Better asset management with improved systems

September 21, 2009 marked the “Go Live” date for AltaSteel’s Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS).

The new system and software enables any employee to enter work requests and emergency work orders for any of the 8 000-plus assets on site. Ultimately the system will enable users to locate any safety or lockout procedure linked to those assets.

Over 83% of employees had been trained on the system at this Scaw-owned operation in Canada prior to it “Going Live” and on-going coaching and mentoring continues at the plant to ensure a smooth transition to the new way of doing business.

 “By the end of our first week, employees had entered over 500 work requests,” said David Sonnenberg, CMMS Implementation project lead.

This project is one of the remaining phases of a Proactive Maintenance Initiative (PMI) introduced in 2007 to establish business practices to achieve and sustain reliability excellence.
As part of this project, CMMS is designed to optimise the efficiency of the asset management business practices and work flows that had been developed by various cross functional groups on the site.

The implementation and transition to the new CMMS from AltaSteel’s many different legacy maintenance systems began in October 2008. This change was led by a core team of twelve individuals comprising a diverse mix of unionised and salaried individuals, supported by people from all areas of the operation. “After a lot of hard work by many employees throughout our organisation it has been very gratifying that the launch of our new CMMS has been so successful,” said Chris Jager, Altasteel president.