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Globalizing world class concepts has always been a challenge. Telecom companies in particular, such as NOKIA require a combination of flexibility and a systematic approach to maintenance. These feature call for excellent change management procedures, and the ability to adapt to constant technology changes in a variety of cultures.
This and more have been achieved at NOKIA’s Komarom production plant in Hungary. Not only is this plant proof of NOKIA’s capability to ramp-up a world-class production unit in a short time, but Komarom has grown to become a very big mobile phone plant in terms of volume of production. So what the secret behind the success?
Performance Service
To begin with, the product range in the telecoms industry is becoming increasingly broader. Market innovations mean new models are pushed into production faster than ever.
At the Komarom factory, Timo Kahelin, the plant manager, reinforces this point when he says that production volume increased significantly in 2004 to satisfy the growing market demand even as the number of variants also increased substantially. While this in itself is very impressive, plant management also wanted to develop the factory to be world-class in productivity. According to Kahelin, “we certainly saw big opportunities in plant performance improvement during 2004.”
NOKIA understood that a maintenance strategy deeply tied to the production strategy was needed to remain globally competitive. However, according to Timo Elonen, director of Manufacturing Solutions organization, maintenance today is actually “a misleading definition, we rather talk about Performance Service.”
Performance Service minimizes the total maintenance spent over the life cycle of the equipment. Systematic management of internal and third-party maintenance activities is a key contributor to this optimization process, and a key technology is the effective use of a computerized maintenance management system. Integrating maintenance methodology with a focus on the effectiveness of the production, eg, increased line performance, is essential to enhanced productivity. And of course, cost optimization pressure never ceases to exert its influence.
According to Timo Kahelin, it was ABB who opened Komarom’s eyes to maintenance as a tool to improved productivity and not just as a tool for fire fighting and preventive repairs. NOKIA regards ABB as a world leader in maintenance management - in 2002 the company was selected as the maintenance provider for Salo operations in Finland. A performance based service agreement was signed with ABB in March 2005 and by May 2005, the Komarom plant embarked on the creation of a service culture (based on well developed core processes) when 158 line service people and tens of third-party suppliers started systematic service under ABB management. “However this is a big task and there is still a lot do as we move forward from the start-up phase, ABB needs to work hard to keep on track”, Kahelin states.
Martti Salomaa, the head of NOKIA Komarom’s Engine Operations adds that “ABB’s Full Service® concept takes into account both technological and cultural issues and is therefore welcomed by our employees at our Hungarian plant. Together we have more knowledge and can cover more issues, and this increases people motivation as well as enhancing overall competence.” Today Performance Service is considered one of the key contributors to increased performance of the engine lines and assembly cells.
NOKIA’s maintenance strategy has been further refined based on its experiences. ABB has not only had an important role in benchmarking other NOKIA plants, but has also been invited to advice on the formulation of the company’s maintenance strategy.
OEE1), has quickly become a key element to drive maintenance for better performance. Together, NOKIA and ABB have defined an optimal way of capturing OEE from critical equipment as well as from the line as a whole. This common definition provides a sound basis for systematic analysis based on the work that can be assigned to improvement teams. Because the mobile market is growing continuously, an increase of just one percent in OEE has a tremendous bottom line effect.
Life-cycle capability improvements
As part of the manufacturing process in the telecoms industry, ways of in creasing the lifetime of production equipment should be included. This means making constant trade-offs between introducing new production technology and using existing equipment for longer periods of time. The flow-through of components over the life time of a single line in NOKIA’s factories is calculated in hundreds of millions rather than in millions.
In answer to this, NOKIA and ABB are jointly researching the lifecycle modeling of production equipment to increase relevant knowledge as the basis for technological decision making. This is an area where ABB’s experience in the process industry is especially valuable. The production development approaches used within process industries converge with methods applied in high volume discrete manufacturing; hence experiences can be shared productively.
Improving production line Performance
The co-sourcing of performance services - as NOKIA and ABB have set out to do in Komarom - is revolutionary to the industry. Separate technical service activities are no longer isolated but are managed under one performance based service agreement. To utilize ABB’s total capability for performance improvement, NOKIA and ABB have opted for the widest possible scope in their productivity support model. Elements contained in this model include:
· Productivity targets that are cascaded from the production strategy by utilizing a specific strategy process. This process defines the key issues in terms of an MMMP2). Eleven specific process steps for productivity improvements are then scheduled to be in line with telecoms clock speed and finally visualized for everybody by clearly displaying the development steps.
· The management keeps all the former decentralized functions under tight control, focusing instead on facts through KPIs. People are trained and motivated to take on the challenges defined by each development step.
· Improvement of OEE is the key. World-class targets are set and maintenance technologies are deployed to boost continuous improvement.
· A large part of the required work is carried out by third-party suppliers. Their role is to develop equipment technologies that perform better and with higher reliability.
· One of the key challenges is to manage the set-up time of a product change in the line. Several techniques, such as SMED3) have been adopted to eliminate downtime and yield loss.
· Equipment aging in this relatively new plant will be tackled with lifecycle studies utilizing FTA4) common with other plants.
· A key requirement of the agreement is that the program be tailor made for the Hungarian plant, while at the same time it must be easy to benchmark with other plants.
Balint Ecker is ABB’s resource manager at the Komarom plant and he says that even though the first six months have seen huge changes in what were once considered traditional working procedures, people have embraced this new culture of preventative maintenance. Over time, additional systematic tools, such as CI teams5) and MAXIMO6) and RCA7), will be added.
The task in Komarom has been and will continue to be a challenging one. Because of fluctuating market conditions, the manufacturing process is compelled to respond quickly to change. However, with the support of ABB and other partners, NOKIA managed to stabilize production just as the season reached its peak (which incidentally was in the autumn of 2005). New production records are daily achievements.
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