The Siveco China team took part in the 7th Annual Process Industry Engineering & Maintenance Congress, held for the first time in Guangzhou on May 30-31. Siveco's General Manager Bruno was invited to give a keynote speech on "Lessons from 15 years of maintenance improvement projects in China" and to chair for the first-day event. Siveco also had a booth showcasing bluebee^®, the revolutionary mobile solution "for the worker of tomorrow" and its utilization in process plants. bluebee^® runs with any back-office CMMS and provides a powerful tool for maintenance improvement projects.

Bruno Lhopiteau's presentation, entirely based on real case studies of maintenance in China, received good feedback from other speakers as well as from the audience. Bruno focused on what works and what doesn't in maintenance improvement and the use of high-tech as a catalyst for best practices. Bruno is known for his original insights and the presentation seemed to echo the experience of many attendees. Three case studies were presented, with plants at different stages of their lifecycle:

-  Hanas New Energy (LNG plant) in Ningxia, maintenance preparation from the construction stage
-  Hanwha Chemical in Zhejiang province, Optimizing the inspection process, adding value to SAP
-  BBCA & Galactic Lactic Acid in Anhui, Quick improvement in plant reliability

Among the topics discussed at the event, some were particularly relevant to Siveco's approach of maintenance improvement:

-  Listening to presentations from the various speakers (from DSM, Solvay, Aggreko, Goodyear, DuPont, BASF-YPC, BP, Bayer, etc.), it was obvious that large, sophisticated, maintenance organizations insist more on the need for maintenance information systems, in a practical way and as tool to implement methodologies. Smaller, less advanced, organizations tend to rely on more manual processes and people ("recruiting good people").

-  Large IT projects for maintenance, such as the utilization of SAP PM or so-called "EAM" solutions implemented by IT departments, often have major gaps in usability. In practice, they almost never reach down to technician level. This negatively impacts the organization.

-  For example, several companies we talked to had implemented "EAM" solutions but put them on hold due to staff turnover. New staff had to be trained, which proves to be very time consuming and very expensive (a cost never discussed when the system was originally selected). Other companies made use of "system secretaries" to input data from paper reports and to create reports from managers.

-  Some of the world's largest SAP users attended the event, large German corporations with almost unlimited IT capability. Paradoxically those companies are very aware of SAP's limitations and are using specific solutions to meet their needs in overhaul planning, plant documentation, inspections, etc. On the other hand, less experienced companies tend to believe that one solution can do everything.

-  Risk prevention was mentioned repeatedly during speeches and questions: maintenance based on risk i.e. the impact of failures. As Siveco has been a strong proponent of this approach (even pioneering dedicated Risk Prevention solutions), it was very encouraging to see this idea has now become commonplace.

The congress was a place for exchanging ideas and sharing experience: hopefully, companies that attended the event will learn from others' lessons and avoid making similar mistakes in their own organizations. Several companies had in-depth discussions on their specific situations and needs with the Siveco team during the event and have requested site visits.

The latest issue of Siveco's "Maintenance in China" newsletter was distributed at the booth, containing many relevant articles as well as case studies. The newsletter is also available online in English and Chinese:

English version of the newsletter:
/sites/default/files/oldsitefile/en/wp-content/uploads/pdf/2012/05/2012_05newsletter_screen_EN.pdf

Chinese version of the newsletter:
/sites/default/files/oldsitefile/en/wp-content/uploads/pdf/2012/05/2012_05newsletter_screen_CN.pdf

In conclusion, the 7th Annual Annual Process Industry Engineering & Maintenance Congress in Guangzhou proved that open exchanges between plant managers, maintenance managers, maintenance experts, consultants and service companies can be extremely valuable: we can all learn from each other. Siveco has tried over the years to promote such exchanged by organizing site visits and small sharing session between 2-5 customers. Siveco has also been a partner of event organizer JFPS for the Annual Process Industry Engineering & Maintenance Congress for three years and will be present at the next event to be held in Shanghai on September 12-13.

Siveco is the largest maintenance consultancy in China. Based on a long experience of "maintenance with Chinese characteristics", Siveco has developed a unique approach to address the needs of plants, facilities and infrastructures owners in China through the utilization of technological tools. While the market has historically been plagued by IT suppliers without understanding of industrial reality, Siveco is run by maintenance people for maintenance people, focusing on obtaining rapid and sustainable improvement.

Siveco supports best practices in maintenance, facility management and risk prevention through a range of services including assessment, maintenance engineering, CMMS implementation, etc. Siveco provides a suite of very intuitive mobile solutions "for the worker of tomorrow", known as bluebee^®, running on its own cloud computing platform and compatible with any back-office maintenance system (COSWIN, Maximo, SAP PM, Datastream, etc.).

Siveco has over 60 customers across more than 500 sites in China, including ABB, Alstom, ArjoWiggins, Arkema, Beijing Oriental Plaza, Brose, Carrefour China, Changcheng Property Group, CNEEC, Danfoss, Expo 2010 pavilions, GDF Suez, IKEA, International Paper, Kerneos, Nokia, Saint-Gobain, Sichuan Lutianhua, Sogefi, State Grid, ZF, etc.

Siveco China is headquartered in Shanghai, where it also operates a R&D center, and has a branch office in Chengdu. The company is a subsidiary of Siveco Group, Europe's largest CMMS supplier with over 82,000 users worldwide.

Siveco website: hbdbzs.com

Siveco China edits the monthly "Maintenance in China" email newsletter, available to subscribers and online readers at:
//hbdbzs.com/en/maintenance-in-china/