I N C R E A S I N G THE E F F I C I E N C Y OF THE M A I N T E N A N C E S E R V I C E Yu. V. T i t s *

The Directives of the Twenty-fourth Soviet Communist Party Congress include the following: "The technical standards and efficiency of equipment modernization and maintenance shall be raised. The practice of decentralized manufacture of units, subassemblies, and components for the modernization and maintenance of equipment shall be discontinued and a rapid transition made to their specialized production at the enterprises which manufacture the corresponding equipment." How is this section of the Directives to be implemented in ferrous metallurgy, one of the most important branches of the economy? Practical experience shows that an amount of equipment equal to up to 10% of the total equipment in use is brought into commission each year; it may therefore be assumed that the stock of metallurgical equipment will approximately double in the course of 10 consecutive years. A considerable increase in the numbers of maintenance personnel will be required to maintain its efficiency, even provided that overall reliability can be kept at the existing l e v e l At present 380,000 persons are engaged in maintenance. About 5 million tons of metal are produced every year for the maintenance of equipment and the operational needs of enterprises in ferrous metallurgy; this includes more than 2 million tons of iron castings, 500,000 tons of steel castings, 130,000 tons of roiled beams, and more than 500,000 tons of machined components. In recent years new production capacity for maintenance and operational metal has been brought into commission; the forging shop at the Novo-Lipetsk metallurgical plant, the intricate-shape casting shops at the II'ich Zhdanov and Krivoi Rog metallurgical plants, the ingot mold shops at the Karaganda metallurgical combine and the Cherepovets metallurgical plant, the metal structure shops at the Ii'ich Zhdanov plant, the F,rivoi Rog metallurgica! plant, and the Magnitogorsk mining and metallurgical equipment maintenance plant, the machine shop at the Orsk-Khalilovo combine, etc. This year the forging shop at the Debal'tsevskii metallurgical equipment maintenance plant and the machine assembly shops at the Ufalei metallurgical equipment maintenance plant, the Western Siberian metallurgical plant, etc., will come on stream. Before the end of the five-year plan it is proposed to build shops for the production of maintenance and operational metal, and shops, sections, and departments for heat treatment and surfacing. However, the rates at which the maintenance shops are being brought into commission are still insufficient and lag behind the commissioning of main production capacity; the rates of growth in maintenance and operational metal output at the specialized plants of the Main Maintenance Services Administration are also insufficient. As before, most of this metal (91%) is produced in the maintenance shops of the enterprise chief engineers' departments and sections, and the shift index of the machine tool stock is still low, being 1.5 for the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy as a whole. The industry's maintenance services are therefore faced with the task of increasing commodity output at the Main Administration of Maintenance Services plants by 2.1 times (compared with the 1968 figure) by 1975, and of raising the average machine tool shift index for the industry to 1.8. The plan for intra-industry cooperative supplies of maintenance and operational metal confirmed by the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy is not being fulfilled satisfactorily. This relates primarily to enterprises of the Ukrainian SSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy: the Krivoi Rog, Ii'ich Zhdanov and Ketch' metallurgical plants, and the Nikopol' southern tube plant. The Scientific-Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy is working on the unification of spare subassemblies, components, and exchange equipment in order to solve the problem of supplying the enterprises with spares and ex* Deputy Head, Main Administration of Maintenance Services and Enterprises, USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy, Translated from Metallurg, No. 10, pp. 1-3, October, 1973. 9 1974 Consultants Bureau, a division of Plenum Publishing Corporation, 227 West 17th Street, New York, N. Y. 10011. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in arty form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. A copy of this article is available from the publisher for $ I5.00.

689

change equipment. The level of centralization of maintenance resources at enterprises in ferrous metallurgy is still low: 62% of the duty and maintenance personnel out of the total number of maintenance men are concentrated in the main production shops. The directors and chief mechanical engineers of the enterprises must solve the problems of centralizing m a i n tenance resources more quickly. This is being done with success at a number of enterprises; maintenance shops have been set up at the Orsk-Khalilovo and Karaganda metallurgical combines and at the Krivoi Rog, Western-Siberian, Cherepovets, Makeevka and other metallurgical plants. Much work has been done on centralization at the enterprises of the Main Ore Administration. In spite of the increased volume of work being done by the maintenance trusts of the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy, a large amount of maintenance work is being done by the construction organizations of other Ministries and Departments. The services of these organizations are much more expensive than those of the Ministry maintenance trusts, but nevertheless many enterprise directors and chief mechanical engineers improperly use outside organizations and exceed the limits on the use of such organizations set by the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy. Considerable potential for increasing the time between overhauls and cutting down idle time of equipment is to be found in improved organization of inspection and care of the equipment. Nevertheless an investigation by the Scientific-Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy at a number of enterprises (the Karaganda metallurgical combine, the Cherepovets and Krivoi Rog metallurgical plants, etc.) showed that there were still substantial deviations from the confirmed standards. Most of the breakdowns at the enterprises are caused by breaches of instructions and rules for operation, as well as by unsatisfactory care and inspection of equipment. The level of mechanization in maintenance work has risen in recent years. This had made it possible to extend the application of industrialized and mechanized maintenance methods. However, the level of mechanization of maintenance work is still below that in the main production processes, in spite of definite advances. The most important trend in increasing maintenance service efficiency and in raising output in ferrous m e t a l lurgy is to be found in improving the reliability of metallurgical equipment. With this in view, a number of enterprises of the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy (Krivoi Rog, Novo-Lipetsk, Cherepovets, and other metallurgical plants) have now installed various types of equipment for hardening and renewal by surfacing and welding of more than 700 designated metallurgical equipment components. This trend is being actively pursued at enterprises in the refractories, metal goods, and by-product coke industries. In addition to welding and surfacing, heat treatment of components and the use of block castings for lining areas subject to abrasive wear (such as sintering machine gascleaning systems) are becoming more and more widespread. The future development of ferrous metallurgy will also be characterized by increased production volumes and intensification of the main processes. The volume of maintenance work will increase correspondingly. The main task of the maintenance resources of the industry in subsequent years therefore becomes obvious: increased efficiency of the maintenance service, providing a basis for increased rates of growth in basic production and improved technical and economic results in ferrous metallurgy as a whole. t h e solution will be found along these lines: 1) observance of the rules for normal operation of existing equipment and installations, which provides the main conditions for constant efficiency; 2) accelerated completion of universal intraplant centralization of maintenance resources in combination with the development of centralization in the industry (maintenance trusts), with a subsequent increase in the volume of work done by the maintenance trusts; 3) further raising of the level of mechanization in maintenance work, providing a basis for universal transition to industrialized methods of maintenance; 4) supplying the industry with highly reliable unified spare parts, subassemblies and exchange equipment, based on the development of centralized production and optimum cooperative links; 5) raising the level of reliability of equipment and substantially increasing the periods between overhauls. A conference of enterprise chief mechanical engineers and workers in specialized trusts in ferrous metallurgy was held in May of this year at Lipetsk; a60 delegates took part, representing 340 organizations from the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy network and from other ministries and departments.

690

It was observed in a report by N. G. Gavrilenko, director of the mechanical engineering and maintenance section of the Scientific-Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy, that in spite of the substantial increase in the stock and complexity of equipment and the receipt of regulations for regular preventive maintenance which had been developed and approved in 1972, the regulations on regular preventive maintenance published in 1964 were still in operation at the enterprises. There is now a great difference in the duration of the periods between overhauls for equipment of the same type but at various enterprises; this indicates spare capacity in at1 processes, especially rolling. In 1972 the Scientific-Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy investigated the condition, operation, servicing and organization of maintenance of equipment at the Dzerzhinskii, Cherepovets, and Krivoi Rog metallurgical plants and at the Karaganda metallurgical combine, in order to improve the rules for operation of equipment. It was established that there were a number of serious deviations from the regulations on regular preventive maintenance and the rules for operation of equipment. The communication by A. T. Chemeris, chief mechanical engineer of the Novo-Lipetsk metallurgical plant, dealt with the transition to complete intraplant centralization of equipment maintenance for the main shops. The sinter plant equipment is now completely serviced and maintained by the sintering equipment maintenance shop of the chief mechanical engineer's department. All maintenance and duty fitters, welders and workers in other trades are at the disposal of the maintenance shop. The transfer of duty and maintenance personnel from the main shop to the maintenance group has greatly increased efficiency in utilization. Mutual checking of equipment operation by the maintenance and the production personnel improved, resulting in reduced idle time. The brigades are now working on a four-shift schedule, with a foreman on each shift. A similar transfer of duty and maintenance personnel to the maintenance shops has been made in the oxygen converter and blast furnace shops and in the rolling mills. It is the intention to complete the work of centralizing all the maintenance resources at the plant in 1978-1974. Much work is being ,done at the Cherepovets metallurgical plant to increase the life of components and equip~ ment (communication by L. I. Danilov, chief mechanical engineer). In 1972, 42.8% of all machined components here were hardened. A great deal of attention is being given to the storage of spare parts and subassemblies. The plant has six stores for cutting tools and small components, and an underground store for 200 pairs of wheels. Mechanized stores have been set up in the rolling mills and in other shops at the plant. Ya. A. Shchukin, chief mechanical engineer of MMK, remarked on the importance of establishing a central technological laboratory attached to the chief mechanical engineer's department or section. Experience of the oper~ arson of such a laboratory at MMK has shown that it can solve many of the problems of increasing component life, develop the optimum technology for component manufacture, unify subassemblies and components, etc. At the Azov steel plant (address by A. I. Kravchenko, chief mechanical engineer) the subassembly and unit methods of maintenance have substantially reduced maintenance time and improved its quality. Much work is being done at the plant to unify subassemblies and components: one type of tuyere instrument is used on all the blast furnaces, making tuyere improvement possible with an increase in blast temperature to 1300~ mechanization equipment is of unified types. However, blast furnace coolers have not as yet been unified. This relates both to the Azov steel plant and to other plants. Cooler unification will cut maintenance time still further and give increased reliability in blast furnace operation. It was noted that there was a great variety of design in the bridge cranes supplied to the mechanical engineering works to carry out similar operations. Thus provision is made for the installation of 86 cranes on rhe new 3600 plate mill; many of these cranes have subassemblies and components of different designs. This will naturally irtcrease the labor involved in maintaining these cranes. This is equally true of the clay guns and winches for the blast furnaces, and of other equipment. The conference approved the views put forward by the Main Administration of Maintenance Services, USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy, on the development of the maintenance service for 1976-1980 and in the long term, to 1990. The following recommendations for the further expansion of the maintenance service material and t e c h nical resources were made to all enterprises in ferrous metallurgy:

691

to ensure that maintenance shops and plants are built in accordance with the long-term plans; to raise the metal-cutting equipment shift index to 1.8-2.0 by 1975; to make extensive use of modern methods in the production of metal for maintenance: induction and arc furnaces for melting iron, fluid self-setting and cladding mixtures in molding and other advances methods of foundry production, advanced methods of metal forming, and modern welding methods; to manufacture unified subassemblies and components on specialized flowlines, raising the coefficient of metal utilization to 0.7-0.75; to equip the maintenance bases of enterprises and the maintenance plants with mechanized stores, etc. The resolution provided that the level of centralization of enterprise maintenance resources should be raised to 85%, and that the following future volume of specialized maintenance trust services should be adopted:

For major overhauls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For running repairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1975

1980

!990

54 36

68 30

85 30

With a view to increasing the responsibility of the mechanical engineering plants for the quality and reliability of the equipment supplied by them, the conference considered it essential to ask equipment suppliers to carry out the running in and eliminate design faults, the expenditure involved to be borne by the suppliers, to establish guarantee periods for equipment operation of not less than 18 months from startup and the following indices of reliability: suitability for maintenance, utilization factor, and life. It was also considered essential to ask the State Committee for Science and Technology to reach a quick decision on establishing within the USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy network an institute for the problems of servicing and maintaining the equipment of enterprises in ferrous metallurgy, based on the Scientific-Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy maintenance, mechanization, and mechanical engineering division. It was also decided to ask the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on problems of labor and wages to collaborate with the Ministry of Heavy Engineering and other ministries supplying equipment to be made up into sets in working out regulations for the payment of bonuses to persons for reaching the established rated capacity and prescribed characteristics of equipment ahead of schedule when it is being brought into operation. The conference of chief mechanical engineers of the industry expressed the firm conviction that the measures worked out by the conference would greatly improve the efficiency of the maintenance service and of the industry as a whole.

692