Customer success stories prove the value of the Ivara solution.

Browse through a few of the customer stories highlighted below and see how the Ivara solution has helped them to improve business performance. See how optimizing asset performance and reliability impacts the bottom line.

• Process Safety and the High Reliability Organization
• Power Generating Station Saves $2 Million Optimizing Scheduled Maintenance and Minimizing Impact of Unplanned Outages 
• Arcelor Mittal Burns Harbor Operation Uses Ivara EXP Enterprise to Achieve $2.1 Million in Savings in One Year
• Exelon Uses Ivara Asset Health Indices to Drive Capital Planning and Maintenance Prioritization
• Ivara EXP Remote Drives Maintenance Excellence at Transmission Substations
• Ivara’s Advanced Analytical Technologies Support Strategic Capital Planning and Maintenance Optimization at Gallatin Steel
• North America’s Largest Uncoated Freesheet Paper Mill Realizes Significant Savings Anually with Ivara EXP Enterprise
• ArcelorMittal Tubular Products Increases Asset Availability with Ivara EXP Enterprise Asset Performance Management Software
• Sterling Steel Reduces Downtime and Increases Throughput With Ivara EXP Reliability Software
• Domtar Espanola Increases Pulp Mill Efficiency by 5% with Ivara Reliability Solution
• Ivara EXP Supports Compliance at SONGS
• Ivara EXP Drives Implementation of RCM2 Analysis at ArcelorMittal Dofasco to Increase Asset Utilization Rate by 8%
• Vale meets increased market demand for its high quality nickel while lowering maintenance costs
• Catalyst Paper Adopts Ivara Asset Reliability Process as the Strategy to Improve Mill Performance by up to 3% in Paper Machine Efficiency
• ArcelorMittal Dofasco Takes Equipment Asset Reliability to Higher Level to Solidify Leadership Position in Steel Industry
• EPCOR Improves Operational Effectiveness Using Ivara Solution
• Brighton Beach Power Maximizes Asset Performance and Sets the Stage for Improved Reliability with Ivara
• City of Montreal Saves Over $100,000 Annually through Improved Asset Reliabilty
• ArcelorMittal Mines Canada Saves $7 Million Annually in Maintenance Shop
• EXP Initiates Right Work – Extends Asset Life and Saves $1 Million Per Year
• North Star Steel Achieves Record Production with Transition to Asset Reliability
• RCM2 Applied to a New Machine Saves $6M Per Year
• Ivara Enables Helmerich &Payne to Standardize Maintenance Practices Across More Than 100 Sites
• Improved Reliability and Quality Help Rank Dofasco as North America’s Most Profitable Steel Maker
• Ivara Maintenance Task Analysis Saves Operating Costs
• Commitment to Strategy and Clear Tie to Profitability Goal

Arcelor Mittal Burns Harbor Operation Uses Ivara EXP Enterprise to Achieve $2.1 Million in Savings in One Year

The ArcelorMittal USA Flat Roll Operations is comprised of 12 operating facilities employing over 17,000 people. The World Class Equipment Reliability (WCER) team at the ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor Hot Strip Mill have achieved very dramatic results in a 1 year period. Total savings in 2010 were $2,076,9000. Other positive benefits include increased safety and a cleaner work environment.

Download the complete ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor Case Study

Exelon Uses Ivara Asset Health Indices to Drive Capital Planning and Maintenance Prioritization

ComEd, a division of Exelon, one of the largest electric companies in the US was looking for a way to update their “asset health index” on a regular basis in order to make decisions based on the current health of their assets. Today, with the help of Ivara EXP, health index calculations are now collected automatically every night from 57,000 assets providing data that can be used for multiple purposes like; replacement pans, maintenance priority work, and calculating the probability of asset failure.

Ivara EXP is a key driver in their capital planning process, and as one of the inputs into the prioritization of ongoing maintenance work. Ivara EXP is providing much better visibility into the overall health of their extensive physical plant.

Download the complete Exelon Case Study

Ivara EXP Remote Drives Maintenance Excellence at Transmission Substations

Power utilities face a unique challenge. Like many industries, they have an aging workforce maintaining an aging asset base worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. In addition, transmission and distribution (T&D) utilities need to deal with assets distributed over a wide geographic area, and customers who are immediately impacted when outages occur on critical assets. Ivara EXP Remote was developed to help companies drive maintenance excellence beyond the plant environment and into the field. This case study provides insight into how one of the largest utilities in the South Western U.S is using EXP Remote to proactively monitor the health of their substation assets, direct maintenance work at the substation in support of their existing CMMS, and ensure that downstream customers can count on uninterrupted power supply for the electricity needs. 

Download the complete Ivara EXP Remote Case Study

Ivara’s Advanced Analytical Technologies Support Strategic Capital Planning and Maintenance Optimization at Gallatin Steel

Learn how Gallatin Steel leveraged Ivara’s new analytical technologies; Ivara Weibull Analysis to determine failure patterns to recommend the optimal maintenance policies for Furnace Roof Lift Cylinders and Ivara Life Cycle Cost Analysis to determine optimal economic life of fleet of Liebherr cranes. The results from the Weibull analysis determined how to optimize the PM replacement interval of West Lift Cylinder to reduce failure and downtime incidents by 11%. The results from the Life Cycle Costing Analysis of Liebherr Cranes determined that Gallatin could extend crane productive life by 3 years.

North America’s Largest Uncoated Freesheet Paper Mill Realizes Significant Savings Annually with Ivara EXP Enterprise

Domtar Ashdown, North America’s largest uncoated free sheet paper mill, has realized significant annual savings and increased proactive maintenance by approximately 15% with Ivara® EXP Enterprise. Based in Arkansas, Domtar Ashdown is a division of Domtar Corporation – the largest integrated manufacturer of uncoated free sheet paper in North America. Domtar’s vision to be a world leader in paper, pulp, and wood products is firmly based on the foundation that optimized asset performance is a key strategy to address challenging market conditions. Domtar Corporation implemented EXP Enterprise asset performance management software to drive its enterprise-wide reliability initiative and support its goal of production and profitability improvements. Learn about their keys to success…

ArcelorMittal Tubular Products Increases Asset Availability with Ivara EXP Enterprise Asset Performance Management Software

To sustain a leadership position and provide a superior value proposition to their customers, operational excellence supported by optimized equipment performance has become the foundation of ArcelorMittal Tubular Products competitive strategy. The Ivara EXP Enterprise Asset Performance system bridges the gap between operational objectives and the asset performance reality on the shop floor. With EXP, the Woodstock, Ontario and Shelby, Ohio facilities have realized significant benefits in asset performance. Read this case study to learn about their cohesive and integrated approach to developing and executing on a strategy to improve equipment performance through proactive maintenance.

Sterling Steel Reduces Downtime and Increases Throughput With Ivara EXP Reliability Software

Sterling Steel, a leading manufacturer of wire rod for its parent company Leggett & Platt, has increased throughput and reduced downtime at its plant in Sterling, Illinois using the Ivara EXP asset reliability software solution. Using EXP, Sterling realized significant improvements in asset performance including an 88% reduction in downtime at the company’s rod mill and a 30% increase in meltshop throughput.

Domtar Espanola Increases Pulp Mill Efficiency by 5% with Ivara Reliability Solution

The pulp and paper industry is facing the most challenging market conditions in a decade. Domtar, like others in the market, is under enormous pressure to succeed in a very competitive global market. Domtar was actively seeking areas for business improvement that would allow it to continue its industry leadership. The company determined that it had a significant opportunity to improve return on its largest investment – its ten paper-producing mills. The goal was to achieve a significant recurring annual improvement to the bottom line by reducing maintenance costs and increasing mill efficiencies.

The Domtar Espanola pulp mill, one of the first areas to implement the new reliability program, has seen an overall mill efficiency improvement averaging 5% per year over 2005 and 2006, surpassing original expectations. In addition, maintenance costs have also started to decline with less equipment breakdowns and the elimintation of unneccessary work. Further cost improvements are expected over the next two years.

Ivara EXP Supports Compliance at SONGS

Learn how one of the largest nuclear generating stations in the U.S., San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), developed a single, integrated approach to their compliance with AP-913 (INPO’s equipment reliability process) utilizing Ivara EXP. SONGS demonstrates leadership in reliability —continuously improving their proactive reliability programs.

This progressive approach in applying AP-913 best practices puts them at the forefront of automated reliability systems in the nuclear industry and demonstrates their leadership in maintaining high levels of safe and reliable plant operations.

Ivara EXP Drives Implementation of RCM2 Analysis at ArcelorMittal Dofasco to Increase Asset Utilization Rate by 8%

Central Shipping is critical to ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s success from both a customer service and an internal production perspective. With stacker crane utilization rates at 90%, Dofasco required a 6% increase to ensure that growing production and storage demands were met. Yet, higher volumes were resulting in a high incidence of stacker crane failures. In spite of ongoing crane upgrades, the failures persisted. Maintenance staff needed to better understand and address these failures to improve stacker crane reliability and meet Dofasco’s crane utilization target of 96%.

With the implementation of the RCM2 analyses in Ivara EXP, Dofasco’s Central Shipping department has surpassed its 96% stacker crane utilization target, achieving 98% utilization. Improvements in stacker crane reliability have also led to a 21% decrease in reactive maintenance work. Overall, 84% of maintenance work is now proactive.

>Vale Copper Cliff Nickel Refinery meets increased market demand for its high quality nickel while lowering maintenance costs

Vale’s Copper Cliff Nickel Refinery required an increase in throughput in 2005 to meet market demand while reducing operating costs. The Nickel Refinery recognized that a significant portion of this increase could be achieved through improved reliability of key assets; specifically the reactor ball mill and pellet decomposers. In order to improve reliability, Inco also recognized that it had to change its approach to maintaining these key assets.

With the assistance of Ivara Corporation, Vale conducted RCM2 analyses on the reactor ball mill and pellet decomposers to develop a maintenance strategy that ensured the execution of the right work at the right time. The RCM2 findings of both the reactor ball mill and pellet decomposers resulted in changes to the maintenance program as well as established new procurement, operational and maintenance best practices. In addition to these gains, the implementation of the RCM2 findings helped increase Vale’s Copper Cliff Nickel Refinery production levels by 20%.

Catalyst Paper Adopts Ivara Asset Reliability Process as the Strategy to Improve Mill Performance by up to 3% in Paper Machine Efficiency

Ivara’s holistic approach to asset reliability is enabling Catalyst Paper to adjust and augment existing processes, practices and technologies to optimize reliability and performance of plant assets. Ensuring that the right work is being done on the right equipment at the right time, Catalyst Paper is moving to the next level in operational effectiveness.

As the implementation of the Ivara solution continues, Catalyst is laying the groundwork for a proactive approach to asset reliability. At the Port Alberni mill alone, increased capacity and cost savings totaling $1.5 million is anticipated in year one and expected to reach $7.1 million per year after the three year ramp up.

ArcelorMittal Dofasco Takes Equipment Asset Reliability to Higher Level to Solidify Leadership Position in Steel Industry

ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s business plan has set a target of 80 percent asset utilization for all assets, an ambitious goal for any industry, and especially so in steel production. To meet that goal Dofasco recognized that it must accelerate reliability improvement in all its business units. As a result, Dofasco is embarking on an implementation of the Ivara Reliability Solution throughout the ten business units in the 730-acre Hamilton complex. One of Dofasco’s automotive galvanizing lines, the DSG, was selected for a full implementation to prove the economics of reliability improvement.

In the first nine months of 2005, the DSG achieved a 14 percent improvement in asset utilization, producing an additional 5600 tons per month of throughput, which translates into significant financial gains. Gains for employees are also impressive. The reactive “fire-fighter’ approach to maintenance work has been replaced with a proactive reliability process, ensuring a better quality of work life for ArcelorMittal Dofasco employees.

EPCOR Improves Operational Effectiveness Using Ivara Solution

EPCOR realized that improving asset and operational effectiveness would not only enable the company to better manage costs, but also improve customer service. The specific objectives of the project were to increase maintenance workforce efficiency, reduce asset lifecycle costs, improve asset management as well as asset reporting and accounting procedures. EPCOR determined that a proactive asset management process was required to achieve their business goals.

Since the implementation of the Ivara reliability solution significant benefits have been achieved. EPCOR has recorded an efficiency improvement for the Stores/Warehouse staff due to improved access to information. EPCOR repositioned Data Capture staff into higher value roles. EPCOR Water Services has improved maintenance scheduling and cost reporting functions. Equally important, Ivara’s reliability solution supports faster management decisions.

Brighton Beach Power Maximizes Asset Performance and Sets the Stage for Improved Reliability with Ivara

Long before commencing operations, the organization recognized that asset reliability was vital to their long term success. Capital assets represent the single largest investment at Brighton Beach Power and their continued availability and reliability is fundamental to their bottom line.

Since the plant’s commissioning, Brighton Beach Power has experienced industry leading commercial availability levels. The combination of Ivara’s reliability technology and expertise has helped to ensure that asset performance is optimized and the plant is consistently able to deliver the required power generation capability.

In today’s market, where the demand for power is at an all time high, asset reliability is critical to a power generators’ success. With Ivara, Brighton Beach Power continues to maximize equipment performance and plant capacity by avoiding costly unplanned outages, while maximizing the effectiveness of planned outages. Maintenance and operations teams are working together to proactively manage the health of the company’s assets and support the primary business goal of providing reliable and efficient power.

City of Montreal Saves Over $100,000 Annually through Improved Asset Reliabilty

Performing the right work at the right time to optimize asset reliability has enabled the City of Montreal’s Wastewater Treatment Plant to achieve its operating target availability (7.5 bull screens). Further, with this focus on reliability, the plant was able to reduce the maintenance costs of the eight bull screens from $133,000 to $55,000 per year, for a total annual saving of $78,000. For all eight complete systems, the savings are actually over $100,000 annually and are expected to increase in the next few years.

The City of Montreal used an extremely effective work identification methodology that ensures the effectiveness of maintenance practices on an asset-by-asset and task-by-task basis – in any kind of asset-based operation. With a cross-functional focus on asset reliability, availability was increased and costs reduced. The process drove a closer relationship between operations and maintenance that better met the requirements of both groups. It not only reduced costs, it also minimized both the financial and safety risks associated with degrading equipment.

ArcelorMittal Mines Canada Saves $7 Million Annually in Maintenance Shop

The Maintenance Shop has been able to realize $7 million annual contribution to ArcelorMittal Mines Canada bottom line mainly by adopting a reliability-driven approach to maintenance across its mobile mining equipment. The reliability initiative is credited with playing a major role in sustaining the profitability and viability of the mine. Since 2001, mine production levels are up by 28% – without increasing resources. Mobile equipment maintenance costs (parts, labor, fuel) are down by 8.3% per cubic meter of concentrate – even without accounting for inflation or increased fuel prices.

While ArcelorMittal Mines Canada continues to implement Ivara’s total reliability solution across its operations, the Maintenance Shop has already identified additional areas in which it can use Ivara’s reliability practices and methodologies to achieve even greater improvements.Having established a strategic approach to maintenance, the Maintenance group will next undertake a comprehensive Work Identification program to examine the effectiveness of their current maintenance practices on an asset-by-asset and task-by-task basis.

EXP Initiates Right Work – Extends Asset Life and Saves $1 Million Per Year

At a large manufacturer in North America, EXP has initiated the right work on Tap Hole/Swing Cylinders from data collected through OSIsoft PI interface, resulting in saving in the range of $1 million per year.

EXP drove a complete recovery of the swing cylinders. The poor fit between the mudgun nozzle to tap hole was not evident or remedied by the Operators based on existing control room data. EXP allowed Operators and Maintenance to see how mudgun nozzle to tap hole face fit had deteriorated. EXP triggered an alarm based on data received from PI. EXP provided the recommended sequence of corrective work to rectify the problem and automated work request was generated to re-surface and ream the furnace tap hole. After the supervisor/planner approved the work request, the company’s CMMS planned, scheduled and generated the work order necessary to have the work completed.

Bottom line impact – For every year the furnace operates past an 8 year campaign, the company saves approximately $1 million. The lives of two furnaces were extended an estimated 8 – 12 years with projected total saving in the range of $19 million.

North Star Steel Achieves Record Production with Transition to Asset Reliability

Cargill’s North Star Steel (NSS) recognized asset reliability as a crucial strategic component of their long-term business plans and successfully removed a number of stumbling blocks on the road to achieving higher levels of asset reliability:

• CMMS investments that captured lagging equipment condition data, but did little to improve results. NSS concluded that the way to make the CMMS successful was to define its role differently – as a work execution tool, not a general maintenance system. The CMMS is now efficiently managing the execution of the work identified by EXP. Instead of expecting a return on the CMMS investment, NSS has used its broader maintenance systems strategy to drive an even bigger return.
• Condition monitoring tools that provided current equipment condition data, but overwhelmed the then-present maintenance process. The role of their predictive and condition monitoring technologies were redefined as specialized engineering tools to help create the picture of the health of the plant. EXP is the system that Maintenance and Operations are using, day-to-day, to utilize all of this data to manage the health of NSS assets and to identify the right work at the right time.
• An aging maintenance workforce whose members were very knowledgeable and skilled at what they did, but who would soon retire. EXP enabled NSS to create a knowledge repository containing all of the equipment expertise of their experienced and aging work force. Now, the maintenance program is captured in EXP and rules have been set up to trigger the right work based on an asset’s current condition.

NSS conducted a pilot implementation of the Ivara EXP reliability software along with a strategic program of education and mentoring. Response to the Ivara EXP pilot was so positive and enthusiastic that NSS has since implemented Ivara’s reliability solution at all four of its mills.

The results have been dramatic:

• Since adopting Ivara’s reliability solution, NSS’s Kentucky mill is running consistently at top capacity and setting new production records for both quantity and quality of product.
• Time-based inspection hours have been reduced by approximately one-half, freeing Maintenance to perform proactive work identified by EXP.
• To-date, spare parts inventories have been significantly reduced.
• EXP has proved invaluable in demonstrating compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards in crane maintenance and operation. In fact, OSHA received the results so enthusiastically that NSS is now developing similar procedures to achieve equal approval from Environmental Protection.

North Star Steel is meeting its business goals with a reliability software solution from Ivara that is simple to use, quick to implement and easily incorporates existing technologies.

RCM2 Applied to a New Machine Saves $6M Per Year

The company, a metal processing organization, purchased a new automated ladle cleaning machine. From repeated usage, metal builds up inside the ladle reducing the amount of liquid metal that can be transported. To compensate, the solidified metal is removed using a milling machine. This process is labour intensive and costs approximately $1500 per ladle. To speed up the process and reduce costs, the company purchased a specialized automated ladle cleaning system. Unfortunately, startup issues were such that it was impossible to clean more than a few ladles per day. Unable to move forward they turned to RCM2. RCM2 helped them define the system’s functions and performance targets, determine the potential causes of failure and develop a maintenance program to mitigate the consequence of these failures. Now that it’s implemented the new maintenance program ensures that the ladle cleaning system performs to its maximum level. This in turn saves the company $6M per year, every year.

Ivara Enables Helmerich &Payne to Standardize Maintenance Practices Across More Than 100 Sites

Helmerich & Payne (H&P) recognized the need to transition to a more technologically advanced system offering benefits in efficiencies and reduced administration. H&P needed a scalable multi-site system that would provide an uncomplicated user interface at the rig level, yet offer sophisticated corporate analytical functionality. Ivara SUPREAM allowed H&P to standardize maintenance procedures and deliver consistent, high-quality maintenance to all of the H&P rigs around the world and administer the entire network from a centralized location. By combining the years of outstanding field maintenance from H&P with the flexibility and robustness of Ivara SUPREAM, H&P has been able to move to the next level of maintenance excellence.

Maintenance is directly tied to revenue at H&P, as it is with most asset-intensive companies. Using Ivara SUPREAM, H&P has avoided downtime – with an immediate impact on profitability.

 Download H&P Success Story

Improved Reliability and Quality Help Rank Dofasco as North America’s Most Profitable Steel Maker

In order to implement their reliability strategy, Dofasco focused on a reliability driven maintenance process. Its objective was to identify the information that was necessary to be managed and the practices and activities that were needed to be implemented to achieve higher levels of asset reliability. Dofasco completely changed the operation of their maintenance department and achieved millions of dollars in savings.
Dofasco estimates that it saves $2 million annually by using a reliability driven maintenance process to identify maintenance needs. Hourly employees were actively engaged throughout the process and were empowered with the necessary information to identify and correct problems before they became emergencies.

As a result, proactive maintenance activities have increased and reactive maintenance is less than 25% of all jobs. Equipment availability has increased more than 10% and product quality yield has risen from 76% to 91%. As a direct result, Dofasco has not only been able to retain its existing customer base, it has also expanded and established itself in other industry sectors where consistent quality and just-in-time deliveries are essential customer requirements.

Dofasco also managed to reduce its maintenance workforce, through voluntary attrition, from 3,678 to 1,734 people. And finally, the spare parts inventory was reduced from $110 million to $70 million with a goal to lower it to $50 million by the following year.

 Download Dofasco Success Story

Ivara Maintenance Task Analysis Saves Operating Costs

A metal processing company purchased 3 automated strapping machines. Once the ingots are cast and cooled they need to be strapped together for transportation to the customer. The strapping machine puts up to 4 metal straps around the buddle, installing a metal fastener to hold the strap ends together. A poorly strapped bundle may break in transit causing additional transportation costs and possible quality losses. A strapping machine runs a metal strap rapidly and accurately between a series of guides, stops the strap at the exact spot, applies the correct amount of tension, cuts the strap, applies a fastener and crimps it with just the right amount of pressure. Sequence, speed and precision are essential factors. The machines were constantly jamming and the company needed 2 full time Operators per machine to compensate for errors.

Together with the plant personnel we reviewed each component in the process, using Ivara’s Maintenance Task Analysis practice. We defined performance standards for the components and the appropriate tasks to ensure that these standards are met.

The end result is that the 3 strapping machines can now successfully apply straps without human intervention. The plant assigns 1 Operator per shift for the 3 machines rather than 6 Operators, Maintenance is no longer firefighting and tension in the business unit is down.

Commitment to Strategy and Clear Tie to Profitability Goal

With the help of Ivara’s experienced Reliability Practioners, large manufacturer achieves consensus on a single strategy for reliability improvement. A business case was developed to show both the costs and benefits of moving towards best-in-class maintenance standards. Ivara assessed the company’s reliability process and practices and assisted in developing the business case for the project. The business case showed that significant financial rewards could be achieved from reliability improvements through four primary areas:

• Reduced labor and material costs
• Reduced product waste associated with equipment failure
• Increased output
• Reduced cost of parts inventory

With the assessment and business case completed, the company (from executives to the plant floor) had a clear picture of the sources of benefit of reliability improvement, and they understood the plan for achieving those benefits.

Participants discovered that initiatives they had already undertaken to improve maintenance practices – from predictive technologies to improved planning and scheduling practices, and benchmarking – would all be incorporated into the new reliability environment. None of that money and effort had been wasted. Equally important, Ivara’s methodology captured the unique knowledge of the existing workforce, standardizing information and experience that would have otherwise been lost through retirement and attrition.

Participants also found that Ivara’s unique technology and reliability practices were adapted to the specific requirements of individual sites. Ivara’s WorkSmart implementation approach leveraged existing strengths and tailored the mix of practices and technology to each site’s needs and goals. This approach added value to existing investments and created an integrated solution that was achievable on a clear timeline.

Ivara employed a structured approach to change management that leveraged and supported the new direction, and minimized resistance to the change. Ivara worked with the management team to develop and strengthen sponsorship and commitment and with trades people and operations to build powerful internal support. Resistance to change was overcome by:

• Involving the people affected by the change
• Developing knowledge and understanding of the process, and
• Providing the tools needed to make it easy to perform the tasks

Much more comprehensive than simple reliability practices training, Ivara provided coaching and mentoring services to ensure the required skills were transferred to become fully competent in all required areas.