CHAPTER 3: REPRESENTATION OF DATA
3.6 CAPABILITIES
The company is capable of providing a fast breakdown maintenance service through the years of experience and knowledge gained within the maintenance industry. The firm is also capable of ensuring the continuous availability of the ash and coal plant. Majuba power station relies on AMS to provide a quick breakdown maintenance approach on the ash submerged scraper conveyor (SSC) which removes the coarse ash from the boiler. The SSC is a critical plant area as it can trip the unit if the SSC is stuck.
Other systems about which AMS has specialist knowledge over are the hydraulic systems of the train offloading plant. Only one member within the organisation understands the hydraulic system of the tippler plant. Interviews with the directors have revealed a lack of knowledge on the technical specifications of parts and equipment, especially when replacing bearings, couplings and gearboxes.
There have been several incidents where re-work has had to be performed on critical plant areas due to a lack of root cause analysis and proper quality procedures followed.
Observations of the firm's production meetings and operations process indicated non - conformance to the Majuba power station safety system. On several occasions the company received non - conformance reports on the permit to work system of Majuba power station. The responsible artisans applied for permits from the operating department so that the plant isolations could be performed, but the isolation points were incorrect. The responsible artisans who apply for permits are legally required according to the plant safety regulations to be at the work site to ensure safe work is carried out.
This is also required if permits are applied for subcontractors to work on site. An incident occurred with a splicing contractor where AMS applied for the permit and the contractor proceeded with the work on the plant which was not isolated and was not under supervision by the AMS responsible artisan. Non - conformance to the Eskom safety regulations can lead to an immediate suspension or termination of AMS contract.
3.6.1 Operations
Figure 3.7: Operations flow diagram for Majuba Power Station
Source: Observations of the company operations and interviews with the AMS directors and employees (2005).
The operations flow diagram depicted in Figure 3.7 indicates the current processes utilised by the firm to accomplish its business maintenance functions. The Eskom scheduler is responsible for generating the preventative maintenance job cards and capturing the plant defects into the SAP system. The plant defects are also captured by the Eskom operators into the SAP system. These defects are then printed by the Eskom scheduler who hands over the plant defects job cards to the AMS planner. A list of plant defects collected by the AMS artisans and semiskilled workers are also handed over to the scheduler by the AMS planner.
The plant defects list is handed over to the scheduler once the work is complete. The AMS planner's function is to collect a list of complete plant defects from all respective plant artisans and supervisors which are then handed over to the scheduler. The Eskom system requires that AMS capture the defect into the system prior to performing the corrective maintenance tasks. The company does not plan work in advance as it prints the list of preventative job cards at the beginning of every week, although Eskom's SAP maintenance system caters for preventative maintenance to be planned three months, six months and a year in advance. The morning meetings held at AMS offices with the Eskom's coal and ash plant line maintenance manager, supervisors and AMS personnel is utilised as the work measurement point. The production list helps the company determine whether the work planned through the production managers has been completed.
The company has a daily approach to plant maintenance. The company makes use of mostly semi - skilled workers to perform the duties on the plant. Some of the artisans are also unqualified. These employees learn by experience. The supervisors are required to work on the plant because there are so many unskilled personnel. The operations director has been increasing the number of employees in the last year and has employed 11 more semi - skilled workers during 2005. The artisans have been complaining about the spares which are being ordered. Some of the spares are incorrect and modifications have to be done on the plant to cater for these spares. On some occasions there are long delays for the spares due to the hierarchical buying processes within the Eskom buying department The Eskom supervisors control the spares handling by strict bUdgets. The
maintenance personnel have complained about the lack of knowledge among the plant operators as they are called out when on standby for simple faults which required the operators to reset the switchgears. Incorrect operating procedures can lead to plant and equipment failures. The cleaning contractors have also contributed to plant and equipment failures because of a lack of the plant knowledge to understand the importance of washing away ash from the equipment. The artisans have also been complaining about the delays experienced with plant isolations performed by the operators when applying for a permit.
The Eskom schedulers who are responsible for the reliability centred maintenance (RCM) programme lack plant process and equipment technical knowledge because they do not work directly in the plant which creates a problem for ensuring an effective RCM programme. There have also been numerous complaints against the engineering department about the prolonged periods for sorting and fixing design related problems.
Observations have also been made that the company does not perform inspections, the maintenance tasks are allocated on a daily basis at the morning production meeting, and preventative maintenance job cards are not planned in advance.
Figure 3.8: Ash plant breakdown and preventative maintenance cost as a percentage of total maintenance costs for the year 2004.
Ash Plant Breakdown and
Preventative Maintenance cost as a % Of total maintenance cost
60.00%
40.00%
20.00%
0.00%
11 Breakdown
11 Preventative
Source: Research Data from interviews performed with Eskom Ash plant supervisors (2005)
Figure 3.8 indicates a considerably high cost for breakdowns which makes up 44,8% of the total maintenance costs whilst preventative maintenance accounts for 14, 3% of the total maintenance costs.