An effec­tive end-to-end main­te­nance process is a cor­ner­stone of a safe, reli­able and effi­cient plant oper­a­tion. In ear­ly 2017 sev­er­al dis­parate busi­ness-led ini­tia­tives were being kicked off to improve per­for­mance of the Oil Sands busi­ness, specif­i­cal­ly its cost­ly main­te­nance process­es from ini­tial noti­fi­ca­tion to exe­cu­tion and close out of work.

The SAP Solu­tion Cen­tre (SSC) saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to part­ner with Oil Sands to man­age these ini­tia­tives under one umbrel­la. The Main­te­nance Con­tin­u­ous Improve­ment Pro­gram (MCIP) was cre­at­ed as a result and the jour­ney would con­tin­ue over the next 1.5 years. 

All aspects of peo­ple, stream­lin­ing busi­ness process, sys­tem enhancements/​automation, report­ing, sus­tain­ment and ben­e­fits real­iza­tion were in scope. Accord­ing­ly, the MCIP was real­ly a Main­te­nance busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion exer­cise to improve the effi­cien­cy, safe­ty and prof­itabil­i­ty of the Oil Sands business. 

The end-to-end main­te­nance life­cy­cle was dis­sect­ed one process block at a time using an agile project man­age­ment approach. The SAP/IT team would facil­i­tate lengthy dis­cus­sion on cur­rent chal­lenges, improve­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and indus­try best prac­tice with the Core Project team. The To-Be state would be refined sev­er­al times before going to the Oil Sands Lead­er­ship Team for final review and approval. 

In the end, the Main­te­nance Con­tin­u­ous Improve­ment Pro­gram has estab­lished a frame­work of best prac­tice across the main­te­nance life­cy­cle. Sev­er­al ben­e­fits such as greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, effi­cien­cy as well as reduced costs and safe­ty risk have already been realized.

Key Busi­ness Ben­e­fits:

• Clear def­i­n­i­tion of roles, respon­si­bil­i­ties and account­abil­i­ties, elim­i­nat­ing gray areas
• Cre­ation and pub­lish­ing of main­te­nance sched­ule 14 days (T‑2) before actu­al exe­cu­tion date, hence giv­ing each stake­hold­ers enough time to get pre­pared for the exe­cu­tion and achiev­ing more than 70% sched­ule compliance
• Merg­ing of 4 dif­fer­ent Noti­fi­ca­tion types into one to sim­pli­fy the work request process
• Auto­mat­i­cal­ly pop­u­late Noti­fi­ca­tion pri­or­i­ty and Main­te­nance Activ­i­ty type (MAT) based on RAMP (Risk Assess­ment Matrix Pri­or­i­ti­za­tion) criteria 
• Auto­mat­ic cre­ation of 3 doc­u­men­ta­tion fold­ers in Noti­fi­ca­tion using stan­dard SAP doc­u­ment man­age­ment functionality

Time­stamps:

• Agen­da — 3:00
• Chal­lenges Before This Project — 4:50
• Unique Con­cepts and Solu­tions Imple­ment­ed — 11:30
• SAP Work­flow — 24:20
• Defin­ing and Track­ing KPIs — 35:30
• Wrap Up — 38:30