AWE Achieves Greater Program Risk Control and Boosts Productivity with Infor EAM

AWE manufactures and maintains the warheads for the UK’s nuclear deterrent, Trident, a submarine-launched, inter-continental ballistic nuclear missile weapons system, carried by Royal Navy Vanguard-class submarines. With 4,500 staff and over 2,000 contractors, AWE’s work covers the entire life cycle of nuclear warheads; from initial concept, assessment and design, through to component manufacture and assembly, in-service support, and finally decommissioning and disposal. AWE is a Government Owned Contractor Operated (GOCO) establishment.

The MOD's Management and Operation contractor is AWE Management Limited (AWEML), a consortium comprising three equal partners – Serco Group plc, the Lockheed Martin Corporation and Jacobs Engineering Group A separate company, AWE plc, is responsible for the day-to-day running of AWE. Managed by a company Board, AWE plc essentially comprises the workforce, and is owned by AWEML subject to a special share (held by Head of Strategic Weapons on behalf of the Secretary of State).

The MOD retains powers to take control of AWE were the contractor to fail to meet MOD requirements. As part of a business transformation strategy focused on optimising asset performance in the plant, AWE set out to assess and improve its asset base to ensure facilities were operating at maximum efficiency. In order to deliver against this strategy, AWE required capabilities which built upon those of its previous computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) asset management system and enabled the organisation greater visibility of asset-related information.

This improved visibility would then enable the defence manufacturer to better support complex assets and resource structures, extend the life-cycle of equipment, and improve productivity. “We had a long standing relationship with Infor having used its Datastream asset management product for a number of years. We therefore had the confidence that upgrading to the latest version – Infor EAM – would enable us to achieve our ambitions whilst ensuring a fast, easy deployment.” “Upgrading to Infor EAM meant that AWE would benefit from a comprehensive, industry specific solution grounded in the defence industry with both breadth and depth of capabilities.

For example, through providing links to CAD drawings of assets via Infor EAM’s OpenCAD capabilities, 360 degree, highly detailed information on assets could be viewed, supporting risk and compliance. The ability to schedule complex resources was also key. Utilising third party application ClickSoftware, Infor EAM demonstrated the ability to help AWE apply enhanced scheduling capabilities to optimise route planning in logistics operations, as well as improving the scheduling of 600 engineers. This in turn, would help reduce AWE’s carbon footprint while maximising resources. “Infor EAM’s flexibility and ability to scale were compelling, and the application contained everything we needed to support preventative maintenance, detection and notification of breakdowns, the scheduling and prioritisation of engineers, and management of spare parts inventories,” Chapman adds. “Infor has helped us to achieve greater program risk control over our assets as we can now project, execute and monitor maintenance regimes for different pieces of equipment dependent on their risk to program deliverables, safety, environmental and security.

Clearly, the maintenance demands of plant and equipment intrinsic to a high hazard production facility is supported by a very different set of processes, people competencies, and maintenance regimes than say an air conditioning unit in an office. We now have a continual, in-depth insight into the precise status of each piece of equipment so that we can plot each one appropriately,” Ken Chapman explains. “Infor has enabled us to improve our performance substantially through tighter processes, intelligence and improved data quality. We now have a clear, cohesive picture of all assets, and intuitive, alert-based early warning systems in place to ensure that we are always one step ahead of maintenance issues.

The system enables us to distil far better management information, giving us greater confidence in the management of our plant operations and most importantly to ensure that safety and compliance conforms to the highest standards. “We also have Infor ION and Infor Workspace, and over the next 12 months, intend to use these applications to extend the benefits we have already derived.

Through using ION, Infor’s unique lightweight middleware, we will be able to achieve a comprehensive picture of all our assets, processes and people, as the application will rapidly integrate multiple databases and applications across our production, procurement, fleet management, calibration and security systems.”

In addition, Workspace will deliver contextual business intelligence (BI) from all AWE’s asset based applications and databases in a single portal, to support decision-making, and optimising procurement in particular to better manage lead time for parts. “With over 300,000 assets, 600 engineers and a portfolio of complex equipment to manage, having a robust, flexible, intuitive asset management application is absolutely crucial in maximising our performance as an organisation. In Infor we have absolute confidence that our assets are the best they can be at any given time, and that we are in the optimum position to react quickly to defence program demands.”