Until recently Nova Chemicals, Calgary, AB, was struggling to process upwards of 20,000 maintenance work orders per year at each of its 11 chemicals and plastics resins manufacturing facilities.
The company was running SAP's enterprise asset management (EAM) software but not using its full functionality. Plant maintenance processes weren't integrated with related EAM processes, leading to inefficiency and a lack of transparency. Reporting and analytics activities were insufficient. What's more, Nova's existing maintenance system couldn't provide a complete view of current and scheduled work, materials and dependencies categorized by plant and department — adding to the challenges of capacity evaluation and prioritization of work orders.