DATL taps Rockwell technology to enhance maintenance operations

Milwaukee, Wisconsin – UK aircraft tire maker Dunlop Aircraft Tyres Ltd (DATL) is employing technology from Rockwell Automation to enhance its maintenance processes, according to the vendor.

DATL manufactures and retreads aircraft tires across its operations in the UK as well as operating retreading and after-market service facilities in the US and China. 

In a case study published earlier this month, Rockwell said it supplied a package designed to improve Birmingham-based DATL's operations “within the first few months.”

Previously, DATL’s 'reactive maintenance' approach had led to inefficiencies, including shortages of engineers on-site and increased workload for available personnel, said the report.

Maintenance data, it added, was stored on an in-house database that lacked capabilities for scheduling or planning: slowing operations "tremendously.”

To address these issues, Rockwell provided its ‘Fiix’ computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) from a newly acquired software company.

The transition to the new CMMS system enabled Dunlop to readily view machine-history and historical work-order data, according to the case study.

Furthermore, engineers could log in and access their work from a phone or tablet from anywhere in the facility.

“We saw improvements within the first few months,” reported Michael Thomas, plant and controls engineer at the tire manufacturing company.

For example, he said, the CMMS capabilities include producing daily reports for plant managers, who previously had to create the reports manually.

These reports enable tracking key items such as ‘mean-time between failure’ (MTBF), while enabling better time-management through eliminating paper and Excel.

DATL’s decision-making process has also improved using the daily and weekly reports, while the quality of data is enhanced due to the absence of human-error, said Rockwell.

DATL, it said, has also started rolling out a new predictive maintenance tool across its operations to better identify and track failure-risks across its assets.