Southern African surface coating giant Dulux has enhanced its maintenance and safety-related activities throughout its manufacturing operations using the integrated plant maintenance and SHE-Q (safety, health, environment and quality) solutions from ApplyIT, the software solution provider to the process manufacturing industry.
The integrated solution provides a comprehensive set of tools for planning, recording, reviewing and reporting all maintenance and SHE-Q-related activities throughout Dulux, in line with international best practice.
The locally developed Aurora-Plant Maintenance software replaced an outdated maintenance application that provided Dulux with limited functionality for managing maintenance-related information.
"The old system emphasised financial and sales data over maintenance," says Gordon Davey, work area manager for instrumentation at Dulux. "It could only be accessed via 10 computers, all of which were in the engineering department, which meant there was no involvement whatsoever from management in maintenance issues."
Dulux had a number of concerns about extending its existing ERP system to include the plant maintenance module. These included the cost of implementation and ease of daily use by artisans.
Dulux identified Aurora-Plant Maintenance as a best-of-breed solution for managing all aspects of the maintenance function in its organisation, including scheduling and planning of maintenance tasks, stores management, work order management and equipment tracking. Aurora-Plant Maintenance is designed to support preventative and reactive maintenance strategies and provide for task escalation, fault diagnostics, cost tracking and full integration with Aurora-SHEQ to ensure safe execution of maintenance tasks. Aurora-SHEQ has replaced the company`s paper-based safety processes, providing a single point for capturing, reviewing and reporting all SHE-Q-related information with a strong emphasis on continuous improvement.
The system provides powerful reporting capabilities, allowing Dulux to prioritise, analyse and communicate information across the organisation.
"Aurora-SHEQ enables the implementation of a safe work environment without removing ultimate responsibility from people. It ensures that defined procedures are adhered to, relevant parties are kept informed and statistical management information is readily available to monitor trends and detect problem areas," says Scott Bredin, ApplyIT Aurora business manager.
Davey says the greatest challenge in the transfer to the Aurora solution was the shift of awareness and responsibility across a wider base within the company than just the engineering department.
"It was clear that for plant maintenance and safety to be effective, management buy-in and involvement were imperative. Aurora broadened the company`s access to plant maintenance and safety information from the engineering department to all levels and divisions in Dulux. To reinforce buy-in and highlight the importance of safety and preventative maintenance, we ran individual training sessions demonstrating the advantages of the system to management," says Davey.
A scoreboarding system was implemented to show each department`s progress in their core business.
"With the Aurora solution, we can gauge progress by comparing work orders raised, completed and those still outstanding. This provides an effective way of monitoring productivity," adds Davey.
The introduction of the stores management system has cut the time required by the stores manager to handle the listing and costing of spares by as much as 75%.
"When a work order is raised and maintenance personnel require a spare part, they need to provide the stores manager with a valid work order number before he can issue the part. This has improved the control we have over the issuing of spares and has made the process more efficient and cost-effective," says Davey.
Dulux has also used the costing functionality in Aurora-Plant Maintenance to manage the leasing of labour to various plants on the site. A detailed costing report is run on a monthly basis summarising the number of jobs and hours charged for each area.
"Aurora has provided a complete solution for us to store and access information needed to manage the plant maintenance process in a consistent and structured manner for a more responsive business and a safer working environment," concludes Davey.
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