Case Studies - Smith & Nephew

“Efficiency has improved dramatically and…in just four months, cost savings of £100,000 per annum were achieved.”

Smith & Nephew is a global medical devices manufacturer employing 7000 people in 34 countries, with a turnover in excess of £1 billion. Hull is the global headquarters of its advanced wound management business, which develops, markets and manufactures dressings used in the treatment of hard to heal wounds.

Until 1999 machinery maintenance at the Hull site was 70% reactive, and it still used a mainly paper based system. A baseline AMIS audit gave a poor score, and confirmed the belief that something had to change.

The company spent 6 months developing a maintenance strategy based around best practice. This involved writing strategy documents, assessing plant and equipment efficiencies, reviewing management systems and data systems, and how best to control and utilize resources. There were no standard measurement techniques across its 1200 manufacturing assets, so no meaningful comparisons could be made, and that had to be addressed. Staff competency skill levels and skill requirements were assessed.

Detailed plans were put in place to support the strategy, and help was brought in to guide its implementation. Over a 10-week period, audit teams took a department at a time and went through a process of “Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis” (FMECA). This identified which assets were critical to the business. Key critical equipment was stripped down to individual components, each component was then assessed for how it could fail, under what conditions, and how it interacted with other components. From this, the best maintenance strategy for each component was decided, and the data was stored in a new computerized maintenance management system, Mainsaver, from MVI.

To ensure continuous improvement, multi functional core teams were set up to operate a technique called the improvement wheel: to review data, convert it to information, evaluate and analyze it, implement changes and then audit the improvement. All craftsmen were multi-skilled, and 20% of operators were up-skilled.

Finally, to ensure consistent measurement and improve efficiency across the company, overall equipment effectiveness (GEE) was introduced. Detailed equipment time loss measurement systems were installed onto each machine and reviewed hourly, and this identified where the true losses were occurring. Operators in those areas then suggested cures for some of those losses.

The improvements at Smith & Nephew have been dramatic. In the surgical area, for example, OEE started at 30%and the team was set a target of 50%, but it was then raised to 80% within that same time period. OEE is currently running at 82%.

And the changes have been large. One manufacturing area made 104 design out actions, and 84 components that were previously maintained are now run until they fail. They generated 50 new preventive maintenance routines. Efficiency has improved dramatically and this has had large financial benefits, in just four months, cost savings of £700,000 per annum were achieved.

“I don't see an endpoint to the process,” said Andrew Marris, asset care manager. “We had a definite start point with a low AMIS score of 21. By 2000, we scored 52 and have set ourselves a target of 75 by 2003.”