„Fast and effective organisation“

Client reference | Bilstein Group

"Fast and effective organisation“

Central competence: BILSTEIN GROUP relies on the GS-Service maintenance system for restructured maintenance

Some manufacturing companies are too quick to claim the attribute "paradigm shift". However, if you take a look at the BILSTEIN GROUP's structurally reorganised maintenance, you will indeed see a significant change. With maintenance for all three production companies consolidated in Hohenlimburg, the company has generated a systematically restructured workflow that promises success in terms of efficiency and quality. The unifying element of the new constellation is the GS-Service operations management-maintenance system from GreenGate AG.

"Centralisation ensures transparent and uniform information structures and processes. Maintenance is a service provider for the entire production of our Companies group’s",
explains Managing Director Dr. Eng. Rolf Jansen

Since the beginning of 2011, the Plant and Process Engineering (AT) division of BILSTEIN SERVICE GmbH has also been responsible for maintenance (AT-I) in addition to the previous core departments of project management, engineering building services and occupational safety.
"With this merger, we are combining the maintenance competences for all houses undergoing restructuring." says Managing Director Dr. Eng. Rolf Jansen
BILSTEIN, HUGO VOGELSANG and C. VOGELSANG not only increase their technical plant availability but also benefit from many other synergy effects that improve the quality of maintenance activities and reduce costs at the same time.
An important part of the concept is the uniform spare parts and warehouse management. The three previous warehouses were organisationally merged for this purpose, in this way, the stocks can be successively used and efficiently managed.
Additionally, the know-how from the three warehouses is bundled by interdisciplinary teams. Specialist teams with special qualifications in areas such as hydraulics, pneumatics and programming have been created, which the companies of the BILSTEIN GROUP can now access in a target-oriented approach.

"Centralisation ensures transparent and uniform information structures and processes. Maintenance is a service provider for the entire production of our group of companies," explains Dr. Jansen.
The work preparation, including order management, is organised by the employees via a central planning system. All companies use the GreenGate AG maintenance system GS-Service for this purpose. "With the new software, operating and maintenance processes can be organised effectively and efficiently. Faults, damage and weak points are systematically analysed and contribute to a considerable increase in plant availability," explains the BILSTEIN GROUP. GS-Service also serves as an information platform for the technical documentation of the machines and systems.

It provides a continuous overview of all article and spare part stocks as well as key figures such as orders, damage, faults, costs or working hours.

Optimal planning and realisation

Interview with graduate engineer Helmut Mühlnickel

Graduate engineer Helmut Mühlnickel is an authorised signatory of the Bilstein Group, which is responsible for the centralised maintenance (AT-I) of the three BILSTEIN production plants.

In this interview, Helmut Mühlnickel talks about the background to the implementation and the features and benefits of the GS-Service maintenance system.

Helmut Mühlnickel: With the centralisation of the maintenance of three plants and their organisation under a unified management, we needed a software tool that effectively supports the elimination of isolated solutions. What's more - since maintenance was de facto integrated into process engineering, it was also a matter of increasing cost transparency.

Helmut Mühlnickel: Yes, absolutely. Especially since GS-Service also enables the optimal planning of repair shifts, the documentation of reasons for plant downtimes and the central documentation of maintenance-relevant information.

Helmut Mühlnickel: Among other things. Because with the introduction of a uniform IPS within the three plants, we were also able to make our spare parts inventory transparent. The overall quality of maintenance increases thanks to GS-Service.

Helmut Mühlnickel: After starting out with maintenance in January 2011, GS-Service was successively used in the areas of plant and process engineering, production, technical purchasing and magazines.

Helmut Mühlnickel: Our employees consider GS-Service to be a flexible programme. One positive aspect is that GreenGate is always approachable and makes a concerted effort to meet individual needs. In 2010, this was already evident during the test setup at a relevant plant and during the real start-up in 2011 with the creation of a plant object structure down to the cost-relevant depth, the recording of maintenance wage costs and the further construction of the object tree structure.