A flexible and adaptable CMMS to improve the performance of industrial sites.
With 10 sites in France and 250 users, ArcelorMittal Distribution Solutions needed a CMMS that was flexible and adaptable to a diversified context. The challenge: to move from a CMMS specific to each site to a single tool that can be interfaced with SAP. Mission successful with the rollout of the CMMS by CARL Berger-Levrault, which has enabled the company to improve the performance of its industrial sites.
Decryption with Anthony Meurin, automation and CMMS manager BD West Europe.
“…a unique and efficient tool to speak the same language and communicate with the different technical managers.”
Anthony Meurin, Automation and CMMS Manager BD West Europe
ArcelorMittal Distribution Solutions
Created in 2009, ArcelorMittal’s distribution and finishing branch serves customers operating in steel processing and transformation markets: construction, public works, thermal engineering, automotive, general industry, locksmithing, transport, metalworking, electrical, agricultural, etc. The company has a network of agencies throughout France and offers more than 50,000 references.
Standardize its practices and improve the performance of its industrial sites thanks to industrial CMMS
“The AMDS (ArcelorMittal Distribution Solutions) distribution branch was created in 2009 with ten sites in France,” says Anthony Meurin, automation and CMMS manager at BD West Europe. “Each site had its own CMMS, so we wanted to have a unique and powerful tool to speak the same language and exchange with the different technical managers .”
Among the objectives, we wanted to aggregate all maintenance needs and pool methods in order to have a global view and be able to control the costs of the installations to be maintained, but also to guarantee the durability of the assets and optimize technical and human resources.
“We had already been a CARL Master customer (the previous version of CARL Source) for 10 years on one of the sites,” specifies the manager. “We still performed an in-depth benchmark to find the best solution for all sites. We were looking for a web tool that could be interfaced with our ERP (SAP), in order to integrate preventive management.”
The company has set up a working group made up of site maintenance managers, business experts and an IT referent for the development of SAP interfacing and support. The future CMMS should therefore meet the following criteria;
- Be adapted to the needs of industry.
- Manage multi sites and multi companies.
- Offer multilingual.
- Being SAP compatible.
CARL Source has been selected from around fifty solutions. Its commissioning on the first site lasted a year with a lot of data formatting work. “We standardized the data internally before integrating it into the tool. The other sites had between 8 and 9 months to train the teams in the use of CARL Source.“
“One of the key factors in the success of the project was undoubtedly the support garnered for change.”
Anthony Meurin, Automation and CMMS Manager BD West Europe
CARL Source Factory, a reliable and efficient industrial CMMS
The rollout of a Full Web CMMS
Rollout started in 2012 on a pilot site to test the tool with the company’s other interfaces, including SAP and the invoicing interface. “We have carried out important work on the tree levels“, explains Anthony Meurin. “We have built model trees, each machine is cut the same way, and we have the same machines at the different sites. The indicators are also identical. We were therefore able to share the same models and we trained the 250 users all over France whether in maintenance (technician, maintenance manager, administrator) or in production (DI issue and 1st level maintenance).”
One of the big advantages of full web was the possibility of install the CARL solution on each workstation with full integration of curative and preventive interventions. “We wanted to be able to take action as close as possible to requests. It’s important to note that we have 3,800 requests for actions per year for the Reims site alone,” specifies the manager.
The most important interfaces developed are the ERP SAP and the stock. “Technicians can now view stocks but also see the relationship between the work request, the work itself, the cost of the part and the intervention cost. CARL Source allows us to gather this data and come up with in-depth analyses. Thanks to our CAPM and the CARL Source CMMS, we can also analyze downtime” adds Mr. Meurin.
“One of the key factors in the success of the project was undoubtedly the support for change,” says Anthony Meurin. “You have to reconcile the expectations of management with the reality on the ground by keeping a CMMS coordinator-administrator even after the start.”
The CMMS signed CARL Source also allowed simplified management of subcontracting thanks to specifically created extensions.
Successful rollouts
As the system was used, the company increased the load of the operation on the stock part with SAP (consumption / intervention) so that everything was linked and interfaced. Other developments have also made it possible to recover the machine operation counters to have hourly preventive maintenance, periodic checks and to ensure dedicated traceability for each ISO audit.
THE ADVANTAGES OF CARL SOURCE FACTORY INDUSTRIAL CMMS
Advanced analyzes to optimize the management of multi-site maintenance activity
Possibility of developing a dialogue interface with SAP or any other ERP