CMMS: Mobility Work at Setforge L'Horme

Frédéric Carrot is responsible for maintenance and user of the mobile CMMS on the site Setforge at L'Horme, a subsidiary of Farinia Group specialized in the production, machining, heat treatment and assembly of hot-forged components, in particular for the public works, heavy goods vehicle sectors, Oil and gas industry, or even for the Railway.

An early user of the Mobility Work Maintenance Management Platform, he looks back on the evolution of the product over the years, as well as on the profound transformations observed within his maintenance department, and the benefits that have been derived from it.

Mobility Work: “How did you find out about Mobility Work CMMS? What convinced you to test the product?

Frédéric Carrot : In 2015, the Farinia group expressed its desire to generalize a maintenance application to all Setforge sites, following an unsuccessful attempt a few years earlier to set up a CMMS solution, to which the Horme site had not adhered. There were several reasons for this: difficult financial situation, lack of skills, too large human resources, etc. We could not afford to invest in this solution, which was too expensive, and to mobilize the resources necessary for its deployment.

Not being able to follow the group on this initiative, I therefore initiated an Excel basic system (equipment lists, etc.), which made it possible to avoid input discrepancies on the machines. Maintenance technicians could report directly using the following model: definition of the problem (task), activity, name of the person involved, status of the operation and qualification of the operation by a keyword (mainly preventive and curative). In fact, these Excel files were fully recovered in Mobility Work.

It was therefore in spring 2015 that Marc-Antoine Talva (CEO of Mobility Work) came to present Mobility Work CMMS software to the management at the time. Marc-Antoine offered us a solution that involved a simple subscription, and above all that promised a particularly interesting speed of implementation; we quickly understood the relevance of this tool for our business. The changeover was thus made during the month of August 2015.

Can you tell us about the deployment of Mobility Work in your factory?

The deployment was very simple: we received training from Marc-Antoine Talva for one hour, then we scanned the buildings one after the other, each with their smartphone in hand, to take a picture of each piece of equipment and create a sheet on the mobile application. At the same time, we had started to Put NFC chips To access Mobility Work CMMS more easily. In less than 3 days, the entire fleet was created, which confirmed the ease of creating the equipment, especially over a period of August during which summer shutdowns can cause availability problems. Then, we took about 1 month to recover our old histories and reassign them to our equipment.

As for the reception of the application by our teams, it was initially rather mixed, because the application (still in the pilot phase at the time, editor's note) still had a lot of bugs. Moreover, the teams were always quite attached to their Excel files. We forced them to change the technology while the product could still be improved, which caused some problems. Then the teams started to realize that all the problems encountered were reported directly and addressed in the application, and saw real interest in it. In addition, the application has evolved enormously since its beginnings, the 2015 version has nothing to do with the current version!

Access all documents (photos, videos, etc.) and checklists from the equipment sheet in your Mobility Work application

The tool has therefore been well integrated into the maintenance department as well as into some other services. Our use of Mobility Work is not as categorical as in some other sites in the group, which requires that all intervention requests are necessarily processed by Mobility Work. Some “re-entry” operations still have to be carried out by the managers of certain services. Indeed, the adoption of such a tool causes a cultural change that may upset some. Most of them used to exchange information in person, by meeting each other in a workshop. This is a practice that, unfortunately, causes significant loss of information, which is why we have so strongly expressed our desire to write everything down.

What are the advantages of Mobility Work in your opinion?

For me, it is the possibility of accessing an entire machine park on a single software: machine history, plans, spare parts, procedures, troubleshooting aids, contacts, etc. Before, we had a quantity of Excel files, networks with access rights, access rights, paper plans, which represented a considerable waste of time for the operator at the time of intervention.

Mobility Work CMMS software requires taking the time to update the equipment regularly, but the possibilities of the application mean that once the technician is in front of his machine, and if everything is up to date, he will not have to come back to the workshop to look for his plan. This saves a lot of tension when it comes time to troubleshoot, as all the necessary information is at your fingertips.

This database aspect and sharing of all the information provided by the convenience store in the field, as well as preparation documents in the office, allow anyone to monitor the progress.

The field technician reports the information that will be processed by the methods department, and can then follow its evolution. Mobility Work CMMS software makes it possible to make the link between the office and the field, and to improve communication within the team.

Everything that was not very accessible to convenience stores, in particular the concepts of costs, is now accessible to them, because the quotes are also recorded in the application; this arouses the curiosity of technicians, who are now able to find out about the price of parts! This makes them aware of certain concepts and encourages them to rationalize the use of certain rooms.

What is the feature that you use the most and that you can't live without?

The “my agenda” function, which allows you to plan all operations. Above all, it is very practical to be able to drag them from one date to another, because there is obviously a difference between what was originally planned and the reality on the ground: machine availability, curative requirements... We are thus not obliged to have to enter into a task to change the date.

The “maintenance plans” part is also essential, we use it a lot so as not to forget certain interventions, and more particularly operations planned over a long period of time, annual replacements for example.

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

What functionality does not yet exist would you like to see developed primarily on Mobility Work?

I would like a notification system (email, banner...) to warn of the expiry of a scheduled task to be set up, because you currently have to enter the calendar to be kept up to date. This feature seems all the more important to me as many controls depend on external services, it is therefore necessary to be able to anticipate possible quotes or requests... If you don't follow the calendar regularly enough, this can be problematic, especially since all tasks, regardless of their status (planned, late, in progress) are all mixed up in it. Having the possibility to configure the calendar according to our needs would be a plus.

We also have some difficulties related to preventive management; in fact, it is sometimes necessary to control 20 to 30 points, which is just as many tasks with a scheduled deadline to be created in the Mobility Work mobile CMMS, which can be a bit cumbersome to manage. The possibility of creating checklists would be very useful for us. For the time being, we are obliged to accompany preventive tasks with an Excel file that lists all the operations to be carried out, with a final report on paper, in order to create a monthly summary.

What are your company's future projects concerning Mobility Work?

We would like to develop the connection between the feedback of connected objects and the triggering of tasks, an hour counter that has expired for a filter change or for the revision of a machine, for example. Currently, the operator in the field must trigger the change or revision himself during a preventive check. This connection would allow us to benefit directly from the ski lifts.

In addition, I am particularly waiting for the redesign of the part concerning the monitoring of indicators and dashboards, and the updating of the analytical part, which are tools that I currently use very little. However, these are essential for decision-making, and I look forward to putting them into practice and harnessing their potential.

Are you satisfied with the responsiveness of the Mobility Work CMMS team?

Of course, we can report all the problems by chat: they are taken into account, and depending on the importance of the problem, it will either be resolved during the day or, if the situation is more complex, we are warned that the information has been taken into account, and that it will be processed as soon as possible. Our questions have always been answered.

Some of our questions are related to a certain lack of knowledge on our part, but we also make requests concerning functionalities. These being more specific, the waiting period is necessarily longer, but this is justified, because this request must represent a real need on the part of all users of the platform.”

Thanks to Mr. Carrot for agreeing to give his testimony; user feedback is at the heart of our approach, and helps us improve our product on a daily basis.