UX Series 19: Mobility Work CMMS at Europhane

The company Europhane, whose production site is located in Eure (27), manufactures connected lighting solutions. To manage its maintenance, she chose a New generation, mobile and community CMMS, much more in line with its needs than traditional software.

It was Alexandre Hérisson, maintenance manager, who led the deployment of the maintenance management platform Mobility Work. Convinced by this software available in SaaS, he looks back on what prompted him to test the GMAO and on the benefits directly observed following its implementation.

Mobility Work: “Can you start by telling us a bit more about yourself?

My name is Alexandre Hérisson, I have been working at Europhane for about fifteen years now and I have been in the position of maintenance manager for three years. Our site is located in Eure and has around 200 employees including a total of five people in the maintenance department and no less than a hundred pieces of equipment.

What solution did you use before opting for the Mobility Work maintenance management platform?

I wanted to set up Mobility Work because we used to use Excel to monitor our operations. Given the number of machines on the site, it was a bit complicated for us to control their maintenance and to avoid oversights on preventive measures in particular.

With a system like Excel, the information entered was necessarily very brief and in reality only a quarter of the operations carried out were entered into the software, which therefore did not allow only the main activities to be monitored. So when I started doing research to find a better solution, I wanted teams to be able to document all of their interventions on absolutely all machines, which is possible today.

So you started this research. How did you hear about us?

Yes absolutely. The research was actually divided into several stages because my predecessor had already sought to set up a CMMS software, of the traditional type and therefore quite heavy. Unsurprisingly, this type of solution represented a significant financial investment and seemed very difficult to handle.

So when I arrived for maintenance, three years ago, I reaffirmed my desire to set up a maintenance management tool. Since it wasn't my core business at the start, I had a bit of trouble knowing exactly what the team really needed. Above all, I wanted to help technicians monitor their work and simplify my daily life.

So I did some research on the internet with the idea of finding a solution at least connected and current, and not traditional software as mentioned earlier. I was finally looking for a solution like yours. So I quite quickly came across your site and the presentation and explanation videos that you publish for example on your YouTube channel, which I think is very well done. Using these materials, I was able to submit the project to my hierarchy, who immediately understood that it was exactly what we needed.

What finally tipped the scales in our favor?

For my part, your videos once again perfectly illustrated the ease of use of the product. A few minutes are actually enough to explain how the solution works.

We appreciated this community side of the solution, which is based on a whole network of companies: if necessary, the user can contact other maintenance professionals. It's a feature we're not using yet but it's very interesting.

Obviously, all the analytical part that your maintenance management platform Propose is essential. The application aggregates our maintenance data to present them in the form of dynamic tables and curves. This is particularly useful when my hierarchy asks me for preventive or curative rates for example, especially since we did not have this data before. In a few seconds, I can now output these indicators.

Find an analytics tool in Mobility Work to analyze all your maintenance data and adapt your strategy

Of course, the financial aspect also played a major role in our decision making. It is one of your great strengths because the investment is very low compared to others maintenance management tools And to Traditional CMMS.

How long ago did you set up this maintenance management platform?

I started using it on September 15, 2019: I filled in the database for about two weeks, so that the CMMS could be operational on the site quickly. As of October 1, 2019, technicians were using it. One of our colleagues, who is involved in regulatory controls, has been using it for a month now.

During this adoption phase, were you in contact with our team?

I actually spoke with Marc-Antoine Talva (founder of the Mobility Work maintenance management platform) by phone, who finally convinced me that your solution was the right one. He was available to answer any questions I might have, but in the end I didn't have to ask him them because the tool is so intuitive and easy to use that the materials made available to users (videos, tutorials, support center in the form of FAQ) were enough.

To use the example of my colleague with regulatory controls, he sometimes has some questions but he does not even need to call on support since in the overwhelming majority of cases we find the answer in less than a minute in the application.

Based on your daily use of it, what do you think are the major advantages of Mobility Work?

I must say that I like everything that your software offers, it seems very complete to me. For example, the scheduling feature is the one I use the most as a manager. All I have to do is take a task in the calendar tool and drag it to reprogram it and automatically inform the assigned person (s), where it would have taken me 10 clicks to reach this result with a maintenance management solution competitor. Finally as an administrator everything is much faster.

Thanks to their maintenance management platform, teams organize their working day from the calendar

Based on the field feedback I get, I would say that technicians particularly appreciate the ease of use of the CMMS software. They are no longer required to have all their interventions of the day or week in mind: they not only have access to their own calendar but can effectively monitor all of their daily activities. All they have to do is pick up their phone to see, in the application, what was done the day before and what they have to do today, they check if tasks have been assigned to them urgently...

These are all elements that improve communication by not limiting it to a phone or tablet screen. On the contrary, we continue to dialogue as before, even between the different hierarchical levels, and the exchanges are of better quality.

What I would also like to highlight and that I really appreciate are the updates you make on a regular basis. At the beginning of the year, for example, you completely revised the design of the mobile application ofthe GMAO, and after the few hours when the technicians had to find their bearings, the feedback was unequivocal: the solution is even more intuitive than before. It is simpler, you find what you are looking for in a few seconds, visually the navigation is more pleasant and user-friendly... The adoption of this new version was therefore natural.

So you are seeing an improvement in communication, would you say that this is the major asset of this CMMS?

Yes indeed, we no longer lose information compared to before. Having all the necessary feedback and knowing exactly which part has been changed on such equipment is essential: we have a much better visibility on the spare parts orders to be made and can better anticipate them.

Previously, if a technician changed a part on a machine, caught up in the rhythm of his day and by all his tasks, he could forget to tell me that he had taken a new part out of stock, and that's normal. Finally, if two or three pieces of information like this are lost per day, the company very quickly runs out of stock. Thanks to the maintenance management platform Mobility Work, we no longer have this problem.

Have you already requested online support?

Yes, primarily at the beginning, as I had a few questions during the deployment phase. I was not necessarily going to look for the answers to my questions since the support is directly available in the application, from the Intercom bubble. Each time I got an answer, which is more appropriate, and my requests were taken into account.

The team is very responsive since I always got back to me within the hour or the same day. When you know that, when you use the services of a supplier, you often have to wait several days and send several reminders to get a response, you can see how, on Mobility Work, everything is very fast.

I would also like to point out that you clearly show an approach oriented to customer needs: I can attest to this since I submitted ideas for improvement four months ago and that some, which were in line with those of several other of your customers, are already being implemented!

What are your future projects concerning Mobility Work?

Going back to maintenance indicators, we didn't have any before deploying your CMMS solution. After four months of use, we obviously do not have enough perspective to conduct in-depth analyses on operations but in six to eight months we would like to look more into the subject. These figures will be much more valuable and we will then be able to set up real monitoring.

I would also like to develop the QR codes part: I have to install them on the machines so that the technicians only have to scan them with their smartphone to find the equipment sheets containing the documentation and the related tasks in the application in a second.

Any last thing to add?

I just want to reiterate that deploying and using this Next generation CMMS is going particularly well and that I hope that our collaboration has many good years ahead of it! This maintenance management tool is so easy to use and powerful that I would not see myself using one of the competing solutions today or even going backwards because I find Mobility Work simple and intuitive!”

Thank you very much to Mr. Hérisson for his testimony and his trust! Do not hesitate to discover our other interviews, to subscribe to our newsletter to follow our news or to request a demo to exchange for free with one of our maintenance experts.