A Model for Increasing Profitability of Raw Mill Processes through Effective Maintenance : A Case Study

Sammanfattning:

Theorists have shown that continuous improvements of the organization are a requirement in today’s global market. The nature of the required improvements can vary from business to business. This study is conducted within a business where the marked demand is higher than the average production rate of the product. Improvements in this case will be referred to in-crease the production rate by assessing the bottleneck section of the plant. In order to increase the production rate, the unplanned stoppages of the bottleneck section needs to be reduced. By reducing the unplanned stoppages of the bottleneck section the profitability of the business will increase, since the bottleneck section is regulating the output of the plant. The angle from which the availability will be increased is through maintenance. A model is developed and implementation example is presented in order to show the increase in the availability of the bottleneck section. The model will provide a systematic approach to define market demand, bottlenecks, severity of assets, criticality of failures and a maintenance decision making pro-cess regarding the profitability of maintenance investments. The result of the model is in-creased availability of the bottleneck section, leading to a higher profit. The study is conduct-ed on Cementa AB, owned by Heidelberg Cement Group.