Manufacturing Today and Infor organised Maintenance 4.0: Manage Assets That Matter on February 25 from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. Asset management system is a critical function of large enterprises and most do well when there is a system in place.
The webinar began with an introduction by Hafeez Shaikh, business head, Manufacturing Today, who gave a glimpse of what the evening held for the audience.
Delivering the keynote, S Sathish, partner and lead, customer and operations transformation practice, KPMG India, said that companies are focusing on maximising asset productivity and new-age maintenance is being created in boardrooms. In this, equipment reliability is one of the top three sources of competitive advantage. Leveraging digital tools is key here. Planned and preventive maintenance must be adhered to.
In his presentation, Sameer Makhija, director, asset management solution, IMEA, Infor, spoke about how companies are making attempts to understand the manufacturing time that is truly productive. He is glad that companies are taking EHS very seriously. Adoption of technology is gaining rapidly and many companies are keenly looking at the SAS platform.
The presentation was followed by a panel discussion, Optimising Maintenance Operations to reach new levels of profitability and efficiency. Moderated by Bino George, head business consulting, Infor India, the panelists comprised Ashok Muthuswamy, AVP and plant head silica, Tata Chemicals; Vilas Pujari, CIO, ACG worldwide; and Kashyap Joshi, ME manager maintainence – IMEA, Henkel Adhesives Technologies India.
George began by asking how maintenance with cloud computing has brought about Maintenance 4.0. Maintenance is being done by using asset registers or softwares.
Muthuswamy replied that as a plant head, he needs to have a plant running 24/7. There is no room for reduced output. The modern AI techniques, where you collect data through the sensors, and after data mining it can help in predicting failures. The modern methods of data mining are a lot helpful and one can even deskill one’s crew for them to do their job better. A well maintained equipment will not only produce the right part but also the right quality in a cost effective manner.
Pujari said that while maintenance is a necessary evil, it is a non value added activity. Prompt maintenance must look at reducing down time and it would be nice if the software or application can help the organization do maintenance on the fly. Technology should also help in reducing the downtime for maintenance. Joshi pointed out that the competitive market does not have room for loss of productivity and there is a dire need to keep up to customer expectations. We have catalogued predictive and preventive maintenance in such a way that it offers us the least downtime. We are also following a maintenance excellence program which is very important considering that we have 15 manufacturing plants across IMEA.
Overall, the panelists agreed that regular equipment is the key to preventing catastrophic failure. One must avoid the need for expensive repairs due to negligence. Ensure that systems are working efficiently to reduce energy consumption and operating cost. Increase the resale value of the equipment with a proper service record. Following these steps will help in reduced injuries, and therefore liability, due to faulty equipment.
The session ended with plenty of questions from the audience, some of which were then taken
offline.