Published

Performance beyond expectations

CASE:

Customer

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), India

Mumbai Refinery, Mahul

The customer's challenge

  • Ageing filling plant
  • Unstable and inadequate production
  • Trouble meeting market demands

Our solution

A Facility Service agreement comprising full-time maintenance of all filling hall equipment

The outcome

  • 34% increase in production
  • Minimum 98% uptime
  • Filling accuracy increased by 10%
  • Lower cost per filled cylinder
  • Long-term protection of assets
  • Decline in spare parts consumption
  • Reduced spare parts inventory
  • Guaranteed availability of critical spare parts
  • Improved production planning
  • Constant optimization of man/machine processes
  • Higher product quality and happier consumers

 Scope of supply

  • Full-time maintenance of filling plant, including three filling carrousels, chain conveyors and all other equipment
  • Spare parts management
  • Training of filling plant personnel

The results brought by a Facility Service Agreement in terms of uptime and output greatly surpassed the customer's expectations.

For people and filling equipment alike, ageing entails an increasing number of defects. But for the latter, it's possible to put a stop to the process. After having seen the positive effects of a preventive maintenance agreement over two years, Indian energy company BPCL chose a full-time Facility Service Agreement for their filling plant in Mumbai, which suffered from age-related defects and consequent inadequate production.

The goals of the agreement were ambitious: 95 percent uptime and production according to the designed efficiency of the equipment.

Strategic approach gave immediate results

To achieve the goals of the agreement, the KC India team took a strategic approach to the maintenance work based on a thorough analysis of the plant and the equipment. The first milestone was to minimize downtime and eliminate repeated equipment failures.

With the results of the initial analysis in mind, the team first focused on the 20 percent of the activities that caused 80 percent of the problems. The results came immediately. Within the first month, BPCL was able to meet the production demand without having the plant operate on overtime.

Production up by more than a third

After this initial success, the rest of the planned maintenance activities were implemented in stages in order not to interfere with the production. According to BPCL's own numbers, the plant's productivity has seen a 34 percent increase since the beginning of the Facility Service Agreement; an increase achieved with the exact same equipment, utilities consumption and manpower as before. In other words, no additional investments have been made to reach the higher output.

Creating synergies through cooperation

A lot of the success stems from the vast experience of KC India's team of service professionals. Servicing 185 carrousels all over India, they have seen and solved practically every possible problem and gained an immense knowledge about best practices. Close cooperation with key filling plant personnel and identification of common goals create synergies that further help the overall result. 

"There has been perceptible improvement in the overall health of all equipments in the filling system. The increase in efficiency and uptime, decline in spares consumption, has brought substantial improvement in quality and productivity of overall filling plant, which resulted in reducing the cost per filled cylinder.

We wish to congratulate your team for their professionalism, never-ending efforts and dedication towards their duty, which they carry out passionately, establishing such high standards of maintenance practices."

D. Das
Chief Maintenance Manager, Mumbai Refinery, BPCL