Introduction

Spindle, an operation monitoring tool has various modules:

• monitoring the utilization of productive labour
• monitoring the utility consumption
• monitoring the washer and dryer utilization

Spindle Pro is the module that deals with the utilization of equipment. It reports for all equipment whether the machine is operational or not.

If the machine is not in operation, it records the reason of non-operation; is either NO DEMAND, PRODUCTION DOWNTIME or MAINTENANCE DOWNTIME.

Combining this data gives for the equipment the OVERALL EQUIPMENT EFFICIENCY (OEE): what was produced during a period versus what was possible to be produced during that period.

 

Maintenance Downtime & Engineering Activity Tracking

From an engineering/maintenance department perspective the ‘MAINTENANCE DOWNTIME” is an important measure in the OOE part. But aside from the monitoring of the “engineering interventions” per piece of equipment that relate to the “Maintenance Downtime,” the module allows the recording of all tasks performed by the engineering team.

 The overwriting aim of the “equipment module” is to:

• Record the “downtime” of equipment + the reason for the “downtime.”
• Record the engineering activity, for example, preventative maintenance. Spindle could be used as a time stamp record of “preventative maintenance.”

The correct recording will allow a record of the maintenance history. As with all recording systems, the more detail in the recording the more specific and accurate the decision making can be, based on these recordings.

 

Spindle Users

Within Spindle, various user types are available and are defined by the way a user is set up in the system. The user level also determines the user access level into the system.

 Users navigate through Spindle using RFID swipe cards and login to pieces of equipment

• Workers: relates to the users of the “Direct Labour Module.” It relates in general but not restricted to labour associated with the general plant production and plant operation. The labour recorded in this module normally co-insides with the labour associated with the production payroll numbers.

  The hours recorded are either “productive hours” or “non-productive hours.”

• Maintenance: relates to all labour associated with the maintenance/engineering. 

  Workers and Maintenance have each their section within Spindle.

• Administration: Have access to both the “Labour” and “Equipment” module. Also, administrator have the ability to set up users in the system.

A grey area are the housekeeping tasks, which depending on the branch have been set up either under “workers” or “maintenance.

Note: a Spindle log in card needs to be used by everybody who performs production and or engineering tasks regardless of whether they are full time, casual, manager or not. Not using the system means not a recording of the data and a loss of data integrity.

 

Equipment Status

 

All pieces of equipment have as status either:

• NORMAL: equipment is available for operation or is in operation.

• PENDING MAINTENANCE: workers have highlighted an issue with the equipment and requested maintenance intervention.

• MAINTENANCE: engineering has attended the machine and has taken over the machine.

• PRODUCTION DOWNTIME: the machine can produce, and there is a demand to produce but is not producing due to production constraints; no operator, no product available, etc…

• NO DEMAND: the machine is operational, no constraints at all but is not producing due to “NO DEMAND.”

NOTE: Engineering alone can place a machine into “MAINTENANCE” and when the machine is again operational engineering alone can place it back into “NORMAL.”

 

Engineering Log in Scenarios

Scenario 1:    Equipment is in Operation, equipment either stops operating, or the operators notice a condition requiring engineering.

Operator request maintenance assistance.

• 1. Operators log on to “Log in Station.” Log in stations are located throughout the facility.

• 2. Select the “Area” either the numeric overview or the visual overview. Depending on the Spindle version. See displays in figure 1 and figure 2.

• 3. Select the relevant piece of equipment. Place equipment into “pending maintenance.”

  Note for multiple lane machines it is possible to place one, multiple of all lanes into “pending maintenance.”

• 4. Operators notify engineering either through a two-way radio, PA system, phone call or physically walking over.

When pieces of equipment are placed into “pending maintenance” the display at the machine will show each of the lanes placed in pending maintenance with an amber cross through it.

For branches with a “maintenance status screen,” usually in the maintenance workshop, this pending maintenance will display on that screen.

Figure 1: area overview – numeric view

 

Engineer attends equipment.

• 5. Engineer will attend the equipment and will take the equipment to “Maintenance.” Performed at the same “log in station” as described above.

  The engineer needs to enter (refer to figure 3):

  • Equipment status: select “Maintenance.”

  • Maintenance Type: 

    The list is universal for the entire plant

    Current option are:

    Emergency

    Scheduled

    Testing

    Out of Service

    Equipment level maintenance

  • Maintenance Reason: Reason codes are equipment specific, and a list can be found under Appendix 1.

  • Work order: allows the engineer to enter free text.

Figure 3: Maintenance entry screen

 

• 6. Engineer performs tasks as required.

• 7. Engineer finishes intervention and hands machine back over to production.

Step 5 is reviewed, if any of the entries is deemed as incorrect, they can be updated at that moment. Equipment status is then changed to “NORMAL.”

The entries entered in at this moment will be recorded and do overwrite the previous entries.

There is no need for the engineer to update the reason codes at any step during the engineering intervention.

It is paramount that each intervention is recorded. Not recorded means no record. Even if the intervention is minimal in time, e.g., a fabric jam, it is important to have a record. Otherwise, there is no record whether there was one or multiple jams and valuable information would go amiss.

 

Scenario 2:    Engineer performs "scheduled maintenance".

Repeat steps 5 – 7 as above.

Select as “maintenance type” “scheduled.”

 

Scenario 2:    Engineer performs on equipment tasks.

This could be plant startup, tasks in the maintenance workshop, etc…

For this affect an area called “Engineering” been created (see figure 1: Area 3 as an example).

Under this area, a number of engineering specific pieces of equipment (figure )have been set up.

Again the more specific, the more detailed the final reporting will become.

Figure 4: Engineering area

 

Reporting

Data reporting

All the entries made whether they are emergency or scheduled equipment interventions, or whether they are engineering workshop tasks are all recorded and can be consulted under Spindle Live:

• Reports

  http://secure.spindlelive.com/#/Reports

 

• Analysis

  http://secure.spindlelive.com/#/Analysis/EQM/43819/Equipment

  The analysis is available through the equipment portal of Spindle Live and allows the user through the use of filters to slice and dice the data.

 

• Generic graphs

  In addition, the Equipment Module homepage displays generic high-level data.

  http://secure.spindlelive.com/#/Eqm/Facility/43819

  

 

Appendix 1