For 2 years now, the Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has been carrying out phased implementation of the large-scale project “Improving the Maintenance and Repair System of PJSC MMK Equipment”. From the moment the project was initiated, it was clear that it was going to be long-sustained and complex. There was much to improve or change radically, and in some areas initiatives had to be launched from scratch. As in any similar project, this applies to three key components — processes, technologies and people. On the MMK scale, the tasks of transforming the maintenance and repair system were especially acute.
The initial task was to train the enterprise personnel involved in maintenance and repair management processes. Maintex conducted a unique training for MMK employees, which made it possible to proceed to the next phases of project more efficiently while enabling all the project team members to be on the same page.
The next logical step was the transformation of processes under an improved reliability-oriented maintenance and repair system. Based on the knowledge gained, MMK and United Service Company (USC) dedicated experts developed a number of essential documents that formed the basis of MMK intracorporate standard for reliability management and maintenance and repair.
After the training of employees was complete, formalizing and building of business processes undertaken, the need has arisen for automating the processes of managing the performance and reliability of assets. This area is very demanding to the completeness and quality of large data volumes, as well as to the deep elaboration of reliability management. Even with trained personnel and business processes reflecting company's business objectives, it is almost impossible to effectively manage data and processes without IT tools. That is why the Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works chose the leading GE Meridium APM solution.
“Investments in the development of culture of reliability and planning management at LLC USC, a service company of PJSC MMK, as well as the implementation of a modern enterprise management system based on Oracle e-Business Suite v12, that includes a control circuit for maintenance and repair of equipment, necessitated the automation of reliability management processes. Modern IT tools, aside from protecting investments in automated business processes, can increase the return on these investments by improving the quality of management and the rapidness of managerial decision making,” comments Andrey A. Eremin, PJSC ММК Director for Economics. “We have chosen the best solution in the industry — the GE Meridium APM Classic system. As a first step, we are planning to implement the system in two shops of our enterprise — LPC-5 and Long products shop, and in the future we will distribute it to all the main and auxiliary shops of PJSC MMK. The expected payback period of the project is less than 2 years from the date of commissioning. As a project result, we expect a significant reduction in the number and duration of unscheduled equipment downtime and a decrease in the total cost of fixed assets upkeeping, maintaining and repairing. We understand that the achievement of those results depends not so much on the information system as on business processes and the people who execute them, and are ready to make all the required efforts on our part to make the project truly successful.”
The implementation of solution is just beginning. It is assumed that Maintex, as a reliable partner of MMK, will implement the IT solution in the basic functional scope, develop the integration bus between GE Meridium APM and Oracle e-Business Suite v12, transfer knowledge and key competencies to the MMK and USC teams, but the scaling and duplicating of GE Meridium APM will be conducted by the enterprise independently with the remote support of Maintex team. It is planned that as a result, the reliability and performance of equipment in all the shops of the Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works will be controlled and steadily increased by means of the GE Meridium APM solution.
“We are optimistic about the implementation phase of the GE Meridium APM IT solution at the Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works,” comments Roman Romakhin, Maintex Executive Director. “Together with MMK and USC, we have performed a large amount of work, the logical continuation of which was the implementation of a solution for managing assets performance. I am sure that the most correct approach has been chosen, which will facilitate our joint team to complete the project on schedule. Despite the fact that this is far from the first GE Meridium APM implementation project for us, a number of unique tasks is planned, such as the development, debugging and support of GE Meridium APM and Oracle e-Business Suite v12 integration mechanism. The task of integration with the maintenance and repair and ERP control loop is the most important in the context of implementing an APM solution, since all corporate management systems shall be seamlessly integrated with each other. Together with high-end professionals of MMK and USC, we are to develop a unique solution that will become a powerful tool to increase the enterprise operating performance.”
