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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Predicting a Good Brew
 
Where plant is process critical, any unplanned downtime costs a
lot of money in lost production.
As the largest brewery in the Scottish & Newcastle group, the
last thing Scottish Courage's Berkshire brewery can afford is an interruption to
production due to plant failure. Where plant is process critical, any unplanned
downtime costs a lot of money in lost production.
Creating the most efficient operation to get the most from
production facilities is one of S&N's strategic objectives. However, as Mark
Hudson discovered when taking on the job of Brewing & Process Area Engineer,
many manufacturing areas were consistently underperforming. “When I was
appointed, it soon became clear to me that we needed a robust and focused
maintenance strategy in the department,” he says. “Even though a planned
maintenance schedule was in force, completion rates were poor, with hundreds of
planned maintenance routines outstanding, some for as long as two years. The
team seemed to be spending too much time ‘fire fighting' and too little time on
predictive maintenance.”
He goes on, “As a new manager, I had to ask myself: ‘Where do I
start?’ Any kind of good practice creates a solid basis for building a new
strategy and there are a number of effective maintenance techniques. The one I
chose for the department was Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM).”
Having made that decision, Mark called in integrated maintenance
solutions specialist, Proviso Systems Limited for initial discussions. Over the
years, Proviso has carried out a number of condition monitoring projects at
Berkshire Brewery and he now asked them to help him in the preparation of a
maintenance strategy.
The first part of this strategy was to carry out a criticality
audit. “Previous in-house audits had not clearly defined equipment criticality,”
he explains. “Some low priority assets had high focus levels and some high
priority assets, little or no focus. Asset care was either
‘run-to-fail-and-fix', or required lengthy shutdown periods to perform vital
maintenance and repairs. A comprehensive equipment criticality analysis was
therefore a vital first step. Once we had this information, we could proceed to
drawing up and implementing a comprehensive maintenance strategy, including
condition monitoring."
period. Individual maintenance requirements were assessed on a
top-down approach. High criticality assets were assessed using RCM techniques
and low criticality asset maintenance restricted to visual inspection and
carrying out minor tasks.
The results of the audit showed that only 20% of the assets were
in the highly critical category far less than had been previously thought.
The brewery has now started to change from reactive to planned
and preventive maintenance. Mark elaborates, “An important part of the strategy
is the use of condition monitoring techniques. Between Proviso and ourselves we
have a range of condition monitoring equipment that gives us a clear picture of
the health of many of our critical assets. We can detect the early signs of
failure,then produce rectification plans to address the situation. With
Proviso's help, we have moved from the old thinking, with annual two or three
week maintenance shutdowns, to much shorter ‘pit stop’ shutdowns and reduced
scope overhauls. To achieve this shift from reactive to predictive maintenance
has meant a radical change in thinking at the Brewery, specially among the
engineers who have to implement the new strategy. Some have found it difficult
to move away from the ‘comfort zone’ of their old practices, but they are
getting there.”
Focusing time and effort on carrying out the right tasks on the
right equipment and at the right frequency, is now delivering some real
benefits. “First and foremost, there has been an improvement in plant
reliability,” says Mark. “This has led to a reduction in costly downtime,
enabling maintenance to be scheduled for times when it will cause the least
disruption to production. Constant review of our spares inventory is a major
aspect of the strategy. This identifies critical spares and ensures they are
available if required.”
Mark concludes, “This is very much an ongoing process and, in
partnership with Proviso, we will continue to drive through my new maintenance
strategy. We are now really beginning to see the benefits with much improved
plant efficiency and reduced maintenance costs.”
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