Mining Giant Optimizes Maintenance Strategies to Increase Productivity

Overview 

A global mining giant engaged Baker Hughes to optimize its maintenance strategies in preparation for a CMMS upgrade. The project involved carrying out a criticality analysis and then ensuring optimal maintenance plans were in place for all critical assets. The project started with six sites before being expanded to four new sites based on the benefits.   

The project has provided the organization with consistent maintenance plans for like equipment as well as structured maintenance plan master data including plans and task lists for all critical assets.  

Maintenance strategies have been optimized to reduce non-value-added tasks while also ensuring reliable performance to support increased production.
 

Challenge 

Prior to this engagement, the client lacked consistency and visibility of maintenance strategies and routine maintenance plans. This made it difficult for the client to identify similarities or differences between maintenance plans and to determine and leverage best practice.  

These challenges stemmed from the lack of a centralized reliability and maintenance strategy tool. The client had also previously changed CMMS systems without reviewing maintenance plans, and so knew that an upgrade in CMMS without a review of the maintenance plans master data would not lead to any cost or performance improvement. 

Another issue is that the client depended on institutional knowledge and tradesperson experience to execute detailed maintenance activities, rather than using documented detailed tasks descriptions and instructions. However, an aging workforce and movement of resources from mine site to mine site meant the client required more detailed maintenance strategies.  

Addressing these challenges required data gathering, analysis and a structured strategy review and development process to ensure that all critical assets were adequately covered and that maintenance efforts were aligned with operational goals. 

Solution 

Baker Hughes started with an audit to help the client clean up their asset hierarchy and identify equipment that either didn’t exist in the CMMS or did exist in the CMMS but had been decommissioned. The audit involved gathering asset serial numbers from within the field and checking these against what was recorded in the CMMS. This not only helped correct the client’s master data and improve data governance but provided the project team with a clear view of assets in the field requiring maintenance plans.  

Baker Hughes also worked with the client to develop a quantitative criticality assessment process to inform work execution prioritization and decisions on spare holdings.  Baker Hughes then facilitated the ranking of all equipment using this tool.  

Finally, the project team developed new maintenance strategies for assets with the top criticality rating, maximizing return on the time spent. The team also optimized existing strategies. As part of this process, they gathered feedback from a cross-section of stakeholders to understand what was working and determine where they could provide the most value.   

 Cordant™ Asset Strategy supported the efficient development of maintenance strategies based on a FMEA structure of failure modes likely for assets in the clients applications.  Cordant™ Asset Strategy also helped the team quickly build consistent strategies for like equipment while adjusting them as needed for each installed assets unique operating conditions, failure modes, and behavior. The software also helped to determine optimal strategies—including tasks and frequencies—to mitigate risk.  

 Using Cordant™ Asset Strategy, the team created structured maintenance plans and tasks for loading into the client’s new CMMS. Plans and tasks were packaged according to the client’s needs and business rules to ensure effective planning, scheduling and execution. For example, task intervals were aligned to existing outages for work to be performed offline and aligned to existing inspection cadences for each area.  

Results  

The project has addressed gaps in the client’s maintenance program by providing comprehensive optimized maintenance strategies and plans for tens of thousands of critical assets across 10 sites.  

These FMEA structured maintenance strategies will support the client to manage their asset strategy as operating and market conditions change. In addition, strategies are optimized based on operational goals and will help to ensure reliable performance to support increased production targets. Strategies are also anticipated to save time by eliminating non-value-added tasks. 

Most importantly, new maintenance strategies and plans are expected to significantly reduce unplanned downtime of critical assets, delivering anticipated cost savings of more than $103M over 20 years.  

• Consistent maintenance strategies for like equipment across sites 
• Anticipated time savings through a reduction in non-value-added tasks 
• Anticipated cost savings of more than $103M over 20 years