Improving Overall Equipment Effectiveness of Cement Mills by applying Total Productive Maintenance

Abstract

Construction industry that consists of forty allied big and small industries have an important footprint in the Pakistan’s GDP growth. Cement industry is among the dominant industry that has recently seen a significant growth. Cement Mills area is the last stage before Packing Plant in a cement industry, where final product i.e., cement is produced. The selected plant for research purpose is currently facing difficulties in enhancing production to compete the market and meet the end user demand. For enhancing the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of equipment, the most proven and widely utilized technique is Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). It subjectifies to how well a system performs in relation to its design capacity during its scheduled operating time. The aim of this study is to improve the OEE of cement mills area in a cement industry. Six big losses were the basis for calculation of OEE. One of the eight pillars of TPM i.e., Kaizen was implemented in identified equipment to boost the performance of equipment and make it available for work. For identifying and eliminating root causes of the problems, Why Why Because Logical Analysis (WWBLA) and Pareto Analysis were utilized. The study revealed that major factors contributing to the losses are equipment failure and reduced speed. Though quality was found to be 99.99 percent, but availability and performance rate were 89 percent and 85 percent respectively, making OEE of 76 percent. After the eliminating losses, hypothetical OEE calculation revealed the increase in OEE up to 93 percent. By implementing this study will not only boost up the production capacity of the selected plant for research, but also benefit other cement plant to enhance their capacity by getting real understanding of this study requiring little to no investment.