OREANDA-NEWS. February 22, 2008. JSC Novosibirsk Metallurgical Plant named after Kuzmin (NMP, ESTAR Group) introduces a new automatic information system for planning and accounting the repairs of main equipment (ASU-repair).

The information system for planning and accounting the repairs of main equipment will allow achieving more efficiency in the work of repair services; increase the percentage of planned repair works and considerably reduce the number of equipment downtime due to unforeseen breakdowns. As a result, planning and rhythm of the work of repair services will increase the service life of the equipment, reduce the stockpiles of inventory and waiting time for spare parts and technological instruments. As the enterprise’s experts estimate, the system under introduction will provide operating data on working and planned equipment condition, help in organizing costs management to support the technical condition of the equipment in use and support getting objective estimations of the efficiency of this management system.

Execution and development of the ASU-repair project is organized by the Information technologies department of JSC NMP named after Kuzmin without involving third-party organizations. According to the plan, there are 4 stages envisaged in the project’s implementation: development and introduction of reference database support; support of inventory movement accounting system; support of repair works execution accounting; support of planning the repair works. 1C: UPP (management of manufacturing enterprises), 8.0 program was chosen as a platform.

Currently the first two stages were finished. The most difficult part of the first stage was to form an equipment reference book (references of the repaired objects) which consists of over 50,000 entries. Its structure allows storing information on both large devices and smallest selection units, up to detailed kitting. The necessary auxiliary reference books were also developed and filled here: inventory, responsible individuals, production facilities, places of storage, etc. As the plant’s employees said, one of the most valuable groundworks at this stage was creating a data warehouse for equipment schemes and linking it with equipment and inventory reference books which allows getting schemes of the equipment and not only detailed descriptions.

The second stage has also been developed. A movement accounting system and warehouse accounting of the following process tools are already present at the enterprise: sheet rolls, knives, etc. All kinds of movement are taken into account: arrival, movement through warehouses, installation to equipment, removal from equipment, tool recovery, write-off. The integral indicator of the efficiency of using this kind of inventory is the tool utilization factor which is calculated automatically.

In the framework of executing the third and, partially, the fourth stage, the input normals for making the following repair works are being developed: correction factors for utilization and equipment repair conditions; length of overhaul life; repair cycle; regularity and length of repair works; labour input; contents and types of required works with indications of the necessary materials for their execution.

According to the forecast of Yuri Lyashok, the acting managing director of JSC NMP named after Kuzmin, the economic efficiency of the automatic information system for planning and accounting the repairs of main equipment implemented at the enterprise is quite high. Simply reducing the stockpiles of spare parts, process tools and materials up to the standard level allows a costs reduction of 20-25 mln rubles per year. Implementation of the program will allow benefiting from the reduction of the amount of faulty goods and minimization of lost profit caused by unexpected equipment downtime.  The program, developed by the enterprise’s experts, is unique regarding other systems applied in metallurgy due to the fact that virtually all equipment repair accounting systems meet, to different extents, the requirement of information truthfulness on former, current and forecast equipment condition but that is just the first requirement to the system. It should also be taken into account that the ASU-repair system developed at the plant is, in the first place, meant to optimize the repair costs. That means that assigning the funds should be made in the proportion that guarantees protection from the risks of unexpected equipment breakdown and, correspondingly, unexpected downtime.

In prospect the experts of Information technologies department of JSC NMP named after Kuzmin plan to integrate ASU-repair with the automatic metal accounting system (AMAS), as regards the groundworks and downtime of equipment, and implement the 1C: inventory and repair works costs accounting program.