One CMMS for 400+ Restaurants
KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell & More

Managing restaurant equipment maintenance across hundreds of fast food locations is one of the toughest jobs in facilities management. Ampex Brands, a franchise operator running more than 400 KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Tim Hortons, A&W, and Long John Silver’s restaurants, needed a single maintenance management system (CMMS) to coordinate work orders, schedule preventive maintenance, and control costs across their entire multi-brand operation. They chose eWorkOrders, a cloud-based CMMS built for multi-location restaurant and franchise maintenance.

Business Challenge: Multi-Brand Restaurant Maintenance at Scale

As a franchise operator for over 400 quick-service restaurants, Ampex Brands had to coordinate maintenance for commercial kitchen equipment, HVAC, and refrigeration across hundreds of locations in multiple states — each brand with its own equipment, vendors, and service requirements.

The key objectives included:

• Centralizing a high volume of maintenance service requests from hundreds of restaurant locations
• Controlling and reducing maintenance and contractor expenses
• Automatically routing work orders to the right in-house technicians and outside vendors by store location
• Scheduling preventive maintenance for HVAC, refrigeration, hot equipment, and dishwashers
• Extending equipment lifecycle and maximizing uptime
• Making service requests easy enough for non-technical restaurant staff to submit

Quick and Easy CMMS Implementation

Their Account Manager, Norm Stepp, guided the rollout — and as an experienced user of the software himself, he was able to share practical recommendations along the way.

“Our Account Manager, Norm Stepp, walked us through the eWorkOrders CMMS software platform. Excellent!” said Jim, Maintenance Director at Ampex Brands. “Norm, as well as most of the eWorkOrders team, are seasoned users of eWorkOrders. The implementation was quick and easy. During setup, Norm brought his expertise and provided some great recommendations and tips to help us get even more out of the system.”

“We were up and running very quickly, and even the non-technical customers found it extremely easy to put in service requests,” he added.

Centralized Work Orders, Preventive Maintenance, and Cost Control

With eWorkOrders in place, Ampex Brands manages maintenance for every brand and location from one centralized platform. Work orders are automatically routed by store location to field technicians and vendors, preventive maintenance is scheduled across HVAC, refrigeration, and other critical restaurant equipment, and management tracks activity and expenses across the entire operation — with mobile access for technicians in the field.

Automatic email notifications keep franchisees informed the moment their work orders are received, updated, or resolved — which Jim credits with significantly improving communication and customer satisfaction between the restaurant locations and the maintenance team.

“eWorkOrders came with a lot of robust features at a very affordable price,” Jim said. Since adopting the platform, Ampex Brands has been able to:

• Streamline their maintenance operations
• Control and reduce expenses
• Extend equipment lifecycle
• Increase efficiency
• Manage and control contract expenses
• Increase customer satisfaction

Results: One CMMS for a 400+ Restaurant Franchise Operation

For a franchise operator of this size, a basic ticketing system isn’t enough. Multi-brand restaurant operators need a flexible, scalable CMMS for restaurant maintenance that handles work order management, preventive maintenance scheduling, vendor coordination, and expense tracking from a single platform — and Ampex Brands has relied on eWorkOrders to do exactly that for years.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best CMMS for fast food franchises?

The best CMMS for fast food franchises is one built for multi-location operations: centralized service requests, automatic work order routing by store, preventive maintenance scheduling for kitchen equipment, HVAC and refrigeration, mobile access for technicians, and location-level reporting. eWorkOrders provides all of these and is used by operators managing hundreds of locations across brands like KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Tim Hortons, A&W, and Long John Silver’s.

How do franchise operators manage maintenance across multiple restaurant brands?

Multi-brand operators centralize all locations in one CMMS, so service requests from any restaurant route automatically to the right technician or vendor based on location and equipment type. Preventive maintenance schedules, equipment history, and expenses are tracked per location and per brand from a single dashboard.

Can a CMMS reduce restaurant maintenance costs?

Yes. By scheduling preventive maintenance instead of waiting for breakdowns, tracking contractor expenses against work orders, and extending equipment lifecycle, restaurant operators reduce both repair costs and vendor spend. Ampex Brands reports controlling and reducing expenses across their 400+ locations since implementing eWorkOrders.