CMMS & Work Order

Faced with escalating complexities involved in the routine inspection and maintenance of Essential Safety Measures in accordance with Building Regulations, Australian Essential Services Maintenance (AESM) decided to embrace the efficiencies and accuracy that technology and the Pervidi suite of dedicated software had to offer.

AESM assists building owners, managers and tenants in meeting their ongoing compliance obligations for the upkeep of buildings’ essential safety measures, to ensure the safety of the occupants and the buildings.

AESM would receive calls from facility managers for inspection and work order requests.

These requests would be recorded through a paper based work order system, and depending on the urgency of the request, AESM administration staff would notify the designated inspector via phone, and that inspector would fill out their own work order and run sheet while away from the office. With scheduled essential service maintenance, run sheets would be created for maintenance technicians on a weekly basis.

The need to measure and manage work performance, and thereby increase efficiencies however, exposed the problems that existed with the use of paper-based systems, including the following:

• Inaccurate recording of inspection results and data.
• Inability to accurately analyse technician Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as Hours spent on site and actual attendance on site.
• Double data entry – Inspectors would record results and findings on job sheets and hand them back to AESM administration staff to re-enter into another basic template sheet.
• Quoting and invoicing times were inhibited by paper-based delays, costing potential new customers and delaying payment from existing customers.
• Follow-up procedures and corrective actions for failed inspections were also delayed since AESM administration staff needed to merge multiple forms to create the follow-up Work Order.
• Customer and Site management was also disadvantaged through the lack of readily available real-time information.
• Since reporting methods were basic, only basic work order and inspection reports could be created from the system.
• Lack of connectivity with technicians out on the road.

AESM manager and owner Mario Apela stated: “We needed a system which would improve our operational efficiency and effectiveness and allow us to grow to maintain our competitive edge in the Building Maintenance industry.

“Since AESM highly value customer service and satisfaction, we wanted to provide our customers with the best service – service provided through real-time accurate information. We knew that our significant growth could not have been achieved had we persisted with our previous paper based system and therefore a fully automated and integrated system was needed for our field force.

“We invested a significant amount of time and resources into finding the right solution for our needs. We needed a system that would not only incorporate electronic and field force automation but also be flexible enough to allow us to customise and match our business processes and practices.

“We came across Pervidi CMMS (Computer Maintenance Management System) developed by Techs4biz and knew straight away that it would cater for our current needs while allowing us to grow and expand”, Mario said.

The implementation of the Techs4biz Pervidi CMMS system enabled AESM to provide their inspectors with a PDA (personal digital assistant), which held all their previously and current paper-based work orders electronically.

The PDAs removed the need to print copious numbers of job sheets, provided more information about the job to the technician, greatly assisted in securing the data captured, and allowed more depth in their accuracy of data input, such as the ability to set a maximum and minimum score and if a result was not in range to alert the technician.

The PDA also allowed technicians to create work orders whilst on site, add new locations, assets and/or equipment into the database, move assets/equipment that currently exist in the database and access in depth site information, safety notes and comments.

From an administration perspective, Pervidi has enabled AESM administrative staff to log incoming calls and to create new work orders and job requests utilising the Customer Call centre of Pervidi Desktop.

Pervidi Desktop allows the user to view all customer sites in an easy-to-read user interface, which serves as a handy quick-reference tool for use with customers who call to request a work history of a particular site, or an individual asset.

AESM’s paper-based reports were fairly limited and simplistic, whereas Pervidi provides over 150 dynamic and adjustable reports. Pervidi allows AESM to create a variety of work order, staff, facilities, assets and client information reports, including customised reports that match their business processes.

AESM customers are also able to submit job requests through the Pervidi WebPortal which is accessible via AESM’s website. Customers simply log in and add their particular request without having to telephone. The web portal allows customers to view the status of their requests, while offering AESM administrative and technical staff the controls to manage the information that is available and accessible to their customers.

The Pervidi CMMS suite has enabled AESM to improve their operational effectiveness, minimise paper work, eliminate unnecessary or redundant administrative tasks, and maximise customer satisfaction.

These productivity benchmarks have been achieved through provision of the following benefits:

• Increased amount of information available to technicians while reducing the cumbersome amounts of paperwork taken to each site.
• Increased data input accuracy and minimisation of human error.
• The ability to better manage their technician’s time and resources and create efficiency gains.
• Pervidi’s ability to invoice completed jobs, allowing administrative staff to email invoicing reports directly to the desired recipient.
• The ability to deal with work orders with failed items promptly, utilising the Follow-Up Notice and Corrective actions features in Pervidi.
• Automatic rollover of Repetitive tasks (for example: A monthly Inspection of a particular piece of equipment) ensures that AESM staff do not need to remember to reschedule these jobs manually.
• Queries received from customers regarding their buildings can be efficiently dealt with on the spot with various site reports, Work Order Reports and Asset Reports available on demand.
• The ability for technicians to add new work orders on their PDA, saving time and effort, and removing the need to return to their office or fill out paper work orders on site. If a particular piece of equipment has changed locations, the technician can make the correction on the PDA, and the central Database will be automatically updated when the data is sent back.

AESM’s continued embracement of new technology such as Pervidi Desktop, Pervidi PDA and Pervidi Web Portal has enabled them to gain a greater market share through the competitive advantage gained over their rivals, who are still utilising basic and inefficient paper based systems.

“We are continually looking for efficiency gains and currently we are bar-coding all of our equipment and areas, enabling our technicians to scan the barcode and automatically bring up the work that needs to be done for it. We are also looking at expanding into the Pervidi wireless model, which will enable real-time interaction with our technicians and allow us to move into other states and potential new markets” said Mario.

CMMS Software solution has been successfully implemented by Pervidi on one of Australia’s largest banana farms, covering almost a thousand acres in Northern Queensland.

Prior to the use of Pervidi CMMS software, the banana farm had previously used a paper-based system to manage and track equipment, activities, and safety which had proved costly and inefficient.

The implementation of the CMMS software allowed for asset information and pre-scheduled work orders and inspections to be sent to handheld mobile devices, in this case a PDA (personal digital assistant). All field work can recorded on the handheld devices loaded with the CMMS software. If a new activity needs to be recorded, the technician can use a set of pre-loaded checklists to quickly add a new inspection or work order onto the device.

The CMMS software from Techs4Biz addressed many of the issues faced by the farm. It allowed for all the paper-based systems to be automated, increasing efficiency and allowing for maximum equipment uptime.

The use of Pervidi CMMS software on the banana farm is another good example of the software’s flexibility. The software is completely customisable to any business or process. Pervidi CMMS software can be delivered as a turnkey package of training and software. It can be provided with consulting or as part of a completely customised solution.