MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
Sellafield Ltd is the company responsible for safely delivering decommissioning and reprocessing nuclear waste management and fuel manufacturing activities on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The company has proud heritage and was instrumental in the development of the world’s first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall.
History
A replacement Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) for the Sellafield Site and the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) Site was brought into service during 2005. The Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System was to replace an obsolete system which had been used on the sites for a long period of time. The project scope was intentionally limited to ensure continuity of the maintenance compliance arrangements and to reduce project risk, based on the learning from other similar projects.
Phase 2 of this project is to complete the CMMS by improving maintenance effectiveness whilst also removing some further obsolete maintenance systems from the sites which is a requirement of the NDA contract.
The Challenge
One of the 3 obsolete systems to be replaced is a system that the Sellafield Ltd’s Fire and Rescue (F&R) Service use to maintain a list of extinguishers and fire points around the Sellafield Site and LLWR sites.
The replacement system would enable all F&R assets to be registered on the sites CMMS system M3. This in turn would offer the option of creating and printing bar code labels from M3 which could then be used with some type of mobile handheld scanning devices. All Scheduled and unscheduled maintenance could then be executed on the hand held scanning devices for all portable F&R assets around the sites.
When considering the new solution security and auditing, hardware, software and training requirements were all crucial.
The Solution
Sellafield Ltd chose to replace their existing handheld units with iKons from Psion Teklogix, a global leader in mobile computing devices, and selected eSmart:datacapture from BEC (Systems Integration) Ltd, specialists in data capture and RFID. The eSmart:datacapture software provides the user interface to the operators and is used for the day-to-day collection of data.
When operators return to the Fire and Rescue HQ additional software from BEC reads the data collected on the handheld unit and interfaces with the Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System, Sellafield Ltd’s primary back-end Maintenance software solution.
The Benefits
Since implementing the eSmart:datacapture solution for asset management Sellafield Ltd have seen significant improvements and benefits, including:
No physical signatures required
When carrying out scheduled maintenance jobs on extinguishers and other portable fire and rescue equipment the need for hard copy signatures has been eliminated. This has led to significant savings of time and resources. The Sellafield Ltd site has a vast range of varying sized buildings which ultimately mean they can hold anywhere from 1 extinguisher to over 600 extinguishers. With over 1200 operational buildings on site this solution will have an enormous impact on the day to day data collection for these types of assets.
Huge reduction in printed work orders
By being able to raise work orders automatically via the handheld iKon devices the saving on printing and paper has been significant. To date over 2700 work orders have been raised on iKons saving over 8000 pieces of paper. With an average of 200000 work orders raised per year the future benefits will be significant.
The Future
After a successful rollout of the eSmart:datacapture software and hardware solution provided by BEC there are further plans to extend the system not only in fire and rescue but to other areas where mobile asset management can bring major operational benefits.
John Kirkbride, CMMS Implementation Manager at Sellafield Ltd commented, "Replacing our asset management system with Psion iKon handheld devices running software from BEC has allowed us to consolidate systems, improve the efficiency of our teams by giving them access to enhanced functionality that interacts with the sites CMMS M3. "
John Continued "The support and training we have received from BEC has been great and I am confident it will continue to be so moving forward."
Stuart Kiernan, Business Development Manager at BEC added "The
eSmart:datacapture solution we have provided to Sellafield is a great example of what we strive to deliver to all of our customers – a fit for purpose system which accurately addresses the clients business requirements delivered in a timely and professional fashion and seamlessly integrated back to the host ERP system. A truly effective systems integration solution"
