One stone, two birds
For the second time our “Maintenance in China” newsletter is distributed at the Annual Process Industry Engineering & Maintenance Congress, held in Shanghai on September 5 & 6. I am also speaking at the event on the ambitious topic of “Technology-enabled technicians vs. the intelligent plant: the Chinese view”: behind the fancy title, I will simply share our real-life experience dealing with maintenance improvement in the Chinese market.
This year’s congress is particularly timely, as our company has made major inroads in the process industry, most recently signing deals with China’s largest onshore LNG plant (Ningxia Hanas Natural Gas) and with a leading glassmaker, the Shanghai-based joint-venture of Saint Gobain Sekurit and Hanglas. We have accumulated an unparalleled record of success in the Chinese process industry, delivering real maintenance improvement to a large number of customers.
We have also recently released the latest version of our mobile solution, known as bluebee®,designed “for the worker of tomorrow”. This is the latest release of the mobile technician solution we previously called “ehand”, which we first implemented at Sichuan Lutianhua (a large producer of fertilizers). We presented the Lutianhua case study at last year’s Congress where, the story received huge attention from the audience. Earlier this year, the same project also won an award by Motorola. Enjoying more and more success, bluebee® has now been deployed to over 500 users all over China.
This brings us back to our core topic: the use of innovative technology, not as an end in itself, but as a “Trojan horse” for implementing best practices in the Chinese industry. People love technology, perhaps more in China than anywhere else. This, combined with large number of greenfield projects providing opportunities to install the very latest technologies, has led to all sorts of investment in “smart plants” stuffed with IT. More often than not, such projects bring only disappointing results, inevitably blamed on “the people”: my people are not good enough, our engineers were not ready for this, our turnover is too high, etc. are comments I often hear. We have, on the other hand, achieved excellent results investing in high-tech on people rather than on the plant itself. This is the very idea embodied in blubluebee®.This is the idea behind out entire business:
1. Technicians and engineers feel good about high-tech. The company is investing in them. They learn something new. They upgrade their skills. They go home in the evening telling exciting stories to their kids. They get to play with fancy toys.
2. Plant managers on the other hand enjoy the resulting improvement in the daily maintenance practice, a smooth implementation of preventive maintenance than often seems impossible to realize “on paper”, less reliance on specific individuals, and the resulting ROI, often in less than one year (in some cases, only weeks).
One stone, two birds!
This issue of our newsletter contains all the usual sections: Reliability (Technology-enabled technicians vs. the intelligent plant: the Chinese view), Customer (Customer story – Saint-Gobain Pipelines & Siveco, a long-term cooperation to improve maintenance), Partner (Working with Siveco as an Introductory Partner) and some of our latest news.
We hope you enjoy reading us!
Bruno Lhopiteau
General Manager
Siveco China
General Manager
Siveco China
