Aluminate cement leader implements world-class maintenance practice in its Chinese plants
Kerneos Aluminate Technologies
Kerneos (www.kerneos.com), formerly known as Lafarge Aluminates, is the world leading manufacturer of calcium aluminate cements under the brand names of CIMENT FONDU®, SECAR®, PERAMIN® etc. These high-tech aluminate products are designed for refractory, building chemistry and technical concrete applications. A company with over a hundred years of history, Kerneos is part of Materis Group, one of the worldwide leaders in building construction specialty chemicals.
To satisfy increasing demand for aluminates products from the Chinese market, Kerneos started up its first Chinese plant in Tianjin’s Economic Development Area (TEDA) in 2001. The modern plant was designed as a model for the group’s future development in China, providing best practices and qualified resources for the company’s future expansion in the country. Ten years later, Kerneos China operates five plants, a R&D center, and the company continues to invest in the local market.
Implementing the group’s “Common Language” in China
Kerneos Aluminate Technologies has a long history working with Siveco to implement the COSWIN Maintenance Management System (CMMS) throughout its worldwide manufacturing operation (France, UK, USA): the group’s IT strategy has always privileged strong industrial “best-of-breed” solutions rather than one-size-fits-all corporate management software.
Building up on a century of industrial experience, Kerneos has developed a very mature maintenance practice, with a well-defined management framework known within the group as the “Common Language”. The Common Language includes standards for plant structures, coding rules, work report processes, technical analysis reports, etc. that form the basis for COSWIN implementation within the group.
In TEDA, while the initial approach to use paper processes and Excel spreadsheets had proven successful, the plant started to experience more downtime due to aging. As preventive maintenance became more critical, the plant’s maintenance team needed more sophisticated tools to analyze failures and support improvement decisions. The decision was finally made in December 2007 to roll-out the COSWIN Maintenance Management System, based on Kerneos’ Common Language. The project started immediately.
The CMMS project
The CMMS project was completed in only two months, thanks to the strong experience of the TEDA team, support from Kerneos group and Siveco’s specific experience of maintenance improvement in China, all of which proved highly valuable for the success of this project.
Specific goals of the CMMS project in TEDA and the corresponding achievements included:
| √ | Setting up the plant’s technical database, with a clear structure and up-to-date technical information. A clear plant structure was defined in COSWIN in accordance to the company’s standards. In addition to purely location-based and technical structures, the relationship between equipment (“serve” and “served by”) was also modeled in the system, which is critical in the process industry for reliability and safety purposes. |
| √ | Implementing a work order system to ensure systematic recording of failures A friendly user interface based on diagrams, similar to that of a DCS, was configured in order to simplify the engineers’ work. Operators in the control room can report failures directly in COSWIN, while the maintenance team will arrange schedules and report work orders. |
| √ | Setting up the plant’s preventive maintenance system Preventive maintenance activities are managed in COSWIN, from the initial job guideline to the actual planning and execution. The system’s analysis tools are designed to support technical management decisions, in order to continuous improve the preventive maintenance plan. |
| √ | Managing spare parts stock Spare parts are not managed in the company’s ERP system, as is often the case. Instead, COSWIN links parts to the equipment they belong to and to work orders (preparation and consumption), ensuring full stock management. |
| √ | Ensure safety in the maintenance process Safety is the first priority for Kerneos and more globally for Materis Group: COSWIN was interfaced with the group’s central Work Permit system, which requires a strict approval process through the use of signatures on a special pad.  Work permit approval by signing on a digital pen pad device |
The entire system was built in compliance with Kerneos’ Common Language, ensuring a sustainable implementation of the group’s world-class maintenance practice and allowing benchmarking with other plants.
Further COSWIN deployment
According to Liu Ke, IT Manager of Kerneos China:
“The system brought enormous benefits, by supporting the daily work of our maintenance team: from diagnosis and technical analysis, to preventive maintenance and spare parts management. The project ensures our ability to extend the Common Language to all our Chinese plants.”
Kerneos is currently extending the usage of COSWIN to its other Chinese plants to structure their maintenance organization based on Kerneos’ Common Language and to promote a modern, reliability-focused, preventive maintenance approach. All plants access the central COSWIN database already installed in TEDA, thus benefiting from the existing infrastructure and allowing easy benchmarking between plants.
