Maintenance Management at BASF
Maximum production availability at minimal costs
| “We’ve already achieved our first success: the introduction of OEE.* There were some difficulties at first with this process, but the turnaround happened after the workshops: the first results are now visible. Stork is encouraging us to learn from our experience, to keep evaluating continuously and to make changes where necessary.” These are the findings of Herman Baets, Manager Technical Governance at BASF Antwerpen N.V.* |  | |||
Maintenance strategy
At the end of 2003 BASF Antwerpen decided to develop a maintenance strategy for the site ‘to link the necessary assurance of production availability to minimal costs’. Following a selection procedure, Stork ESCI was chosen on the basis of quality, cost and trust. The aim of the new maintenance strategy was to achieve a structural efficiency improvement of 10% by 2006. Around 500 employees are involved in the project.
* Overall Equipment Effectiveness
“Trust is the basis for implementing this kind of project together.”
Hans Minnard, Maintenance Manager and Project Leader on detachment from Stork
Awareness campaign
The first step was to carry out a carefully focused audit. This allowed a range of areas with improvement potential to be identified, including workflow management and KPIs for asset management. A clear maintenance strategy also had to be formulated.
An awareness campaign was started to allow these points to be addressed. Workshops, seminars and specifically targeted initiatives all had the aim of creating awareness among employees and providing training. The best way to support sustainable process improvement is by changing the task assignments within operations and maintenance. Training was also given to make this possible.
From unplanned to planned maintenance
Baets: “We’re used to following a technical approach: we get praise for dealing with faults quickly and coming up with technically perfect solutions. Now we’re shifting the focus to efficient handling and prevention of faults, in other words from unplanned to planned maintenance. That’s a mental paradigm shift – a completely different way of thinking and acting.” Two pilot projects have recently been started for the implementation of workflow management, KPIs and the new maintenance strategy in preparation for the full roll out. This was scheduled for the end of 2005, covering all 53 of BASF Antwerpen’s production plants.
Result
The pilot project for workflow management is going well. The introduction of OEE is also successful. Hans Minnard, Maintenance Manager and Project Leader on detachment from Stork: “The partnership is showing good results. The basis for implementing this kind of project together is trust – it’s a joint effort in which both parties complement each other.” As well as saving money, BASF will also benefit from increased cost transparency because the maintenance processes are more clearly structured. This leads to improved accountability for the costs that arise, and allows cost/benefit analyses to be made. Baets: “We’re now waiting to see if this project means that the downward trend of 2004 and 2005 can be continued in 2006. It’s an ambitious plan, but an achievable one!”
* BASF Antwerpen is Belgium’s largest chemical production site and the second largest in the BASF group worldwide. BASF Antwerpen has a 600 ha. site, on which 53 production plants form a number of complete process lines. At present BASF Antwerpen has approximately 5000 employees on its site.