CF Industries improved operations and reduced costs with APM, achieving rapid and continued ROI
CF Industries is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer products in North America. The firm had adopted a structured approach to plant maintenance since the 1980s to improve operational reliability and the bottom line. Its homegrown solution was effective but had become costly to run and CF Industries sought out AVEVA’s asset performance management (APM) solution to boost performance and drive down unplanned shutdown through predictive maintenance, achieving rapid ROI and saving millions of dollars.
“We can now ensure that maintenance materials and services are there when we need them, know what it costs to maintain the plant, and know the best way to maintain it based on history. This puts us way ahead of the game.”
Dave Wiedenfeld,
Group Project Leader, IT
CF Industries
Goals
- Deliver continuous and automated maintenance planning functionality.
- Improve on the current structured maintenance system to reduce the risks associated with unforeseen equipment failures.
- Provide the flexibility for growth and cost savings.
Challenges
- To drive down operating costs - the investment to keep homegrown application in pace with growing business was expensive (well over $1 million).
- The need to boost efficiencies – analysing data for asset monitoring took too long.
Results
- Reduction in operating costs by up to 10%, through improved operations and automation.
- Potential revenue improvement of up to 5%.
- Time to analyze asset monitoring data reduced from two weeks to ten minutes, through successful integration with multiple systems and consolidation of visualization dashboards and KPIs, resulting in a streamlined business workflow.
- Full ROI achieved rapidly and continues to grow - the solution has paid for itself many times over.
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