P U B L I C I D A D E

ABRIR
FECHAR

P U B L I C I D A D E

ABRIR
FECHAR
Voltar

Reliability engineering

Specialized systems based on statistical calculations are helping companies of several areas to turn their operations more efficient and profitable

As it is well known, loss of profits is the worst nightmare of company managers of any size or industry. In other words, nobody loves to throw money away. And taking no care in the maintenance of physical assets is the shortest way to bankruptcy.

With this concern in their minds, many companies are searching ways of better managing their assets, many times the most important generators of income for their business. To attend this growing demand for more efficient (and profitable) services some companies specialized in supplying specific solutions for asset management are coming into the market.

Reliasoft is one of these companies, having currently a portfolio with clients such as AES Brasil, Bunge and ALL Logística. According to its executive director Claudio Spanó, the logic that drives these systems is simple and direct. “Our work is to generate statistics of equipment failures, including when, how and where they will occur, in a way to anticipate the problem”, explains him. “This is what we call reliability engineering: preventing the failure, the equipment increases its useful life and availability.”

Anybody knows that a machine or equipment is profitable only when it is in full operation. But before the development of automatic systems for planning preventive maintenance, technical stops and others, the reality was based on the “feeling” of the manager, in the belief that “if it was made this way all the time, why to change it now?”.

But this situation changed. With the growing professionalization of the market, the increased competition and the reduced profits, the margins for errors had to be reduced drastically.

Following this line, Spanó shows an iconic example. “Due to bad-planned technical stops, the highest asset of a company was causing losses of one million dollars per year”, tells him. “We changed that just reducing maintenance intervals.”

PLANNING

Actually, there are countless cases where expenses were reduced when management systems were installed. As explained by Alexandre Siqueira, commercial director of Astrein, the first measure is to carry out a survey in the company assets and analyze its activities and structure as a whole. “Based on these data, we define a history of failures, the interval between two consecutive failures, the procedures to eliminate them and many other elements. Then we develop the ideal system for that client.”

In fact, everything comes into the calculations to get the state of the art in asset management, since each company has its particular aspects and “vices”. Spanó, from ReliaSoft, adds one more point. “In addition to specific improvements in each operation, the systematic installation of reliability engineering in the corporative environment is worthwhile in other aspects.”

According to him, such benefits come from a consistent planning of maintenance procedures. This may cause a reduction up to 75 percent in their intercurrence and in approximately 30 percent of expenses related to spare parts and inventory. In addition, some clients obtained reductions around 20 percent in insurance expenses due to the minimization of operational risks. “More than an efficient system of management, reliability engineering is a strategic tool for the companies”, sums up Spanó.

Starting from analyses carried out by Astrein, Siqueira presents similar figures, with  an additional information: the reduction of 40 to 60 percent in the frequency of corrective maintenance occurrences. “Our purpose is to change the behavior pattern of the companies, where maintenance is only remembered when a problem occurs, deeply rooting a culture of planning”, says him.

Presenting a little different proposal, ValeCard designed an integrated system based on its internal experience with mobile assets, particularly fleets of light and heavy vehicles. According to Marcelo Simidamore, innovation manager of the project, the idea is “to encompass all assets of the company, from a bicycle to a last-generation machine”.

According to the expert, this occurs because the metric used is the same for all equipment, independently of its size. “The integrated module is the secret of the business. The common base is the hour meter, which establishes the useful life of the asset”, explains him. “If preventive maintenance procedures are strictly followed, according to the determinations of each manufacturer, and the equipment is correctly used and operated, it is possible to increase productivity in approximately 30 to 35 percent.”

Based on the best practices carried out by ValeCard itself, Simidamore shares the principle of change of culture presented by Siqueira, from Astrein. “And even more in this moment of economic instability that Brazil is passing through, when companies are searching for results considering all variables involved, causing a change in models and standards”, says him. “This is the best moment to change the path of the crisis, getting the success through a more assertive management.”