Optimization of a congested industrial electrical infrastructure: a Continuous Improvement example based on Lean Manufacturing principles

This work has been made in collaboration with “Inspection Expediting Services” which offers its expertise to businesses, helping with their issues during all the life cycle of industrial plants, mostly in the Oil & Gas field. The goal of the project is to solve an electrical infrastructure issue at a major I.E.S. customer’s industrial plant, mainly dedicated to the production of turbomachinery, caused by the lack of procedures regarding the general managing of the underground electrical facility, progressively leading to ducts clogging, loss of identification of most cables and non-compliance with international standards. Since the infrastructure is frequently used in the test cell of the plant to lay signal wires for the trials, the issue was noticed because these operations started to extend their lead time, therefore increasing also the overall risk, due to ducts accesses being placed in confined spaces. In a “Continuous Improvement” perspective, having already scheduled a high quantity of orders in the near future and so expecting the issue to become worse, the problem has been analyzed in all its aspects with the Lean Manufacturing methods, achieving the final purpose of developing an internal standard that would dictate how the electrical facility should be managed, assigning responsibilities and designing a dedicated visual platform. In the future this solution will be implemented in all the customer's plants, preventing the reappearance of that specific matter.