Scholle IPN uncovers preventive maintenance insights to achieve the full value of equipment 

Challenge

Although Scholle IPN had another maintenance management system in place, it was slow and difficult to use on a day-to-day basis.

“Whether we were using the desktop or the mobile version of our old system, it was really slow,” said Lee Scott, Engineering Manager at Scholle IPN. “Setting up the system was difficult with many steps. It would take us so long to raise a preventive or reactive maintenance task, and it was costly.”

Solution

During their search for a new computer maintenance management system (CMMS), Lee found UpKeep’s mobile-first solution.

“I went into the search knowing everything I wanted to do,” Lee said. “Achieving the standards of Industry 4.0 was a priority. I also had to sell the solution to the global management team, who have had negative experiences with IT solutions spiraling out of control in terms of cost. UpKeep had everything I wanted, and its team helped me sell the solution internally.”

A Leaner, Mobile Tool that Provides Asset Information Instantly

Lee needed a CMMS that would help simplify the work request process using mobile devices for the team.

“We wanted to have the ability to create preventive maintenance orders as well as store and access inventory data easily,” Lee said. “UpKeep allows us to instantly attach images, PDFs, manuals, and documentation to our work orders.”

The management team also receives digital notifications over email anytime a work request is made, when progress was made, and when it was completed.

“We love the new key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard features, which allows us to really delve in and run the reports we need,” Lee said. “We have implemented QR codes to our assets and parts inventory, which allows us to access a great deal of information with a quick scan from an iPad or iPhone. It’s all essentially at your fingertips. We’ve been able to reduce the time it takes for us to do a great deal of different tasks with UpKeep.”

Quick Set-up and High Team Adoption

Unhappy with their previous software system that was bulky and not intuitive to use, Lee wanted a software system that was simple - one that his team would actually use in their day-to-day jobs. Their previous software system was both costly and time-consuming to figure out and took away from the productive hours that could be spent elsewhere.

Thirty days after the initial team training with one of UpKeep’s dedicated Customer Success Manager, Lee’s maintenance team had full-buy in and were on track to hit their goal of 90% consistent user log-ins. Regardless of technology familiarity, maintenance technicians were able to quickly learn and incorporate UpKeep into their daily PMs and tasks.

There was a tangible difference in just one month of using UpKeep. The team worked more independently with increased maintenance efficiency. Whereas their previous CMMS had low team usage and adoption, UpKeep was noticeably different in a short amount of time. With UpKeep, Lee and his team were able to get insights into their maintenance activities like never before. They were able to track work order completion by asset and technician and monitor KPIs like proactive versus preventive work order completion rate, as well as work order response time in UpKeep.

Uncovering Preventive Maintenance Insights to Achieve the Full Value of Equipment 

Although Scholle IPN’s previous system had a visual way to see preventive maintenance tasks, it did not have any capability to sort, organize, or extract useful information.

“We wanted answers to questions like: How many PMs have we missed this year? How many PMs were completed this week? How long did the PMs take?” Lee said. “We wanted to be able to adapt the PM and get feedback. Now, with UpKeep, one of our guys completes the PM and if he sees an issue, he can flag that, and instantly, our administrator gets that feedback. The administrator can then rectify the issue by adding a step or a new work order. Previously that had to happen by word-of-mouth and shuffling paperwork.”

UpKeep allows a maintenance technician or supervisor to essentially check a box on the iPad to store data, allowing it to be retrieved when needed. “It helps us drive the business forward,” Lee said.

Preventive maintenance activities keep equipment lasting longer to their full capabilities. Regular inspections and maintenance checks ensure that companies like Scholle IPN receive the full return on investment on expensive machinery, as opposed to burdensome fees of replacement costs with no preventive maintenance schedule in place.

Improving Productivity and Prioritization of Workload

The switch from an older CMMS system to UpKeep has helped Scholle IPN increase its maintenance work capacity, better track labor, and encourage others within the company to submit requests when needed. Overall, it’s resulted in an improved level of productivity for the company as a whole and the maintenance team in particular.

“Previously, we sort of allocated jobs to technicians, and it was easy to lose track a little bit,” Lee said. “Now, we have visibility into everyone’s workload. It’s helped us balance work orders between that guy who has 10 jobs waiting and the one who has a single job waiting.”

Additionally, Lee’s previous software system had no ability to instantly share the outgoing status of work orders. This led to confusion from requesters on the progress of their urgent maintenance requests. With UpKeep’s digital tool, requesters are always kept in the loop and know exactly when their work requests are in progress, on hold, or completed.

In addition, the department as a whole has increased productivity because more work orders are being entered into the system. “The production team is raising more jobs on the shop floor, and even the guys themselves are raising jobs as they see them,” Lee said.

UpKeep has become a core part of the team structure. The team at Scholle IPN couldn’t imagine what their lives would look like without UpKeep, as Lee explains, “If UpKeep was taken away from us, we'd have to go back paper, we'd have to go back to manually allocating tasks, tracking of workload would become harder, tracking of progress of jobs would become harder. The PMs would have to go back to our old system where we're inputting paperwork and duplicating what we're doing.”

With their team equipped with UpKeep simple work order app, Scholle IPN can more quickly and efficiently package food and beverages for millions to enjoy.