Overhaul in the week between the years
The furnace is cold exactly one week a year
Initial situation
A foundry with two works in Baden-Württemberg runs its melting and crucible furnaces all year round. They only go cold in the week between Christmas and New Year. From 2020 to 2023, SBS used that week four years in a row: overhauls, cleaning, maintenance gunning and repairs on crucible furnaces, melting furnaces and a transport ladle — fifteen deployments across both works.
Scope of services
- Crucible furnace
- Overhaul
- Maintenance gunning
- Transport ladle
- Shutdown planning
Project data
The task
The window is the holiday week. There is no alternative date on which the furnace would otherwise stand cold
Two works, the same shutdown week — the order of play decides whether both get finished
Between the years nobody else is working: no supplier delivers, no workshop is open. Whatever is missing stays missing
Working over Christmas needs people who will carry it — and planning that does not make it a fresh surprise every year
The SBS approach
The holiday week was planned in as fixed, not renegotiated each year. In four consecutive years the crew was in the works between 23 and 30 December.
Material and equipment went out before the holiday. Nothing is delivered between the years — what is not on site is not there.
The smaller jobs — cleaning, maintenance gunning, joints — ran in the same weeks. So the furnace is not merely repaired but cared for when it fires up again.
The units changed over the years, the core of the crew did not. Both works knew the people by first name, and on 27 December that saves every discussion.
Measurable results
The key figures of the “Overhaul in the week between the years” project
Similar references
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