CMMS: optimizing the work of the night shift

As part of our web series devoted to the deployment of our industrial maintenance management solution at the Peugeot Japy Technologies factory (specialized in the manufacture of gearboxes) since its takeover by Farinia Group in April 2018, we collected the testimony of David Roth, who was part of an industrial maintenance team at night. How can the implementation of a new generation CMMS make it possible to better coordinate the different teams in the same factory? How did Mobility Work make it possible to streamline exchanges and communication? He gave us all his answers and explained to us why the tool had become indispensable.

Watch the previous episodes

Episode 1: implementing a maintenance solution

Episode 2: daily deployment

Mobility Work: “Can you introduce yourself in a few words?

My name is David Roth, I am a maintenance technician at Peugeot Japy Technologies and I am integrated into the night shift as an electrician. I have been working in the company for 11 years and I am in charge of troubleshooting and preventive maintenance on machines. When I arrived here, I spent a year in SD before joining a night shift.

As far as the organization of the Peugeot Japy factory is concerned, it is divided into three different profit centers, corresponding to our main customers: General Motors (to which I am attached), Peugeot and Bosch. At night, each profit center is assigned to a team of two people, an electrician and a mechanic.

How long have you been using Mobility Work?

This has been happening almost since the beginning of June 2018, when the tool was implemented. We took a short one-hour training course at the very beginning, after which my colleagues and I adopted CMMS. We have of course gone through a period of adaptation, the time to properly integrate the solution, but we are still continuing to discover the many functionalities integrated into Mobility Work and to take stock of the possibilities offered by the application. I can only see how very well we have all adapted our new CMMS.

Do you have the impression that the tool has been well received within the teams, and yours in particular?

That is indeed the impression that I have. As I said before, we went through a transition phase during which we had to get used to the tool, but today I can say that we are seeing significant improvements and are seeing very concrete results.

Can you tell us in more detail about your activity and the particularities induced by night work?

In the end, we encounter almost the same particularities as day work. At the structural level, the factory is divided into different areas: industrial maintenance, team leaders, The production, control... More concretely, during an intervention on equipment, the team leader calls a technician or decides to create a task directly in Mobility Work as soon as he has noticed a failure. Once in front of the machine, the technician fills in the task if information is missing and is immediately operational: in terms of process, night work is therefore quite similar to that of the day.

The only particularity that I would be tempted to mention is the impossibility of ordering equipment that is not in stock. The configuration of night work means that we can place orders but it is impossible for us to call to speed things up if we are missing a part. The same is true when we encounter blocking failures on equipment and we need to contact the after-sales service: it is not available at night, so we must learn to adapt. It's just a habit to get into!

Does the particular configuration of night work involve significant difficulties: communication with other teams, etc.?

We had previously encountered communication problems since, with our old system, the instructions were mainly oral, sometimes written, and the follow-up was very complicated, if there was one... Everything has changed at this level since the arrival of Mobility Work CMMS.

All the news relating to current interventions are available from the news feed of the Mobility Work mobile application, available on iOS and Android

At Peugeot Japy, at the General Motors Profit Center, I work without dubbing and I have to coordinate my activities with those of the day shift, who works normal hours. However, both when I start my shift at 9 pm and when I leave my post at 5 am, I never meet my colleagues. This is where Mobility Work is invaluable: the tool allows me to visualize all the work that was done during the day, the tasks to be carried out, all the instructions that were entered... I benefit from real visibility.

The other advantage I see is the mobile interface of the application, which can be accessed from anywhere. For example, when I have not been able to complete a task before leaving at 5 am, I can, directly, from home, follow all the operations related to the task in question. In my opinion, it is a real question of professional conscience to want to stay informed: I therefore have the opportunity, before arriving at my workplace at 9 pm, to consult the news feed to be aware of breakdowns and other activities in progress, and especially to be immediately operational once back at my workstation. You only need internet access to access the application: it is very valuable.

How has CMMS allowed you to improve your working methods?

Since the implementation of Mobility Work, I have noticed a lot of changes. Previously, we had no monitoring or visibility of the activity of the factory and its technicians; today, we communicate and are much better informed. I particularly like the structure of the application, which allows me to quickly access my agenda. I know right away what tasks have been assigned to me, etc. The work is generally much simpler since each participant, smartphone in hand, accesses all the information he needs as part of an intervention and notes, at a glance, the operations previously carried out recorded in the history.

If I notice a malfunction on a machine and remember that it had already occurred several months earlier, the equipment number is enough for me to find the data I need in the history. In a few seconds, I have access to the measures that had been put in place to solve the problem: I no longer have to go to the office to find the procedures and other instructions. We are in a position to intervene much more quickly and have, thanks to smartphones, the telephone numbers of our colleagues at our fingertips. The time savings are enormous and operations are much more fluid, as long as technicians fill in the tasks well, which we still sometimes lack.

Humanly speaking and on my own scale alone, I am again seeing a marked improvement throughout the factory. The teams are more involved and show more enthusiasm. My teammate and I very quickly adopted our new tool and today we could no longer do without Mobility Work CMMS. Even if we have noticed a small period of adaptation, the processes are becoming real automations. I wouldn't say I was skeptical at first, but I was waiting for the tool to prove itself, and the result was more than satisfactory.

What features do you use the most?

I mostly use the agenda, again because it allows me to see where I am with my tasks in a few seconds. If, when I arrive on a machine on which I am asked to work, I notice that no task has yet been created, all I have to do is scan the QR code on my machine to do it myself. There, I enter all the information necessary to create a task by voice before validating: the operation takes me 15 seconds. Before deploying Mobility Work, I had to go to a fixed computer and take at least 10 minutes of my time to create a simple task.

The calendar feature offered by Mobility Work allows you to plan all your preventive and predictive maintenance interventions.

What do you think of Mobility Work's online support?

I would admit that I have never had to use it before. At Peugeot Japy Technologies, we have a technician responsible for deploying the maintenance solution and his good integration into the teams, so that we can contact him if necessary to ask him all our questions and guarantee the successful implementation of the tool.”

Thanks a lot to Mr. Roth for his testimony! Thanks to our web series on the deployment of our 4.0 CMMS software at Peugeot Japy Technologies, follow the deployment of a new generation digital solution in a factory step by step!