperam HoTT Implementation

Improvement Maintenance Work at Aperam

Aperam is a global player in stainless, electrical and specialty steel, with customers in over 40 countries. Aperam has 2.5 million tonnes of flat Stainless and Electrical steel capacity in Brazil, Belgium and France, and is a leader in high value specialty products. Aperam has a highly integrated distribution, processing and services network and a unique capability to produce stainless and specialty steel from low cost biomass (charcoal).

The Challenge

Aperam has a Cold Rolling Plant at Genk (B). Here short line stops for preventive and non-urgent corrective maintenance are an important element in the asset maintenance strategy. PDM was asked to analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of maintenance work during stops of a major production line in this plant.

Main findings

PDM’s analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of maintenance work during stops yielded the following main findings:

Scope items added after scope freeze of line stop
Limited status overview during execution
High administrative workload for the line stop coordinator
Limited planning of stop & restart activities.

Impact of these issues is that not all planned activities were executed, overrun of line start-up timing and quality issues in the execution of maintenance work.

Solutions

PDM implemented the following solutions:

Optimization coordinator administration
Optimization stop & restart procedure
Optimization planning.

Project Results

The improved way of working was tested during a line stop in April 2019 with the following results:

98% Of planned activities executed.
Planner was more in control of the line stop.
Reduction of overrun (from 12% to 8%)
Potential identified for further improvement.

Jimmy De Wilde

Manager Cold Rolling Plant, Aperam Genk

I see clear added value in what PDM has delivered, not only in the reporting but most of all in the way of working. Such an effort without any labor union fuss or disruption on the work floor is certainly not easy. The fact that this went smoothly is really a sign of the commitment and quality of PDM.

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