Home / COMMENT / Projects / Managing construction equipment intelligently

Satish Pendse
[More Images]

Improved productivity

IT can help in tracking performance of equipment and taking corrective action as and when necessary.

A world-class ERP like SAP allows tracking the equipment performance on various parameters such as consumption of fuel, lubricating oil, electricity, spare parts, sundry expenses (example, expenses towards foundation of crushing plant), output etc. of the equipments. Based on these inputs we also get to know about various productivity parameters such as cost per hour, production per hour, etc. These actual parameters can be benchmarked against the standard equipment norms to gauge the performance of the equipment and corrective action can be taken to enhance the equipment performance. Alerts can be generated to let the appropriate person know when the variation with reference to norms is much above the tolerance limits.

Also, the equipment productivity cannot be measured only in silos; sometimes it is also important to check the productivity of the entire fleet of the equipment. For example, consider a batching plant running non-stop to its full capacity in conjunction with transit mixers to carry the concrete across the plant. Now with the help of IT, we can optimise the time-cycles of all the equipments in the fleet and come to an optimal solution on number/ capacity of transit mixers, which can improve the overall efficiency of the entire fleet and not just individual equipment.

We can also use this approach to validate a methodology in the planning stage itself. The methodology defines the resources (mainly equipment), which in turn define the time-cycles and subsequent productivity. With the help of IT, all the concerned equipment in the fleet can be optimised collectively for their time-cycles and the most productive combination and subsequent methodology can be selected.

Story continues below

Advertisement

COMMENT   Sir, the article is excellent but i want to know that which module of SAP can help over tracking/Handling the Equipments   3 Comments Read more comments »

Effective maintenance

With a number of equipment spread across geographies and projects, it is very difficult to keep a track of the maintenance schedules of all the equipment centrally. IT can help in this by attaching the maintenance schedule and task list with each equipment record in the system. Alerts can be generated for maintenance activities of particular equipment and sent to the respective stakeholders for their action. Thus IT can be very useful in preventive maintenance. Action alerts can be generated for the concerned senior management member if the maintenance of the key equipment is not happening as per the schedule.

For critical equipment, with the help of IT, we can monitor not only an equipment (example: hoisting crane) but also a critical part of the equipment (motor of hoisting crane) for wear and tear in real-time and take timely corrective actions if the wear and tear crosses a certain pre-defined limit. Thus with IT we can shift from preventive maintenance to predictive maintenance, minimizing unplanned downtime and facilitating real-time, informed decision making.

Overall the benefits of these kind of IT investments are high enough to warrant serious attention.

IT in equipment management

• Equipment is one of the most critical fixed asset and IT can help in managing equipment across their lifecycle resulting in higher return on assets
• IT can give a clear picture on equipment availability as well as utilisation of equipment to all the stakeholders, thus enabling their optimum utilisation
• Equipment performance can be tracked and compared against the standard norms to gauge the efficiency and productivity of the equipments
• IT plays important role in the maintenance of assets by effective enablement of both preventive and predictive maintenance
• IT provides real-time information about the assets thus enabling informative decision-making.

Satish Pendse works as the chief information officer for Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), which has started offering information technology services aimed at improving efficiencies for real estate and infrastructure industries. Through this column in Construction Week India, the author brings out the increasing significance of information technology in the construction industry. He can be reached on satish.pendse@hccindia.com