How Cameco Revolutionized Maintenance with Prometheus Planning & Scheduling for SAP

Published on 12 Jul 2024

Cameco Corporation, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is the world's largest publicly traded uranium company. Since its founding in 1988, Cameco has been a leader in uranium production, supplying fuel for nuclear reactors globally. Cameco operates extensively in Canada, the United States, and Kazakhstan, boasting significant capabilities in mining, milling, and fuel production.

One of their significant sites is the Cigar Lake Mine in northern Saskatchewan, which began commercial operation in 2015. Employing around 530 staff and contractors, this mine has received numerous safety awards. However, Cameco faced challenges in simplifying complex SAP functions and creating efficiencies for their planners and schedulers.

Goals and Challenges

Cameco's primary goal was to simplify complex SAP functions and improve efficiencies for their planners and schedulers. They needed a solution that could automatically collate documentation, generate reports, and help communicate interdependencies among maintenance crews. The initial challenge at the Cigar Lake Mine was to find a fast and easy way to pull multiple documents from various sources and print them with the SAP work order. This would ensure maintenance teams were well-prepared before starting any work.

Discovering Prometheus Planning & Scheduling for SAP

In 2012, Cameco implemented Prometheus Planning & Scheduling for SAP. They quickly realized that this solution could help them overcome other challenges as well. For instance, it helped them manage the status of materials and components and produce compliance reports for regulatory bodies. Prometheus Planning & Scheduling provided new ways to create efficiencies while maintaining or exceeding their high standards for safety, environmental protection, quality, and accuracy.

Implementing Prometheus Solutions

The Cigar Lake Mine site has utilized Prometheus Planning & Scheduling for SAP since 2012. The powerful Navigator (now Dashboard) has simplified SAP for Work Management. Maintenance supervisors now have their own configured Navigator, which acts as their cockpit for business management. This tool has become popular beyond the maintenance team and is used by operations groups as well. Operations teams employ it for work request approvals, asset backlog reviews, and even automatic generation of regulatory inspection reports.

Another significant efficiency Cameco found was through the Material Shopping Cart. Floor-level and front-level supervisors use it to locate materials and components, see real-time stock levels, and add materials to work orders while continuing to execute work. Kris Halland, Senior Planner of Maintenance, states, "Material Shopping Cart saves you time and frustration by consolidating SAP searches into one function. It's about as close to a Google search as you can get."

Recently, Cameco began utilizing Prometheus Group’s Extended Functionalities (XF) package to track, manage, and forecast maintenance shutdowns and turnarounds. Identifying and monitoring maintenance tasks along the critical path was challenging, but the XF package has simplified this process.

Results and Benefits

Since adopting Prometheus Group solutions, Cameco has achieved numerous process improvements and efficiencies. They have enhanced what their planners and schedulers can do, resulting in significant benefits:

i) Time Savings: Cameco staff save hours each day by streamlining planning and scheduling processes without sacrificing work quality. Prometheus Planning & Scheduling automates labor-intensive, repetitive tasks. For instance, scheduling 200 work orders used to take 20 minutes, but with the mass change function, it now takes less than 30 seconds. These small time savings add up, allowing staff to spend their time more productively.

ii) Enhanced Visibility: Teams now have a clear view of maintenance work, including tasks on and off the critical path.This enables supervisors to take proactive action and anticipate issues before timelines are derailed. Prometheus Planning & Scheduling presents data visually, helping planners, schedulers, supervisors, and maintenance technicians understand the relationships between various jobs. This understanding allows them to coordinate, sequence, and execute work in the most effective ways.

iii) Efficient Work Assignments: Maintenance supervisors use the drag-and-drop functionality for work assignments and dispatching. While it's possible to do some of this work in other tools, Prometheus solutions make it faster and more intuitive. These new avenues have opened up more efficient ways of working.

Conclusion

Cameco Corporation has found great success with Prometheus Planning & Scheduling for SAP. The solutions have simplified complex SAP functions, created efficiencies for planners and schedulers, and provided clear visibility into maintenance work. These improvements have led to significant time savings and enhanced productivity.

If you want to learn more about how Prometheus Group can help your organization, download our whitepapers today.