Measuring the right level of maintenance costs in a cement plant

The choice of maintenance policy and the quality of maintenance have a fundamental impact on a plant's technical performances and the cost effectiveness of its operations. At Lafarge our objective is to achieve a "Maintenance Mastery" standard, measured by KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Reliability and MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) are well known indicators in the technical community and are used worldwide to define undisputable measurable objectives for operations. However, at present, there are no satisfactory indicators for comparing and challenging plants in respect of their cost effectiveness. The purpose of this document is to present a methodology for defining the right level of maintenance costs in a cement plant. Several parameters influence maintenance costs. In particular the technical specifics, the process that the plant is using, its additive ratio (C/K ratio) and its production; and the region and country where the plant is situated may also have a bearing on maintenance costs. The influence of each parameter has been modeled and we have developed a tool for estimating the right level for the cost of maintenance. This tool is based on data from a large number of plants in the company and takes into account all parameters such as the plant specifics and environment. For several years we have been challenging plant maintenance costs with a Maintenance Cost Index (MCI ratio = maintenance cost of one plant divided by the right level of maintenance cost for this plant). All our plants have their own MCI, which is used to challenge the maintenance costs for each plant, to define a budget, to benchmark plants and to identify ways for improvement.