Like many other maintenance professionals, I enjoy fixing things. Oftentimes on the weekends, I can be found servicing a mower or changing the oil in my car.
Sometimes, these endeavors take me to the automotive parts store. “Year, make, and model?” is all it takes for the parts clerk to zero in on the part I need, whether it’s a simple or complex repair.
By comparison, I visit many plants and am often amazed at how disorganized, inaccurate, and archaic their maintenance, repairs, and operations (MROs) sometimes are.
They often tell me that they don’t have time to fix it, but then I’ll watch mechanics spend hours sifting through junk drawers, many filled with new and used parts, only to come up empty-handed. If you spend more time finding parts than troubleshooting and making repairs, you have a major problem.
What Maintenance, Repair, and Operations Can Do for You
Often, plants simply lack the resources to build comprehensive bills of materials (BOMs) or the time to sort through all of the satellite storage areas. The good news is with cloud-based solutions such as L2L's CloudDISPATCH, turning things around is easier than ever. Now, techs can instantly access comprehensive part data by machine and improve the experience with real-time BOM capabilities.
One summer, a plant near my hometown hired a summer intern and made it a point to turn things around in their maintenance, repair, and operations. By the end of the summer, it was amazing to see the progress. The plant had over 2,500 of its spare parts inventoried and managed in one system. Additionally, their inventory was accurate, and they even took pictures of the parts so the techs could proactively verify the parts and confirm availability.
All it took was an intern and a couple of months, and the experience for the technicians going forward was drastically improved. It’s this kind of step-by-step change that gets technicians excited and engaged in the progress and direction of a maintenance organization.
Maintenance, Repair, and Operations, Oh My!
Maintenance, repair, and operations is a tough job. There’s a lot of pressure to reduce inventory and increase turns from corporate, in addition to making sure that you’re providing a high level of service to your customer.
The good news is there are systems that make it easier than ever to use and maintain your spare parts with ease. There's no better time than right now to make a change and start turning your MRO around.
See how easy it can be when you schedule a demo with L2L!
