ROCKWOOD PIGMENTS CORE ACTIVITY is the manufacturing and processing of  liquid, powder, and granulated forms of iron oxide colour pigments, as well as  supplying a range of natural and synthetic inorganic pigments and automated  pigment-handling systems. And with the feature rich Idhammar MMS in place, the future for Site maintenance operations is bright – and steadfast.

A bit of a blur

Rockwood Pigments’ manufacturing site at Kidsgrove, Stoke-on-Trent, is well  on its way to saying goodbye to its outdated paper based maintenance  operation. Historically the site relied on hand written requests and a spreadsheet  for Work Orders and requisitions that were passed to the engineers, making it  near impossible to keep an accurate record of all the maintenance work taking  place around the site. This caused frequent discrepancies, meaning that response  to breakdown was often delayed and sometimes even missed.  So the Rockwood  I.T. Manager, Jonathan Ellis and Engineering Team Leader Peter Richardson set  about looking for a solution.

Shades of Grey

Disaster stuck in 2007 when Rockwood Pigments’ Kidsgrove site was flooded,  destroying many important calibration reports, service records, manuals and other crucial documents, as well as records for both the running of the site  and quality and environmental audits.  This proved the critical factor in the  Company’s resolve to better protect their assets and backup their maintenance  data. With this in mind they sought to find the best possible solution for  change.

The first step was to invest in their plant, improve planning, and move  from a reactive to a preventive approach to maintenance. Engineering Team Leader, Peter Richardson understood the opportunities of a  ‘joined up approach’ to maintenance using a CMMS. Demonstrating regulatory  compliance was also a key driver for purchasing a CMMS due to the pressure  from both internal and external auditors to show evidence come audit time. “We could provide records and most of the evidence needed for the  auditors, but finding it quickly was proving difficult;  We needed to be able to  prove times and dates on maintenance works, so we had to commit to a better  way of working in the form of MMS software.”   Peter Richardson, Engineering Team Leader

A Clearer Picture

Having chosen to implement the Idhammar MMS, it was a chance for a brand  new start, so Rockwood set about adding data to the system whilst cleansing  existing records.  Peter Richardson explains: “The data input process provided the perfect opportunity to clean up  our records; we had around 3000 suppliers on record, half of which were out  of date and several listed for machines we didn’t even use anymore. It was the same with the engineering spares  .Just eliminating outdated files has improved the efficiency of our asset  management.”

With their data in order Rockwood Pigments started to enjoy the other benefits  of the software including a clearer more organised approach to maintenance which allowed the scheduling and classification of their maintenance (preventative or breakdown, new installation or inspection, condition monitoring etc), as well as the opportunity to set up planned preventative maintenance tasks;  enabling auto inspection and reporting on a number of critical items.  Also,

Process Controllers are now able to take advantage of the software’s powerful  reporting and analysis tools which allow them to cross check data and report on the findings.

Exceeding Expectations

Despite an initial concern from the engineering team that the software was  put in place as a time and motion study, it soon became clear that the software helped to demonstrate the value of the team; including hours worked and jobs  completed. The Idhammar MMS has been a great success, allowing Rockwood  Pigments to be more cost and time efficient; maximising asset performance  whilst reducing overall downtime.

Concerns about regulatory compliance are  also a thing of the past due to the central data repository which stores permits  to work, health and safety certificates and service history records which are  assigned to each asset. Peter remarks: “I’m now confident that I can produce the correct maintenance  documentation quickly and easily and demonstrate the professional running of  the department.”

Smooth and Seamless

Pleased with the progress the maintenance team was making and happy with  their chosen CMMS, early in 2011 Rockwood Pigments chose to upgrade their
Idhammar MMS sofware to the latest version in order to benefit from new   features and functionality.  Jonathan Ellis, I.T. Manager comments:
“When working with Idhammar Systems, software migrations and  upgrades are smooth.  It’s the way system implementations should be - swift
and hassle free.”

In relation to the latest version, Peter concludes: “There are still many valuable features of the software which we will be  using in the future, but for now, it does everything we wanted it to and more.  Implementing the Idhammar MMS was definitely a move in the right direction  to more efficient operations.”