Australian Cement Holdings Cuts Plant Maintenance Costs with Timekeeper
Kronos labour management solution helps ACH maximise efficiency and improve productivity
One of Australia's leading cement producers has improved efficiency and reduced plant maintenance costs with the Timekeeper frontline labour management solution from Kronos.
Australian Cement Holdings (ACH) is using the Timekeeper/AS Labour Data Collection system for IBM's AS400 platform to monitor the labour component of its maintenance operations at the Railton Cement Works in northern Tasmania, where it manufactures around 1,200,000 tonnes of cement per annum.
A 50:50 joint venture between CSR and Pioneer International, ACH is one of the nation's largest cement producers, with operations spanning limestone mines, manufacturing plants, blending facilities and distribution terminals.
ACH Group Information Systems Manager, Paul Lockwood said Timekeeper/AS has proved so effective in maximising productivity and improving plant maintenance at Railton that ACH plans to implement the solution at its other major cement production facility in Kandos, north-western NSW.
"Plant maintenance is a major issue for site management to ensure the plant is performing at maximum productivity and operating efficiently," said Mr Lockwood.
"While most organisations use Timekeeper for workforce time and attendance, we were more concerned about managing our high maintenance costs and being able to track the labour content of our overall plant maintenance activities.
"ACH spent over $15 million in 1998 repairing and maintaining the diverse array of equipment and machinery used for mining, cement production and distribution.
"We have around 60 people permanently employed in plant maintenance at Railton, but that number can multiply by a factor of four for plant shutdowns, so it's essential to have a system that enables us to effectively manage that process," he said.
"Since we lose a million dollars for every three days that we don't produce, it's critical that shutdowns are tightly planned and run as efficiently as possible."
Under the Timekeeper system, anyone visiting or working at the Railton site is required to register with a smart card. This provides ACH with a way of collecting data on the movement of people into and out of the site, as well as enabling the company to allocate the hours spent by workers to complete various maintenance tasks.
"All maintenance tasks are scheduled and generated on a barcoded work-order sheet by our maintenance system, which integrates closely with Timekeeper," said Mr Lockwood.
"As workers move from one task to the next, they use Timekeeper to swipe off the first job and swipe onto the next one, ensuring the system has an exact record of the time they were engaged in each task.
"Over time, this gives us very accurate trending information about how much labour is needed to maintain different areas of the plant so we can highlight potential problem areas. As equipment ages and nears the end of its useful life, the maintenance costs associated with keeping it running increase exponentially, which provides an early warning to management who have to budget for replacing it," he said.
ACH first went looking for a labour management solution in late 1996, choosing Timekeeper for its superior functionality and its ability to operate on the company's preferred AS/400 platform.
Mr Lockwood said Timekeeper has proven extremely useful both by reducing the administrative tasks associated with maintenance work and eliminating any double-handling that might have occurred under the previous manual system.
"We have already extended Timekeeper to our Devonport storage facility, allowing us to monitor the work performed by maintenance workers who move between both sites. The AS/400 dials into the remote system automatically every 15 minutes and downloads all the labour management information for incorporation into maintenance reports and our Neller payroll system.
"Of course, Timekeeper's tight integration with Neller delivers substantial benefits by streamlining payroll calculations and improving access to information. In fact, since introducing Timekeeper, our payroll office has become so much more productive that it now handles the payroll for our subsidiary, Besser Tasmania, in addition to our own," said Mr Lockwood.
"The pay office staff are very happy with the system, finding it easy to obtain information and carry out payroll calculations. It's proven to be extremely reliable, and is increasingly being accessed by other staff, such as our receptionist, who can use it to establish whether a particular person is on-site to answer a call."
In addition to installing Timekeeper at its Kandos site, which produces around 500,000 tonnes of cement per annum, ACH plans to take advantage of a new style of connection Kronos has introduced for the Timekeeper clocks.
"Up until now, we've had to use serial cabling to connect the clocks, but Kronos has upgraded them to interface directly with the corporate LAN. By eliminating the need for lower level cabling to the clocks, we will be able to operate our entire system on one communications infrastructure, further reducing our maintenance requirements," he said.
"Timekeeper gives us a much clearer picture of our business and production costs, enabling us to allocate resources more efficiently, plan more strategically and generally reduce overheads," said Mr Lockwood.
