Kings River Packing

Business Challenge

For a long time, we have been managing our maintenance operations for our facilities using paper, pencil, spreadsheets, and lots of filing cabinets.  With the continued growth of our business and managing the extensive number of assets throughout multiple locations, our current process was inefficient and unreliable.

Not having a reliable equipment and asset maintenance program in place can be time-consuming and very expensive. Our maintenance team was struggling to determine when and how key pieces of equipment needed to be serviced as well as keep an accurate history of repairs made. With multiple locations, trying to get a handle on spare parts inventory was nearly impossible.  With the growth of our organization, we needed a better way to manage our assets, spare parts inventory, track technician time, track purchases, and manage the entire maintenance operations process in one centralized location.  We also wanted a solution that incorporated mobile device technology (like tablets) so that our technicians could have access to inventory information, and both be notified, and complete work orders in real-time.

On top of the maintenance tasks, we were looking to purchase a separate system to help manage our purchase orders for our parts inventory.  We needed a program that would offer custom features for both inventory procurement and accounting.  We needed to maintain a history of vendors and pricing of purchased goods for quick sourcing and replenishment. (After speaking with our account manager at eWorkOrders, it was a relief to find out that their CMMS could handle this for us.)

The accuracy of the asset information was also a big concern.  Using paper, pencil, and spreadsheets, and merging the data from multiple spreadsheets into one, was no longer working.  Our current process was time-consuming, subject to errors and the assets had been inconsistently tracked. Without a clear understanding of where our maintenance operations stood, we knew that there had to be a more efficient way to streamline processes and manage our entire maintenance operations. Our goal was to have accurate asset maintenance information and costs to determine the productivity and the useful life expectancy of our assets.

The Solution

Through an intensive investigation, demos, and reviews with various vendors, we choose eWorkOrders.  The eWorkOrders CMMS solution that we implemented gave us the ability to easily manage our maintenance operations, along with a clear view of our overall operations, at a very affordable price. 

Four factors influenced our decision: ease of use, functionality, customer support, and cost.  eWorkOrders offers a very comprehensive package and goes above and beyond to meet and exceed expectations.  We found them to be very affordable, with an extensive portfolio of features as well as listening to our requests and needs.

Having access to so many features and using all of the modules they provide is one of the keys to our success.  Having everything in one centralized location that can be accessed from anywhere using a computer, smartphone or mobile device is a big advantage in keeping up with information in real-time.

With the Work Orders module, we are able to view work order history, repair information, add checklists, upload pictures and manuals, close out work orders and so much more from anywhere.

We have a diverse workforce of employees (many who have never used a computer and some having never even used a mobile device) as well as many who speak primarily Spanish. With eWorkOrders, we are able to assign and monitor work orders for greater time management of our mechanics as well as limit production equipment “downtime”. Being able to capture and analyze analytics performance data gave us a better understanding of our processes and how to make meaningful changes to our standard operating procedures.

The Inventory Management module saves us both time and money. It was not necessary to implement a separate Purchase Order system to manage our inventory and expenses due to eWorkOrders Inventory Management module that automatically monitors inventory levels. When inventory levels reached their minimum quantity a Purchase Order will automatically be generated and sent to vendors for replenishment, and we were able to customize those minimum and maximum settings due to item consumption patterns.  The Spare Parts Inventory module has increased our production time by 80% by reducing downtime, automatically keeping track of inventory levels and generating purchase orders to keep our spare parts inventory stocked.

The Preventive Maintenance module gives us the ability to schedule and manage the appropriate resources at a time that is more convenient for our business operations.  Having this feature has reduced downtime and increased our productivity by 75%. This module also has given us the ability to stay in compliance with required preventative maintenance for both safety and manufacturer specifications.

Reporting and Dashboards have been a lifesaver.  We are able to generate detailed reports that satisfy food and safety requests, create dashboards that provide at-a-glance views of key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to our entire maintenance operations.

With the Mobile access capability, my team has access to all of their data anytime and from anywhere. This has made it possible for managers to interact as needed with our technicians even when working remotely.

eWorkOrders Customer Support is beyond our expectations.  Besides the eWorkOrders Account Management team and Technical Support Staff, Jeff Roscher, the Owner and President of eWorkOrders are always available to answer any questions or discuss any new features beyond their extensive Standard and Enterprise offers.”

Implementation

Having eWorkOrders host our CMMS provides significant cost savings.  We don’t have the expense of purchasing software, installing and managing the hardware (including updates) for our CMMS system, and we didn’t need to hire any additional resources to support it. 

Michele was our Account Manager and stayed with us throughout the entire implementation and we continue to stay in touch with her. Entering the necessary information into the system (the initial “setup”) is very intuitive and the eWorkOrders staff made the information transferring/inputting understandable user friendly. Our processes were more complex with having a staff who does not speak English, nor use a computer or mobile device, so this made things a little challenging. With eWorkOrders user-friendly portals, they did adapt quickly and were able to be very productive using the system. 

The eWorkOrders technical team is extremely helpful in getting our team up and running and providing additional recommendations and support to get us quickly onboard.

Compliance

Food Safety and Employee Safety are major concerns in our business. A CMMS is one of the best systems a facility manager can implement to help ensure that they have the tools needed to achieve and maintain compliance.  A CMMS digitally monitors maintenance efforts by tracking work orders, providing the maintenance team with access to standard procedures and processes, tracking asset history, and more.  

eWorkOrders CMMS provides us with very detailed and extensive reports that are easy to access from anywhere, even from my Smartphone.  OSHA and my vendors who request copies of safety reports are very impressed with the ability to quickly retrieve these reports and the level of detail that these reports provided. A CMMS system also helps organizations in providing reports for achieving compliance with federal codes, no matter if that’s Title 21 CFR 11 or any other regulation. The information is always at your fingertips.

Results

We keep track of over 3,500 unique part numbers a year as well as over 1,800 purchase orders and 2,400 spot buys.  With the implementation of eWorkOrders automation and streamlining of our processes for work orders, inventory and labor our estimated cost savings have been over $500,000 over this past year. We have also input over 13,000 work orders that we now have a searchable record of that becomes of great value when we perform analysis and priceless when we use that record for proof to a governing body in the event of an accident.

Summary

eWorkOrders has provided us with the most powerful tools available to help organize our maintenance operations, work more efficiently and be more productive.  Work Orders and Assets are now more effectively tracked and management now has a clear view of the maintenance operations in all of our locations in real-time.

The massive database of reports is easy to use and has proved to be extremely beneficial and helpful.  Our customers are very impressed when we quickly provide them with reports that show detailed documentation that is required to prove to an OSHA auditor that a safety task was performed on schedule and any incidents that may have occurred were not due to negligence. The reports go beyond their expectations.

Through the implementation eWorkOrders CMMS, we are now able to easily view KPI metrics on our entire maintenance operations.  This system gives us the tools and confidence to ensure that our critical equipment remains operational and that there is minimal disruption to our business operations.

eWorkOrders web-based CMMS solution allows us to provide an easy-to-use, powerful, full-featured maintenance management solution across all of our facilities.”

The bottom line is “I can’t imagine doing work without eWorkOrders CMMS and I wouldn’t want to!”