Three years ago the munici¬pal authorities in the so-called Triangle Area of Denmark (Ve¬jle, Kolding and Fredericia in southwest Jutland) took a decision to modernise the re¬gion’s waste incineration plant. The efficiency of the plant was to be increased and environ¬mental condi-tions were to be enhanced in order to comply with the tighter regulations imposed by new leg-islation, thereby putting the plant in a better position to compete in a more liberal market.

TAS I/S (Trekantområdets Af¬faldsselskab I/S) is located in Kolding, Denmark. The enter¬prise has 45 employees who are responsible for day-to-day operations and the 120,000 tonnes of waste that is incin¬erated at the plant every year. The plant will shortly have completed a comprehensive pro-gramme of modernisa¬tion and modifications totalling around DKK 430 million.

“Our old plants were expensive to run – with short periods of operation, high maintenance costs and too many stoppages. In addition, the plants couldn’t live up to the tougher new EU requirements. It was therefore crucial for us to establish a new and modern waste centre for the municipal authorities in the region, and following such comprehensive modernisation, we at TAS are also equipped to handle waste that we previ¬ously had to say no to”, says Managing Director Vagn Fred¬eriksen from TAS I/S.

Focus on maintenance
As it was responsible for servic¬ing an area containing 185,000 inhabitants covering the eight muni-cipalities of Børkop, Egtved, Fredericia, Kolding, Lunderskov, Middelfart, Nørre Aaby and Vam-drup, TAS I/S realised that an IT system was needed that would be able to handle the increasing number of maintenance tasks and make day-to-day operations more manageable.

“Tasks are becoming increas¬ingly complex, and there’s a greater need for systemisation of various tasks. In connection with the pending modernisa¬tion of the factory in 2003, we therefore decided to invest in an IT-based service and main¬tenance solution called LOGI¬HOLD.

“Although we also had a couple of other systems in mind, we chose LOGIHOLD as we con¬sidered it to be the system that was best suited to our needs. Furthermore, we regarded it as a future-proof system, a factor that was crucial for us, as it will come to play a key role in connection with day-to-day operations”, explains Vagn Frederiksen from TAS I/S.

LOGIHOLD and the enter¬prise behind it

The LOGIHOLD maintenance solution has been developed by the Aalborg enterprise Logi¬matic, which, in addition to the development and implementa¬tion of maintenance concepts, has also spe-cialised in devel¬oping software for purchase management, internal logis¬tics/warehouse management, waste handling and customer-specific software solutions.

Poor maintenance costs busi¬nesses a lot of money every year. Resource management has become a much debated topic, and demand for a more effective maintenance function has seen a sharp in-crease. Preventive maintenance has therefore become an impor¬tant part of business strategy.

LOGIHOLD provides the user with a tool for management of the enterprise’s mainte¬nance and con-tains facili¬ties for effective and flexible management of both planned and unplanned maintenance tasks. The enterprise’s assets are placed in a so-called plant structure, whereby mainte¬nance jobs, spare parts, fre¬quencies and accounts can be related to the required com¬ponents. LOGIHOLD is used in many different respects – both in production and at the office – and can meet the needs of the customer in its basic form, although if more advanced or modified functionality is re¬quired, it is easy to adapt to specific needs. It is developed for MS Windows XP (SP2) or more recent operating sys¬tems. It is based upon the free database format – MS SQL Ex¬press.

The system is not specific to a particular business sector so any enterprise or institution that needs to manage mainte¬nance activities can use LOGI¬HOLD. The list of references is wide-ranging and includes cus¬tomers from shipping compa¬nies, building contractors, sew¬age treatment plants, waste incineration plants, educational institutions, the armed forces, etc.; indeed, with more than 250 ref-erences, LOGIHOLD is one of Denmark’s most sold maintenance solutions.

Experiences with  LOGIHOLD

LOGIHOLD was commissioned by TAS I/S at the beginning of 2004, when the modification of the plant presented an obvi¬ous opportunity to begin to put data and information into the system. Al-though the system is relatively new, managing director Vagn Frederiksen can already see a number of ben¬efits.

“As I mentioned earlier, our intention is for LOGIHOLD to play a key role where it’s con¬nected to our environment and management system. Our new service and management sys¬tem is also incor-porated as an integral part of our SCADA system, which supervises, con¬trols and acquires data from the incineration plant itself. By means of auto-diagramming, we ensure that corrections in the SCADA system are auto¬matically communicated all the way back through the sys¬tem to all elec-tronically stored information concerning parts, components, etc. All employ¬ees therefore always have ac¬cess to and knowledge of the modifications and updates that have most recently been made to the system.

“In addition, we can already see that LOGIHOLD keeps a close eye on which tasks are to be carried out, and whether we have enough spare parts in stock or when these parts are due to be received. We are therefore able to plan and per¬form our work even more ef¬ficiently than before, Finally, the system is connected to our invoicing and requisitioning system, which means that our suppliers receive the required information, thus enabling our budget planning to be more ac¬curate and manageable”, says Vagn Frederiksen.

Following the implementation of LOGIHOLD, TAS has applied a lot of focus to actually get¬ting the system up and run¬ning, and therefore secure im¬plementation and training of staff have been key areas of focus.
“When an enterprise imple¬ments a new IT system, it al¬ways faces a number of chal¬lenges, but in our case things have gone very smoothly. This is due first and foremost to the fact that we have a number of technically competent service personnel who were able to ask the right questions during implementation, in addition to the fact that Logimatic’s technicians have provided as¬sistance thanks to their great experience in discharging such tasks. This has resulted in highly professional sparring between us and Logimatic.

“Another challenge has been to get our employees to use the system, but in this case Logi¬matic has held user courses on the use of LOGIHOLD, which has resulted in the employ¬ees gaining familiari-ty with the system. Today around 30 of our 45 employees use the system.

“In connection with the many new activities, we are con¬vinced that we have acquired a flexible and future-proof serv¬ice and maintenance solution, which – combined with our employees’ competen-cies – can make our work even more efficient”, concludes Vagn Fre¬deriksen.


Logimatic Software A/S  
Sofiendalsvej 5
  9200 Aalborg SV
Denmark
Tel. +45 9634 7000  
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www.logimatic.com