Critical Equipment Identification Approach for Condition-Based Maintenance Planning in a Beverage Plant

A critical equipment identification approach for condition-based maintenance (CBM) planning in the beverage plant is presented. In this study, critical equipment in a beverage industry was identified for effective condition based maintenance planning. The approach involves multiplying four generic factors namely; probability of failure, losses in in-process materials, mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) and mean cost of repairs. The score for the probability of failure was estimated as a function of cumulative failure rate (CFR) of respective plant equipment. Four grades of equipment failure probability were used: very low probability of failure, low probability of failure, medium probability of failure and high probability of failure. MTTR was determined from the identified probability distribution described by the repair data of the reference equipment. Losses in in-process materials were computed from a comparison of the total throughput and the lost brews. The results show that the Dust aspirator, Weighing bin, Mash filter and Chain conveyors with average criticality index of 0.2712, 0.2199, 0.1350 and 0.1563 respectively, are the most critical equipment in a beverage plant. This implies that planning and control of maintenance on the identified critical equipment based on condition monitoring will help improve the production efficiency in the brewing process. Keywords: Critical equipment, Condition based maintenance, Cumulative failure rate, Mean time to repair, Mean cost of repair

Productivity Improvement of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises using Lean Concept: Case Study of a Bread Factory

The immediate impact of the economic downturn and challenging market condition on small and medium scale enterprises (SME) is an urgent demand to implement the effective resource utilization and processing system that will improve productivity. Effective adaptation to the highly competitive environment entails integrating different thought concepts and inventive ideas into the SME processes to reduce manufacturing costs, wastes and improve quality. This paper explores the use of lean concept in SME to improve productivity by reducing operator motion distances, processing time and cost of energy supply. The project reviewed productivity improvement opportunities in Campus bread factory Nsukka using lean concept. The problems in the existing layout were carefully delineated through direct observation of production processes and detailed work study. The resulting data were analyzed to enable the proposal of pertinent modifications in the process. When compared with the existing methods, the new developed method revealed at least 15.62% reduction opportunity in the distance travelled by the operator and decreased the process time by 13.09%. The results also showed that 35.99% reduction of cost of power generation is achievable. A new layout is proposed based on the research realities. Keywords: Resource utilisation, Waste reduction, Lean concept, Productivity improvemen