Completed in 1993, the construction of the Channel Tunnel is one of the most revolutionary projects in history. It links France and the United Kingdom over 50 km, 38 km of which is under the sea. For such an infrastructure, inspection campaigns must be efficient. You will understand why.
The Channel Tunnel in 2019 is:
- 11 million passengers
- 2,144 freighttrains
- 1.6 million trucks transported on the shuttles
- 2.6 million cars carried on the shuttles
- 1 million express courier parcels delivered
Carried over one day, Eurotunnel welcomes approximately 31,400 passengers, 6 freight trains, 4,400 trucks, 7,500 cars and 2,800 express parcels.
It is imperative to ensure that the infrastructure is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in order to maintain the flow of traffic. These few figures give an indication of the consequences of an interruption in the operation of the equipment. The challenge of carrying out maintenance work is therefore considerable.
An effective follow-up of the inspection campaigns must be put in place as the stakes are so high.
In this article you will see:
1. Inspection campaigns: factors of productivity and reliability
1. Inspection campaigns: factors of productivity and reliability
Eurotunnel regularly carries out inspection campaigns to ensure that equipment is in good working order.
These campaigns make it possible to check whether the various corrective and preventive maintenance have been carried out correctly. They also allow regular monitoring of the evolution of the state of the equipment.
The productivity and activity of the company must not be impacted by the decline in performance of the equipment. It is necessary to anticipate unforeseen events such as breakdowns or other problems as much as possible. anomaliesIt is necessary to anticipate unforeseen events such as breakdowns or other problems as much as possible by setting up a good follow-up of the interventions.
Good monitoring is also a way to ensure that equipment does not fail, putting the safety of field operators and users at risk.
2. The situation before Ermeo: limited vision and tedious work limiting the effectiveness of maintenance interventions
Before Ermeo, Eurotunnel used to track its campaigns on Excel documents which did not give a complete overview of their progress. It was difficult to know with certainty whether all maintenance operations were carried out or correctly carried out.
The work of the field operator was tedious. Before starting his intervention, he had to print the different elements of the Excel documents that were necessary.
Once in the field, all the information had to be entered manually on these documents and the remarks recorded in a notebook. The field officer could, if necessary, accompany his report with photos taken with his telephone.
When he returned to the office, all the data related to his intervention had to be transcribed into the Excel computer file to be sent to his manager.
Subsequently, the team leader had to consolidate these data in a single Excel table in order to extract some of them and analyze them to verify the progress of the inspection campaigns.
These low value-added tasks were embedded in a lengthy process. It did not provide a reliable global vision of the interventions carried out by the field operators.
In order to make the inspection and maintenance work more efficient and easier, the implementation of a digital solution was essential.
3. The Ermeo solution: optimized inspection campaign monitoring to improve your maintenance interventions
With Ermeo, Eurotunnel has a 360° view of the progress of its inspection campaigns.
With the Ermeo mobile application, the field operator has visibility over all the interventions that the team leader has previously planned for him.
By selecting the task assigned to him, the field operator can access the forms that specify all the information and data to be collected on the different equipment to be inspected. For an optimal follow-up, he can consult the history of the maintenance interventions as well as the comments and the photos which will be useful for his inspection.
At the end of his intervention, a report is automatically generated and sent to his team leader.
All the information collected by the field operators is centralized in a database. It is then processed and analyzed to be summarized in the form of a dashboard to which the team leader has access.
This 360-degree view of the progress of inspection campaigns offers the possibility of anticipating anomalies and improving maintenance interventions.
The whole process is easy, reliable and fast.
4. The advantages of digitizing your inspection campaigns
Isthe follow-up of your inspection campaigns a long and tedious process and is the exploitation of your data not optimised?
Here are the advantages of the Ermeo digital solution:
- A 360 view on the progress of your inspection campaigns,
- Real-time traceability of field interventions,
- The work of the field operator and the team leader is facilitated,
- Avoids retyping errors,
- Gains in productivity, reliability and safety,
- Cost savings,
- Removal of low value-added tasks,
- An easy to use platform.
