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AMMJ Mill Downtime Tracking 41
Basically what we are doing is seeking management approval by selling our
improvement ideas. Our improvement initiatives have to be quantitatively
convincing.
POOLING TOGETHER SOLUTIONS
The plan was to hold mini shop floor sessions of the same presentation as given
to management and highlight the dominant breakdown causes of equipment to
the work teams responsible for maintaining these problem equipments. The
intent was also to seek what solutions they thing should solve the problem or
how they think these problems should be addressed.
By rolling this down to the shop floor teams we hope to be bipartisan in our
approach and develop cooperative solutions to our problems. The aim is to get
the shop floor personnel to buy into our initiative as it gives them a sense of
ownership and value in their job.
This step, pooling together of solutions, was a challenging one especially
with the concern plant personnel reverting to the ‘fire fighting’ mode. In such
a reactive situation it was a struggle to book a time to have all of the shop floor
personnel present and often the sessions were deferred. As a way forward and
instead of holding a group session the author have resorted to booking a time
with those key personnel (i.e. leading hands and team coordinators) to pool
together their ideas.
COMMUNICATING SOLUTIONS TO MANAGEMENT
Communicating the solutions to management for their approval was a step factored in incase we do come up with
improvement ideas that will require large capital investment and that may require management to sign off on. However,
as we pooled together our solutions we also drew up guidelines to ensure that solutions identified are both practical
and within our control and that we can implement them as normal part of our duties with the resources available to us
immediately rather than having to all the time seeking to get management approval for every solution presented. This
has cut down on the bureaucracy that would otherwise be involved. Of course every effort is made now and then to
keep the upper management in the loop.
This does not, however, mean that solutions involving large capital investment have not been identified and will not
be presented to management. These will be pursued outside the requirements of this unit.
TRACK AND FOLLOW SOLUTIONS AND MEASURE OUTCOMES: AN EXAMPLE
At the end of a given period of time after implementing of the solutions, we should be able to measure against set
performance indicators in Availability, Cost, Breakdown Frequency and Downtime Durations.
As an example, one of the problems identified was excessive mill leakage due to broken liner bolts. This has cost
OTML a lot of downtimes. One of the solutions that we have implemented was for the CM crew to do random
Ultrasonic Testing (UT) of the liner bolts. After six months of doing UT on liner bolts to eliminate broken bolts whilst in
service, the outcome was tracked and measured. This resulted in a revenue loss savings of US $3 million. This was
highlighted in the presentation [3] given during the residential school in September 2008.
This will be eventually presented to our maintenance people as way of trumpeting the wins of our combined efforts.
CONCLUSION
From this paper and as presented during the residential school, this analysis of the MDTDB has:
• Identified plant equipment costing OTML in Mill Availability,
• Quantified the performance indicators in Cost, Frequency and Downtime Duration,
• Drilled down to the Dominant Causes,
• Pooled together some Solutions to address the dominant issues,
• Implemented and tracked some viable solutions,
• Determined after six months the wins of a particular solution
Overall, a systematic approach to follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle is now customized from the MDTDB
for continuous improvement and sustaining of the Mill Uptime at Ok Tedi.
REFERENCES
TABLE 10 TOP 10 EQUIPMENT OF
BOTH SAG MILLS COSTING OTML IN
MILL AVAILABILITY
SAG1 Mill SAG2 Mill
0231ML01 0341ML01
0231SC10 0341CV01
0231CV01 0341FE01
Unknown 0341PP01
0231CV03 0341CV02
0231CV04 Unknown
TPS/Ok Menga 0341SC01
IPC/TARA 0341CV03
0231FE02 0341ML015D
0231ML01B TPS/Ok Menga
[1] Latino Robert J and Latino Kenneth C, Root Cause Analysis: Improving Performance for
Bottom-Line Results. 2nd Edition, CRC Press LLC, Florida, USA.
[2] P. Willmoth, and D. McCarthy, TPM – A Route to World-Class Performance. Butterworth-Heinemann,
Great Britain, 2001.
[3] G. Hamambi, “Mill Downtime Tracking Database Analysis” Presentation at AMCON, Monash Residential
School, Gippsland Campus, September 2008.
Vol 24 No 1