Cutting maintenance costs:

Suiker Unie

Against the backdrop of pressure for further-going liberalization of the European sugar market regime, Suiker Unie - the largest Dutch producer of granulated sugar from sugar beets – realized that price competition was about to become hard reality. To remain competitive, the organization had to cut costs per ton.

Factual input

Suiker Unie contacted ARV Group for support in implementing a maintenance improvement program. During the assessment, the current maintenance performance was made transparent on the basis of factual input from the people directly involved. Subsequently, a team of maintenance and production managers, supported by ARV Group, compiled information about best practices and how they could be applied. In the process, they discovered three major areas for improvement: tailoring maintenance to production needs (RCM), increasing working efficiency (by optimizing workflow and increasing employee motivation) and improving the purchasing of materials and services, enabling them to reduce their maintenance costs substantially while still safeguarding their production performance.

Local management was challenged to take the lead. This included the planning of a maintenance staff reduction by -among other methods- recalling outsourced work and detaching staff in line with the expected reduction in maintenance work. Crucial in this process was the successful involvement of and commitment from all layers of the maintenance organization.

Focus changed

A major challenge was encountered in changing the focus of the maintenance organization and its people. Until then, the organization had always focused on maintaining the good technical condition of installations. Today – partly by providing mechanics with insight into costs and broader responsibilities - focus has shifted to production: if it doesn’t affect production performance, don’t fix it… not even if it’s broken..

For the purposes of embedding the principle of working on improvements within the maintenance organization, management layers within maintenance were lined up to assume that role and organize it within their own operation. The Suiker Unie people set up the enabling supporting systems and initiated a change program in which working on improvements has become integrated into the organizational structure and culture.

Wijnand Hogenes, Technical Director Suiker Unie: "We now focus our maintenance on what’s really necessary. By optimizing the workflow, efficiency improves automatically. To plan all this, we need all of our maintenance resources. Commitment, from management to the mechanics, is the key. As a mechanic, you can then assist in improving your own work, knowing what it takes to help achieve that. That challenges people and gives the best results."