>> Monitoring making a differnce at VAW Motorcast
- Leeds UK
Life
for any business supplying the automotive industry can probably
be summed up in two words; ‘constant pressure’.
It’s familiar territory to anyone feeding into the global
automotive industry – highly organised and lean supply
chains, fiercely competitive marketing, strict quality assurance
and an expectation that suppliers can respond to almost any
eventuality.
It
means that suppliers, like Leeds based foundry, VAW Motorcast
need to ensure that their manufacturing processes are as efficient
and reliable as is practically and humanly possible.
Maintenance
co-ordinator Chris Roberts is tasked with objective of managing
the maintenance needs of the foundry’s plant and equipment,
which he says, “isn’t just a question of throwing
resources at key plant to make certain that it doesn’t
fail at the critical time”.
“We
need to match maintenance to productivity needs”, he
explained, “that way we can make it accountable and
cost effective. Using a mix of preventative and predictive
maintenance techniques we can control and focus resources
exactly where they are required”.
In a casting plant operation, like VAW Motorcast which makes
precision cylinder heads and engine blocks for some of the
top automotive brands, there is a significant population of
motors, pumps, gear units and hydraulic power units that support
the process, all with the potential to cause disruption and
in some cases catastrophic potential to halt production if
they fail or under-perform without warning.
Using
the experience and technology of industrial maintenance specialists,
Monition, Chris Roberts gets a full monthly report on the
condition of his plant based on expert analysis of vibration
readings.
“We
have established tolerance levels for each piece of kit and
we can immediately tell, with the feedback from Monitions
report, where we need to take action”, Chris Roberts
explained.
The
result is that VAW can fit maintenance to production more
effectively, planning intervention to meet productivity needs
and optimising maintenance resources in terms of manpower
and materials. “Cost effectiveness in maintenance planning
means we can save the company money and at the same time provide
a high level of plant reliability”, he said.
The
value to VAW’s maintenance team of working with a specialist
monitoring company like Monition is the accumulated of knowledge
and experience of the potential plant failure mechanisms means
that the maintenance cycles can be safely extended where appropriate.
Chris
Roberts again; “If we were to start from scratch now,
we know that the information we would draw from fresh readings
would indicate that many items of plant were possibly borderline
and may need some attention. But the value of our historical
data and experience tells us that we can be reasonably sure
that we know which plant can be safely left beyond the point
where it may normally need some maintenance attention”.
Further
efficiencies are thereby generated from this ‘condition-based’
maintenance, using the factual evidence and accumulated experience
of how far plant can be operated beyond what might conventionally
be considered, by standard maintenance analysis, to require
attention.
“Working
together we can target maintenance to keep on top of any critical
plant that may be prone to failure, if it is simply left to
routine ‘calendar based’ maintenance”, said
Chris. He explained that extraction plant, without which the
plant could not operate, is pretty well dependent on vibration
readings to show when preventive maintenance needs to be scheduled.
Fan
blades at the core of the extraction plant suffer from a constant
build-up of residue which cause a gradual imbalance and if
left unchecked would lead to abnormal wear and eventual failure.
“We rely on the vibration monitoring report to tell
us when the blades are reaching our pre-set tolerance level,
then arrange a suitable time to strip and clean them, and
‘touch wood’ we’ve never had a failure”,
he revealed.
Whilst
VAW Motorcast see maintenance as part of an ever improving
process to support productivity, reduce total manufacturing
costs and play an important role in quality and plant safety,
Chris Roberts believes that, as a result of this focus, they
have in place the important control and monitoring systems
to enable them to meet their goals.
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