The increased administrative workload has become more and more difficult to manage (fault reporting under warranty and its administration, work planning, issuing worksheets, managing tasks completed, maintenance cost accounting, etc.) and after a while, it has become impossible to accurately manage all data in Excel tables beyond a certain number of customers. To overcome these challenges, the management has decided to introduce a CMMS system.

They had the following expectation of the system:

• The maintenance colleagues should electronically receive the worksheets without having to go back to the office
• It should have a web-based solution as well
• Should include a maintenance task checklist that the maintenance workers can access and check off on site
• The mobile app should be suitable for use in rugged environments and have large buttons on the screen
• Once a job gets completed, it must be signed off both by the customer as well as the worker

The solution

From among several applicants, Hörmann chose ArchiFM and started off with the installation of the maintenance module as part of their pilot project.

During the implementation, all maintenance data, templates, and data structures had to be transferred to the ArchiFM database. Since electronic worksheet management also allows you to upload the maintenance work descriptions in a checklist format, they have decided that they wanted all planned maintenance work templates loaded based on the company’s German standards, often including checklists of 140 steps. This feature has proven to be of great help for the maintenance workers who are on site using their mobile device, since they could be guided through each step of the maintenance work and be required to check off every task they completed.

We made custom developments on the ArchiFM for mobile app in order to make it aligned with the company’s quality assurance processes and to make sure they have large enough, user friendly buttons on the screen for the maintenance workers to use on site. Also, since our mobile app does not require any special hardware to use it, Hörmann was free to choose their preferred rugged equipment along with the protective case of their preference.

To support better control and auditability, we implemented a mobile app feature by which both the maintenance worker as well as the customer had to sign off on the completion of work, including a time stamp, which is logged and stored for future reference. Prior to signature, of course, the customer has the chance to check and review all the work that has been performed on site.

Another very important feature of ArchiFM’s mobile app is that Hörmann can continuously track on a map where his maintenance professionals are, and in light of this, they can dynamically assign or re-assign work during the day. Maintenance workers don’t have to go back to the dispatch center to get their new worksheets, because they automatically appear on their mobile devices after a quick refresh. With this, the efficiency of their work has significantly improved. Our detailed maintenance worksheets also allowed the client to accurately track costs, which in turn, contributed to a more accurate planning.