Capturing Actual Machine Run Hours at Weiler Corporation

Summary

WorkTech helped Weiler Corporation capture actual machine run-hours and production throughput from a labor time reporting system as the driving mechanism for the maintenance regime for production machines. In doing so, Weiler Corporation eliminated over- and under- maintenance in an effort to reduce the total cost of maintenance by 25%.

About Weiler Corporation

Weiler Corporation, based in Cresco, Pa., is an ISO-9001 manufacturer providing quality power brushes, abrasives, maintenance products and application solutions worldwide.

About This Project

Project Goal

Weiler Corporation and WorkTech have a long history of working together to provide innovative solutions for the maintenance of its production machines. One such initiative was to achieve a 25% reduction in the cost of maintenance by converting calendar-based preventive maintenance programs into meter-based programs, and to use the outputs from their labor time entry system as mechanism to feed Maximo's Meter Readings.

Calendar-based Maintenance May Lead to Under- or Over-Maintenence

Calendar-based maintenance programs do not take actual usage or throughput into consideration when calling for the next service order. One result is that maintenance may be called for by the system when it is not really necessary,leading to over-maintenance, such as in cases where a machine stood idle for a period of time, or even when it is too late (under-maintenance).

Project Details

WorkTech assisted Weiler Corporation to convert the calendar-based preventive maintenance programs into meter-based programs, and to capture actual machine run-hours and actual production throughput as the driving mechanism for the maintenance regime for these machines. In doing so, Weiler eliminated over-maintenance and minimized occurrences of under-maintenance. Machines are now maintained based on actual usage with the resultant saving in maintenance cost.

In order to capture the actual machine run-hours and throughput, WorkTech, in conjunction with independent service provider Allan Softworks, built an interface between Weiler's time reporting system and Maximos Meter Readings application. The time reporting system captures relevant data like the manufacturing order number, the operation and sequence codes, start and finish times, work center number, and the number of items produced. This data is then ported into Maximos PM Meter Readings for each machine to determine actual run-hours and throughput.

Run-Hours and Throughput Data Triggers PMs

Each production machine is configured with the two parameters: Run-Hours and Throughput. With this data fed regularly into Maximos PM program, it is now possible to let Maximo determine the optimal maintenance intervals of the production machines.