Maintenance costs are a significant part of an organization’s budget and are usually the first department that encounters cuts. Cutting costs is only part of the solution, organizations have to work smarter and look at more innovative ways to work more efficiently and boost their return on investment.
Reducing maintenance costs is not just looking for places to cut costs; it is finding creative ways to make your investments deliver better returns.
Some ways to reduce maintenance costs include:
Getting Rid of Spreadsheets
If you are still managing your maintenance and facilities operations using spreadsheets this can be costing you more money than you think! A lot of organizations start out by managing their maintenance and facilities using spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are part of a standard computer software package and are easily available. As businesses grow, keeping ahead of the competition, spreadsheets may not be the most effective way to keep up with the complicated demands of managing operations.
Spreadsheets take a lot of processing time and analysis of data, risks of errors are extremely high and are not suited for mobility, which affects team productivity and the reliability of the data.
Reduce Reactive Maintenance
Reactive maintenance also referred to as breakdown or corrective maintenance is performed only when the equipment has failed. This means no regular maintenance or repairs have been scheduled or planned to reduce breakdowns. This means that technicians may be spending a lot of hours doing reactive maintenance instead of proper planning. Equipment breakdown wastes a lot of time, slows down production and is costing you money.
Inspections are a very important part of your business. Ensuring the safety and protection of your workers and meeting compliance standards can be frustrating and complex. Trying to get everything organized and prepared for safe quality food (SQF) EPA audits, OSHA and other inspections means a lot of work and a lot of your time trying to prepare.
With the increase in regulations, safety, etc., audits and inspections are not the same as they were in the past. Having an employee walk through the department with a spreadsheet looking for signs of problems is no longer efficient. Trying to manage processes and keeping everything organized and under control requires more than a spreadsheet, pencil and paper.
Having everything stored in and accessible in a centralized system has lots of benefits and makes preparing for inspections and audits a lot easier and less challenging. A computer maintenance management system (CMMS), can help you to easily organize, store, and quickly access audit-related documents in one centralized system and create detailed reports instantly to help show that you meet inspection and audit requirements. All of this can be done from a computer, smartphone or mobile device. And anyone on the team can do this no one needs to be an expert. It is that easy. Read more….
The Cannabis industry is rapidly growing and is struggling through processes, regulations, and compliance. This industry depends on reliable, highly powerful equipment, intensity lighting, humidity control, and more to grow and process cannabis plants. The demand to manage all of the assets, equipment, the entire maintenance operations, being prepared for inspections, and meeting compliance regulations (FDA, etc.) is challenging. Managing all of the equipment, tasks and processes requires a maintenance management system that can keep up with the speed that this industry is encountering. They face many challenges to meet with the growth and the innovative technology, meet specific requirements and deliver safe products to the end-user. Read more…
To most people, “the cloud” may seem incomprehensible—it sounds like maybe a magical bank in the sky for data. While that image is far from the truth, the cloud certainly does offer some—if not magical, at least remarkable—benefits.
“The cloud. We’ve all heard the term thrown about in recent years,” says Roy Whelan, solutions director of SmartOffice. Whelan explains cloud computing means storing data on remotely accessible servers hosted on the internet. “This means businesses can manage data in a shared space and can access data from any location, not just from a local server.”
Before cloud computing, companies needed to invest in on-site servers to store their data, Whelan explains. This could get expensive with the physical requirements of the servers as they need space, physical hardware, software and maintenance, as well as an in-house IT team you’d need to manage them.
Cloud computing offers companies the chance to utilize virtual storage space on the internet. But the benefits keep building from there. If you are interested in cloud computing, read on! We asked business leaders and professionals in technology to share some of the benefits of cloud computing
7 Potential Benefits of cloud computing you should know about
1. Cost
“For me, one of the biggest reasons to switch to the cloud is cost,” says Greg Dickens, founder of Epilocal. “With the cloud, you are only paying for server time you use, rather than having to invest lots of money up-front to run your own servers, so there’s a big cash-flow benefit there,” Dickens emphasizes that, for smaller companies and start-ups, removing that initial barrier of in-house servers can make a huge difference in their ability to compete.
A growing cloud trend, serverless architecture can further compound the savings in cloud computing, according to Dickens. “Serverless architecture deconstructs cloud servers to their absolute minimum: individual functions. So now, rather than having to rent cloud servers for the time you use them, you can rent individual functions instead.”
2. Scalability
Cloud computing is cost-effective and efficient for big businesses and small businesses alike because it allows you to pay for what you use. “Cloud computing plans allow businesses to scale their data usage and computing power up or down depending on their needs and budget,” says Sebastian Schaeffer, CTO and owner of dofollow.io. Using what you need and adjusting as you go is more flexible than investing in hardware, Schaeffer points out, and many companies desire that flexibility.
For example, think of the start-up example above. If cloud computing didn’t exist, they’d have a much tougher time determining how much should be invested in infrastructure—do you tie up resources in overshooting your current needs in anticipation of growth? Incrementally add on as needed while potentially disrupting operations? Cloud computing makes these questions much easier to navigate.
3. Accessibility
Think of the sharing and collaborating capacities of platforms like Google Drive™, Dropbox® or Microsoft Teams®, and you’ll have an idea of how much the accessibility of cloud computing has revolutionized work. Cloud-based technology allows people to collaborate on the same items from anywhere, updating in real time.
“This increases productivity and efficiency due to the reduction of phone calls and unnecessary trips to gather information,” says Jeff Roscher, CEO of eWorkOrders. He points out that streamlining these processes makes work easier and faster, increasing productivity and potential profits.
As maintenance teams are preparing for the reopening ofschools and universities, they face new guidelines and challenges to ensure the safety of our children. These new guidelines and regulations bring new facility management protocols, upgrades to building systems, and the task of managing multiple vendors to ensure that the buildings are kept clean and safe.
Reducing the Transmission of Viruses
The Campus Safety and COVID-19: Clery Act Requirement Act in 2020 set stricter guidelines in keeping schools and campuses safe. Facility managers play a crucial role in ensuring that these new guidelines are met and...Read more
Downtime is a genuine danger to any manufacturing business. One of the most feared situations inside an assembling plant is that on the off chance that one area backs up, it can have a compounding effect on different areas that are waiting for parts to complete processes. Waiting for parts to complete jobs is costing you money. The longer it takes to complete these jobs, the more money it is costing you. The overall objective is to increase efficiency and reduce the amount of time that people or machines are sitting idle. An operational error, poor equipment maintenance, broken hardware or software, and various other things can escalate downtime to dangerous levels.
To help reduce losses, there are some steps that can be taken to help minimize downtime.Read more…
You’ve got control of your livestock. You’ve got control of your crops. But do you have control of your equipment maintenance?
Equipment breakdowns, depleted spare parts inventory, locating manuals and repair documents, keeping track of workers, controlling costs and keeping up with the competition. These are just some of the things that today’s farmers have to deal with. How can they keep ahead of everything and still keep their business running smoothly, while trying to keep expenses down?
Today, farmers are looking for affordable, cost-effective and easy-to-use tools to manage their farms. With the competition looking for faster and more efficient ways to manage their farms, spreadsheets are being replaced with more modern systems. The farming industry is embracing the use of software tools, such as a Computerized Maintenance System (CMMS), to get a better understanding of operating costs, extend the life of their equipment, improve processes and optimize their maintenance operations. Read more….
We take data security seriously to ensure our customer’s data is safe and protected against attacks.
eWorkOrders has an ongoing effort to maintain the security of our systems and our customer’s data. We have utilized a third party, SecurityScorecard to analyze and continuously rate how well prepared we are at preventing cyber-attacks.
As we are slowly approaching the reopening of our economy and the reopening of buildings that have been dormant for a while, we are now starting the painful tasks of getting facilities operational and safe for employees and preparing for more aggressive inspections. Not only do you have to catch up on routine maintenance tasks, but there are also new specific precautions and safety guidelines you need to think about in preparing for the reopening of your facility. With the additional tasks and concerns related…Read more
