The Irish Maintenance and Asset Management Society (MEETA) Awards, held last month, are the premier awards for those working in asset management and reliability. MEETA is a society within Engineers Ireland that actively encourages and promotes the implementation of best practice in industrial maintenance.

The awards highlight and reward the ingenuity shown by those in maintenance and asset management in providing value to their companies. The MEETA Awards consist of the following award categories: the student awards (sponsored by ESS Ltd); and the industry awards (sponsored by AESSEAL Ltd). The MEETA industry awards include an overall winner with subcategories of maintenance technology, maintenance management, health and safety and an environment category, which is new for 2015. Award winners are recognised at a special award ceremony held the night before the annual conference in November each year. Below is a full list of the winners and a description of their innovative programmes.

MEETA Industry Awards 2015 – Sponsored by AESSEAL Ltd

Overall Winner Abbott Ireland Cootehill - Nigel Clarke, Brett Neumann and Oisin Byrne Lubrication Excellence

As part of the ongoing maintenance excellence programme within Abbott Cootehill a lubrication excellence scheme was initiated and implemented during 2015. It examined all aspects of lubrication within the plant in order to develop a series of actions and next steps forward to have a best in class lubrication programme at Abbott Cootehill. What was the situation before it started?

  • Several different types of different manufacturers and grades of lubricants on site;
  • Inadequate storage facility (space and temperature control);
  • Poor identification of lubricants and their intended application;
  • No list of lubricated equipment on site.

Project Implementation

  • Extensive training completed with craft and engineering team on site;
  • Consolidation of all different lubricants;
  • Identification of all lubricated equipment on site and tagged accordingly in Maximo;
  • Colour coded tagged fitted on equipment in the field;
  • New lubrication storage identified, building works completed and temperature control installed in storage facility;
  • Colour coded dispensing units allocated to each different grade of lubricant;
  • Bespoke pump dispensing system installed in lubrication room;
  • Filter system installed on pump system ensuring all oil is filtered to 6 micron just before it is installed in the equipment.

Achievements/Results

  • Entire engineering team aware of the effects of good and bad lubrication practices;
  • Detailed register of lubricated equipment now readily available;
  • Fully stocked, controlled and automatic dispensing system now in place;
  • Colour coded tags on equipment for ease of lubrication identification;
  • All lubricants filtered just before they are fitted in the equipment.

Maintenance Management Award - Winner Hollister – Paul O’Malley, John Joe McDermott, Sean Maye, Fergus O’Boyle, Ross Williams Early

Equipment Management (TPM) Invest in People During 2013, an investment worth €25 million (V4) was approved for Hollister Ballina consisting of a new cleanroom and multiple lines of automation to manufacture the VaPro product family. Traditionally, the project engineers would manage the separate pieces of automated equipment and be responsible for delivering it onto the manufacturing floor. In some cases the manufacturer would dictate how the machine was designed and delivered with minimal collaboration and input from the operational and technical team. Hollister decided on an improved collaborative approach using a TPM methodology - Early Equipment Management (EEM). This would ensure full engagement with the operational team including the manufacturing floor (operators and fitters) and technical teams from the very start and also to ensure that Hollister learned from history and previous mistakes.

Environment Award - Winner Astellas Ireland - Eamonn Foley and Louis Collins ‘Changing Tomorrow’- A Journey to Sustainability

Astellas Ireland (Kerry Plant) manufactures immunosuppressant products used in the treatment of patients who have received organ transplants. Its journey to sustainability started in 2000, and it has gone from strength to strength ever since. It has excelled in the area of renewable energy, with the installation of an on-site wind turbine, and woodchip boiler. It has reduced its reliance on non-renewable energy sources by 62 per cent and carbon emissions by 69 per cent since 2005. It has also showed initiative in cutting its reliance on landfill by up to 70 per cent since 2000. It has been proactive in its voluntary clean-up of a legacy landfill, reducing the risk of contamination to the local community. Astellas endeavours to come up with new and innovative ways to reduce its impact, and also add value to its business and community. ‘Changing tomorrow’ – its journey to sustainability is a mantra that Astellas lives by in every aspect of its work.

Maintenance Technology Award - Winner Hollister - John Joe McDermott, Thomas Renehan, Sean Maye, Fergus O’Boyle, Ross Williams

A Refocus on Maintenance Innovation One piece of equipment introduced during Hollister's new capital expansion was a flow wrap machine manufactured with its packaging partners in Spain – it called it CPM4, as it was the fourth generation of its already existing Catheter Packaging Machine platform. The challenge and always the biggest opportunity for this machine was ultrasonic cutting of the two types of fabrics that were used in the build of this complex flow wrap. Hollister already had spent more than €50,000 on consumable parts Original scrap was more than two per cent and downtime accounted for more than three per cent. The new machine was designed and built with integrated laser cutting as a direct replacement for ultrasonic cutting. The cutting time is 20 per cent faster, and seal quality is improved by the cutting and vacuum removal of material that was in the original flow pack seal. Catheter packaging machine 4 (CPM4) is now in production and Hollister has had no consumable expenditure, scrap or down time relating to fabric cutting. A major success.

Health and Safety Award - Winner Veolia and Servier - Daniel Wolohan, Adrian Marah, Dave Lyons, Padraig O Connor and Helen Kavanagh Legionella

Prevention Maintenance Programme For Servier and Veolia (utility subcontractor) legionella prevention is a high priority and extensive work has been carried out onsite following a detailed risk assessment in 2012. An extensive maintenance programme required a lot of checks/man hours to satisfy the legislation. Annually 524 man hours /65.5 days of planned maintenance was required. This seemed excessive and a way to identify  to reduce these hours but not compromise the legionella prevention system was needed. Servier and Veolia utilised their Building Management System to monitor domestic water systems and their parameters. Maintaining loop and storage temperature is key to legionella prevention. The bacteria cannot survive if temperatures are controlled. This negated the need for regular rounds and readings. If any issue occurred an alarm would be generated on the BMS and the appropriate action would be taken. It has proved to be a huge success. Annual man hours reduced by 45 per cent and they now have real time information on the health of their domestic water systems, which allows them to fix problems that may not have been discovered with spot checking.

Certificate of Maintenance Excellence BioMarin - Kevin Kilbride, Christopher O'Halloran and John O'Brien Management of Maintenance Assets Project

The BioMarin Shanbally asset maintenance management programme was developed in a threefold structure of elements:

  1. BioMarin identified personnel as key to the development of a dynamic and efficient maintenance organisation. An agile team structure was developed with key positions instilled to create an empowered team dynamic with the required skillset and mindset.
  2. Critical to the development of the asset maintenance programme was the equipment maintenance criticality ranking (ECA). Equipment Maintenance Criticality is a value assigned to each asset indicating its criticality in the event of failure or shutdown within the plant. Equipment criticality ranking was based on Base Criticality Factors - EHS /Business/Quality Impact and Maintenance Factors - Utilisation /Time to Repair/Equipment Costs/Mean time Between Failure/Detection/Visibility Factor.
  3. The Maintenance and Reliability programme develops a continuous improvement attitude toward maintenance systems allowing the systems to develop. An assessment was performed on people and the organisation, processes, systems, technology and optimisation and culture to identify gaps between current and best practice.

Certificate of Maintenance Excellence Boortmalt (Athy) - Noel Gaffney, Ken Graham, Paddy Moore and James Hovendon Maintenance Excellent Programme Achievements:

  • Production planning ensuring equipment availability
  • Production and maintenance working as a team
  • Maintenance planning in line with production
  • Purchasing of parts based on reliability
  • PMs increased substantially
  • CBM monthly

Reliability

  • PMs increased by more than 100 per cent; down time reduced by 33 per cent
  • Reduced labour on site by 50 per cent; reduced R&M spend by €97,000 p.a.
  • Reduced energy costs by €28,0000 p.a.
  • Increased production from 61,000 tonnes to 97,000 tonnes

MEETA Student Project Awards 2015 – Sponsored by ESS Ltd

MEETA Student Project Awards 2015 2015 Winner John Byrne, IT Carlow Engineering Reliability and Lean Maintenance

The traditional time/age Preventive Maintenance (PM) strategy originally in use at TEVA Waterford was becoming ineffective in achieving a respectable level of reliability. Applying more PM did not give a better result, so the basis of Byrne's project was to change the maintenance strategy to reliability centred maintenance. Changing the strategy invited significant challenges including cultural opposition, capital approval and getting the buy-in. Psychological tools helped to overcome these challenges. Attaining a mediocre level of reliability with plant equipment is relatively easy, but to attain a level close to perfection is extremely difficult. Byrne's project has improved reliability from 99.2 per cent to 99.9 per cent and as a result will save €483,000 every two years going forward in just one section of plant. Striving for perfection rather than mediocrity was the catalyst for this project, and this was achieved by introducing and implementing RCM at TEVA Waterford.

Certificate of Excellence Kevin Condon, CIT Preventive Maintenance Optimisation of a Split Mold Stent Security Machine

This project was undertaken to increase maintenance efficiency at a bottleneck manufacturing station. Through the use of six sigma methodology, DMAIC, FMEA and statistical modelling of failure data, the project has established and validated a method of optimising PM that is transferrable to other equipment families in the organisation. The project was not without its challenges. As the equipment family consisted of 35 assets, minimum cost of maintenance models proved inadequate, requiring the development, implementation and validation of more appropriate maintenance mathematical models. The harnessing of stakeholder commitment throughout all project phases was also both challenging and critical. The project has directly resulted in significant efficiency improvements in both planned and unplanned maintenance and a capacity increase of 3,000 parts. The devised project solution and methodology, applying scientific process for a vital capacity improvement, is consequently currently being implemented in multiple sites throughout the organisation both in Ireland and globally.

Certificate of Excellence Ronan Durston, DIT

To Optimise the Performance of Washrooms Within Dublin airport the Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is used to track asset performance and aid asset related decision making. Based on the CMMS data the washrooms proved to be the worst offending assets in relation to cost and performance. In order to reduce associated costs and improve washroom performance a detailed analysis of the CMMS was completed. This aided in the identification of repeating faults and inefficiencies. The use of current technologies and engineered solutions enabled the successful implementation of activities such as Planned Maintenance (PM) optimisation, urinal operation optimisation, fixture PIR conversion, lighting upgrade and water conservation initiatives. The PM optimisation and water conservation activities were the most successful. These activities combined resulted in annual savings of €83,395 and also led to an improved passenger experience. The main constraint was due to the fact that works could only be completed during night to minimise impact on operations.

Certificate of Excellence Michael Harrington, CIT Fast Scan System EMC is a global leader in the design and manufacture of large storage systems for IT departments worldwide.

These storage systems contain a series of hard-drives, hundreds of thousands of which are used by EMC every quarter. Hard-drive identification is via a unique bar code system. The scanning of hard-drive barcodes and nesting to purchase orders, an essential part of the manufacturing/distribution process, is completely manual and a monotonous/time consuming task. Based on student project identification/proposal while on work placement, EMC agreed to support an investigation of scanning process automation. Following a hugely challenging hardware/software project and personal development process, a fully functional automated fast scan prototype was designed, manufactured, commissioned and tested. Optimum speed, scanner angle, scanner distance and scanner operating modes were determined and implemented to achieve major efficiency and speed benefits. Direct benefits include a scanning process 400 per cent faster, increased productivity and the elimination of human error/monotonous process.