Improved staff productivity and reduced equipment downtime are two key benefits of mobility technology for machinery and equipment maintenance in heavy industries, according to James Kirk from Mainpac.

Mainpac has just launched Mainpac Mobility, a new module for managing work orders and inspections, designed to improve productivity and enable better, faster decision making.

“Competitive organisations recognise that to improve productivity, they must move business information quickly from the field to the desktop, and back again,” James says. “Giving workers  instant access to information like machinery diagrams and parts availability makes it much easier for them to complete tasks effectively. “We live in a 24/7 world. For smarter, quicker, better operational asset management, you’ve simply got to be mobile.”

James says mobility within asset management is not just about being able to see reports and data, but about interactivity and having the right tools available when you need them.

“Power companies and manufacturers operate round the clock, while ports and terminals and mining operations have staff and assets in various locations, and often across multiple sites.

“That means the person who needs to make the call on asset decisions won’t always be on site. In the past, that person would get a call, then they might need to drive out to take a look at the equipment or machinery, then head back to the office to search for drawings and historical data before determining the best course of action.

“With a mobile asset management solution, that person doesn’t even need to be in the same town as the facility they’re looking after. They can use a mobile device and Mainpac Mobility to quickly access the information they need, as well as receive images and other condition information immediately.”
Mainpac Mobility integrates with Mainpac EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) software to improve the benefits the system delivers, and improve the software’s return on investment.

“Our customers can use mobile devices to capture information about asset condition that can be used for predictive analysis, or for distribution to engineers to collaborate on identifying faults and resolving outages quickly. There’s also the ability to access historical work orders and inspection information for quicker root-cause analysis. Ultimately, this means customers can reduce outages and downtime.”
James says many asset-intensive companies currently use paper-based work order systems that contain inherent inefficiencies.

“Using a paper based system, field staff might go into the office to print out a work order, fill it out on site, then go back to the office and manually copy their written notes into a maintenance system. And they do this repeatedly every day. This adds up to a vast amount of worker inefficiency. With a mobility solution, that inefficiency just disappears, and you end up with better, more accurate data captured in
your EAM,” he says.

Better data not only enable better responses to faults and maintenance issues. It also enables management to glean greater insights into operations, and produce better reports.

“Choosing the Mainpac Mobility option will allow our customers to get the very best value from their EAM. The lifeblood of an EAM system is the ongoing entry of accurate asset information, and Mainpac Mobility makes it simple. It’s easy-to-use, intuitive and secure,” James says.