REMONDIS SAVA GmbH, a subsidiary of REMONDIS Industrie Service, operates one of Europe’s most modern hazardous waste incineration plants in Brunsbüttel, Germany. Due to the hazardous nature of the materials, the plant is closely monitored by the authorities. This means that special requirements regarding risk precautions, safety plans and the various maintenance tasks must be adhered to and fully documented. Until now, maintenance management has been characterised by many manual processes that were both time-consuming and prone to errors. REMONDIS therefore set itself the goal of automating and optimising its maintenance work. This was achieved with the help of the IT experts of handz.on and a new version of IBM Maximo’s Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution already in use at the company.
The plant in Brunsbüttel makes an important contribution to the safe thermal treatment of hazardous waste
Maintenance tasks in waste incineration
The various maintenance tasks that have to be carried out at the waste incineration plant include checking seals, scheduled checks of the pressure tanks and pumps, as well as changing fluids and filters. “Previously, we had to check the maintenance programme once a week to see what work was currently due and then trigger it manually by pressing a button,” recalled Stefan Homfeldt, head of the maintenance and repair department at REMONDIS SAVA. “Of course, there have been times when something has been forgotten.” In the meantime, the new Maximo solution, customised by handz.on, automatically checks which maintenance work is due and triggers it.
In general, everything that needs to be checked is stored in the solution – including all activities that the respective maintenance involves. “From fans to larger units, pumps, deslaggers, pressurised boilers, but also cleaning schedules – everything that needs to be checked on a recurring basis,” says Homfeldt. The maintenance module not only automatically schedules the specified intervals, but also creates the resulting work orders.
The web-based solution also manages unexpected defects and the purchase of spare parts required for maintenance. These are automatically reserved and reordered if they are not in stock. The software also has a status management function that allows authorised employees to obtain detailed information on the status quo at any time. Thanks to the web-based approach, the solution works on any computer.
Documentation – for audits and increasing efficiency
The system also provides REMONDIS with the documentation it needs to prove that the legal requirements have been met. In the event of an audit, for example, all orders or the complete lifecycle management of the plant and individual components, from purchase to repair to scrapping, can still be read out even after ten years – even if the components in question no longer exist.
When asked what else he would like to see from handz.on or the solution, Stefan Homfeldt replies: “A better print function. The current solution in Maximo is such that it feels like we have to click ten times before a document is printed – we’ll work on that with handz.on.” Another of the many advantages of the solution is that, thanks to the programming by handz.on, it is also possible to precisely analyse maintenance costs, as the data on what employees, spare parts, etc. mean in terms of financial expenditure is all stored in the system. “We can create customised reports and thus see exactly what the system costs and how we can further increase its efficiency,” says Homfeldt.
Minimise risks and avoid additional costs
The cleverly programmed, fully automated maintenance processes of the Maximo solution ensure that manual, error-prone processes are eliminated, and the entire system is optimally maintained at all times. This in turn minimises the risk of consequential damage and breakdowns due to incorrect or non-executed maintenance. As a result, it is not only easy to comply with legal requirements, but also to avoid additional costs and increase efficiency.
As REMONDIS uses the Maximo solution to manage its entire EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) – including, for example, order processing, asset inspections, ordering, warehousing, purchasing and cost analyses – no interfaces to other systems are required and the company benefits from a standardised system as well as handz.on’s end-to-end service from a single source. This also includes training the REMONDIS employees responsible for the maintenance system. “We learn how to customise the workflow of the system, including the integrated tools, ourselves and can therefore save costs,” commented Homfeldt.
Outlook – to be continued…
With so many benefits from the solution and management provided by the handz.on team, it is no surprise that REMONDIS is keen to continue and further expand this collaboration in the future. The next step planned is to introduce the Maximo Scheduler. This should then ensure that resources can be allocated and scheduled even better in the future.
Image credits: © REMONDIS
