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National Starch and Chemical Discovers MaintiMizer™—Again

Situation

“We were ready to trash it and start over.”

That’s how strongly Nathan Rhoades felt about MaintiMizer™ when he took over two years ago as maintenance department manager at National Starch and Chemical’s Indianapolis plant. Although less blunt, Steven Schuld, National Starch’s procurement manager, agreed: “It was a poor system that wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do.”  As newly hired managers, Nathan and Steven were determined to have a CMMS solution that met their needs, and they frankly weren’t sure that MaintiMizer™ – which had been installed long before either was involved in maintenance management- was up to the task.

At first, the best solution seemed to be the easiest: uninstall MaintiMizer™ and start over with another system, even though that would mean a significant financial investment and a major disruption to maintenance activities. Instead, they decided as a first step to keep an issue log so they could understand exactly what their problems were.   Almost immediately, Nathan and Steven began uncovering problems that stemmed from the original system implementation.

MaintiMizer™ had never been set up properly in the first place, and no one really understood the system’s capabilities. About that time, Nathan attended a “Best Maintenance Practices” seminar presented by Ashcom Technologies (the company behind MaintiMizer™). As Nathan says, “We learned that simply installing a CMMS isn’t enough.”

Solution

 

Nathan and Steven discovered that they could do more than simply salvage MaintiMizer™ – they could create exactly the system they needed with the help of the experts at Ashcom. Together, they started by creating focus teams and in-house champions charged with developing the data needed to set up MaintiMizer™ properly.

Today, the Ashcom experts routinely visit the plant to help facilitate the focus groups, manage system priorities, and troubleshoot. In addition, the maintenance staff has learned how to optimally use the system modules they had, and new modules have been added to increase functionality.   While Nathan and Steven agree it will take a year or two to completely revamp the system, they’ve already seen progress. Inventory accuracy has improved, preventive maintenance procedures have been created, and procedures designed to increase control and reduce the likelihood of fraud have been implemented.

“Things are progressing,” Steven reports. “The Ashcom experts have been a big help to us.” Even Nathan has changed his mind: “We’ll stick with MaintiMizer™ and Ashcom.”

Want to learn more about how MaintiMizer™ and Ashcom’s Maintenance Consulting Team can help your facility? Call us today at 800-366-0793 or visit us at www.ashcomtech.com. We look forward to hearing from you!