Reduction of Machine Breakdown in the Brewery Manufacturing Company, A Case Study of Brewery “A” in the Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

In this study, the machine break down pattern in Brewery “A” in Eastern Nigeria situated in Onitsha Anambra state has been considered. In the first step of this study, structured questionnaires were produced and administered to target audience for primary data collection. The brewery has limited newsletters, annual reports and bulletins that were used in addition for the reviews. The machines used in the packaging department and its breakdown data over a period of twelve months were gathered and from this, the frequency of breakdown of the machines were established and the data analyzed. The analysis was done by evaluating bottleneck machine breakdowns for different work stations in the production plant, and the effects of breakdown on system output. As a result of the study, critical rates of machine breakdown, which have affected system output, were determined. The frequency of machine breakdown, downtime and maintenance failure problems were also identified. Data collected were analyzed and model for optimization developed. Root cause analysis tools–fishbone and “5why” were used to eliminate the frequent occurring machine breakdown. Mean Time to Failure (MTBF), Availability, and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) values for the various production lines were evaluated before and after root cause analysis. The result shows that a percentage increase of 13.66%, 10.62% and decrease of 46.42% respectively were obtained which indicated improved Factory efficiency, machine availability and compliancy to plan. Also, Exponential distribution model was used to calculate the failure rate and reliability of the machines using the reliability measures result obtained after root cause analysis technique was applied to each failure. A reliability of 99.7% was obtained.