Maintenanceand reliability managers across industries have come to rely on SAP Plant Maintenance (PM). After all, this core component of the SAP ERP helps support and maintain critical equipment and systems. Specifically, it empowers plant operators to:
Continue reading “Transform Working With SAP Plant Maintenance”
If you were a fan of 1980’s movies you remember the famous line from the film Wall Street, Gordon Gekko memorably said “The most valuable commodity I know of is information.” A political mentor of mine would always tell the college class he was teaching, “Time is the most valuable commodity in running anything. If you have time nothing is impossible.” For anyone involved in maintenance management both quotations apply. Mobile workforce solutions save time by providing maintenance workers with the ability to capture and record data in the moment and providing managers with real time information. As a result, mobility increases wrench time and reduces labor costs.
Continue reading “Improve Wrench Time for Labor Cost Savings”
Plant maintenance organizations continue to face a shortage of skilled labor. Readily available technology such as mobile workforce management solutions may be the key to attracting the younger generations like Gen Z workers to skilled trades needed for maintenance and repair jobs. Modernizing day-to-day work tools not only supports the workstyles of today’s workforce but will also drive efficiencies to get more work done with your limited staffing.
Continue reading “Mobile Workforce Solutions Can Help Attract Gen Z Workers”
Creating a safe working environment for the maintenance team and production workforce is a priority for every organization. Safe workplaces protect workers from physical harm, and they also protect organizations from the hefty price tags of an OSHA compliance fine.
Continue reading “3 Ways Mobile Processes Improves Safety for Plant Operations”
Operator rounds and preventive maintenance inspections are critical to reducing risks, pre-empting potential failures, and to meet stringent compliance regulations. Today’s challenging environment has made it increasingly difficult for operators and technicians to effectively perform these core preventive tasks. Chief among them is a growing labor shortage that has made it hard for employers to find and fill open positions in operations with qualified workers.
Despite these challenges, organizations have failed to modernize and continue to rely on inefficient paper-based forms for operator rounds. Conducting inspections on paper creates more work for over worked teams from printing and distributing forms to excessive data entry for updating maintenance & safety records. In this article, we will explore some of these challenges and look at effective operator rounds software to improve compliance while reducing resources required for inspections.
Operator rounds and preventive maintenance inspections are proactive procedures involving the routine inspection of the production environment to ensure that equipment is fully operational and in safe working condition. Preventive maintenance inspections are part of a proactive maintenance program to identify signs of wear and implement a corrective action to avoid a breakdown.
In most organizations, inspection processes consist of several core steps. First, engineers create checklists for every operational asset. These forms tell operators and technicians the steps and tasks to conduct a thorough inspection. Next, the assigned worker conducts the operator rounds. During their rounds, they identify any potential issues, make minor adjustments, and record their findings on the forms. Finally, they submit the forms to support personnel or enter the data themselves into the organization’s ERP system. From here, notifications are created for issues found to trigger a corrective maintenance work order.
In addition to ensuring that assets are working safely and properly, operator rounds are also conducted as an oversight of the working environment such as ensuring that walkways, stairways, and exit doors are clear of obstacles, that personal protective equipment is available and being utilized, and that there are no fire hazards. Industrial workplaces are subject to stringent safety compliance requirements like OSHA. If employers fail to satisfy these requirements (as proven by the records of completed operator rounds) they can receive stiff fines and face other regulatory sanctions and penalties.
In the U.S. alone, manufacturers pay $19,564 per employee on average to comply with federal regulations, almost twice as much as the per-employee costs shouldered by all firms. NAM.org
Inhibitors to the Execution of Operator Rounds
While these routine inspections seem simple, today’s organizations struggle to keep up with the ever growing list of safety and compliance regulations given the growing shortage of skilled labor to conduct the work.
41% of respondents say the key challenge to improving maintenance is lack of resources or staff. Plant Engineering
As employers continue to be challenged to fill open positions in operations and maintenance, the situation leads them to prioritize urgent tasks over preventive work and allow short-cuts in processes to complete proper inspections. Without preventive maintenance and inspections, the situation results in more breakdowns and unplanned downtime, which to resolve takes further precedence over preventive tasks. This creates a downward negative spiral of growing reactive work that is difficult to turnaround.
Operator rounds and preventive maintenance inspections will continue to play critical roles in helping to avoid unplanned downtime while keeping workplaces safe and in compliance with industry regulations. To overcome the inhibitors, organizations need to embrace technologies that will increase the efficiency of these routine tasks.
Replacing Paper-Based Processes
Organizations in every major industry have turned to technology to overcome resource challenges. While industrial maintenance organizations have been slow to adapt, more and more are adopting user-friendly technologies to automate work tasks and replace paper-based processes.
Mobile operator rounds software eliminates the need to manually print and distribute checklists. Operators and maintenance technicians can easily conduct an inspection, record their findings, and immediately notify management of any issues identified during their rounds. This notification allows a timely repair to be scheduled and avoid unplanned downtime.
Moreover, the added step of removing manual data entry improves the data accuracy and completeness of data with the ERP system for compliance reporting.
No two assets are the same and the inspection routines are dynamic. Regulations are constantly changing forcing modifications to the operator rounds checklists to ensure compliance to new requirements are well documented. Plus, reliability engineers, through Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), are constantly identifying new early warning signs of potential failure to be checked in an inspection.
Although hard-coding inspections into an operator rounds software program may seem less adaptive than paper for the dynamic nature of inspection processes, it is time to look at current software capabilities. Today, there is software that is designed with the flexibility to be easily modified as quickly as your requirements change. A mobile app on a no-code platform can make it easy for any authorized user to make custom checklists and deploy to the workers without requiring costly software customization developers. Here’s a real-world example to illustrate the new opportunity.
Custom Requirements Easily Met
A manufacturer came to us to streamline their unique equipment inspection process. To meet compliance regulations, they were required to time stamp every inspection item on their checklists. And with their complex equipment, each checklist contained over 100 operations. They were conducting the inspections using paper checklists and then manually updating SAP. The process to open each inspection order in SAP and placing a time stamp on each operation took longer than actually performing the inspection itself.
We worked with this manufacturer to modify the Sigga mobile maintenance app which is built on a no-code platform. The app was easily customized to meet their compliance requirements without requiring expensive developers. The mobile app now allows a technician to conduct their inspection rounds with a digital tool. After completing an equipment inspection, they can select multiple operations within the app and instantly perform a mass update to SAP for the items that were good. Continuing, they could individually select the operations with issues and document the problems. The later action automatically opens notifications within SAP PM.
As a result of adopting the Sigga mobile EAM solution the manufacturer saw significant time savings and improved adherence to compliance regulations from the quality and completeness of the data captured. In addition, issues are now addressed faster reducing the risks of breakdowns.
Streamline Your Operator Rounds and Preventive Maintenance Inspections
Let us show you how you can easily digitize your unique inspection processes. Our mobile maintenance app is used by over 70,000 users improving technician productivity and data quality in SAP. This mobile app is now available on a no-code platform to make it fast and easy to adapt the software to your processes at any time. With the flexibility of current technology, there are no more excuses to fully digitize your operator rounds and preventive maintenance processes.
See how your unique processes can be digitized!
Whether or not a recession happens in the near future, the risk of one is high. Therefore, now is the time to get prepared to weather a downturn in sales, reduced budgets, and an increase in pressure to lay off people you can’t afford to lose. Read about the proven strategies for resiliency in tough times.
A maintenance backlog isn’t bad per se, but if it’s too high, it’s a sign of multiple problems costing you real money. Like many companies, you may not be tracking and measuring the impacts to justify what it’s going to take to reduce the backlog to acceptable levels.
Continue reading “The Real Cost of a High Maintenance Backlog”
With the shortage of labor and supply chain disruptions, asset reliability needs to be a priority to sustain production levels, create quality products, and maintain productivity for your operations. Yet a survey of 80 large companies found that none were capturing the data required to evaluate and proactively address asset failures. NONE! These companies would be hard-pressed to implement a Failure Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action System (FRACAS).
If you are looking into a FRACAS or in the process of implementation, this article will highlight how to get started and set up your organization for success.
A Warehouse Management System (WMS), such as SAP Warehouse Management (SAP WM), can be modernized with the integration of a mobile solution, enabling warehouse teams to reduce costs and increase the visibility and accuracy of stock movements and inventory levels.
In this article, we’ll first examine the challenges of utilizing SAP WM without a mobile device. Then we’ll discuss the process improvements that can be made and the benefits companies using SAP may expect by modernizing their warehouse and inventory processes with a mobile solution.
Continue reading “Modernize SAP WM with Mobile Warehouse & Inventory Management”
Digital transformation is becoming an imperative in today’s world. We can no longer sit back and allow large portions of our organizations to work like they have for the last 20+ years. The tight labor market, inflation, and supply chain shortages all point to the need to be as efficient and as adaptive as possible in every aspect of our business.
The right software approach is a key consideration in accelerating digital transformations. For modernizing all business processes, the build vs buy software decision needs to be re-evaluated in light of today’s technology and resource challenges. This article explores these considerations.
New Factors in Build vs. Buy Software Decisions
Successful digital transformations certainly involve far more than the choice of technologies. Changing processes and driving adoption of new digital workflows has proven to be some of the major obstacles to achieving results. The choice of software and software approaches can impact these factors. And in consideration of the change management process, Enterprise organizations have tended to pursue custom development to fit the specific needs of the organization. This situation is changing, and the choices today are not so black and white.
Generalizing, here’s some of the historical comparison points:
Traditional Factors in Build vs Buy Software Decisions
| Consideration | Custom App Development | Read-made Software |
| Cost – upfront and on-going | In-house or outsourced developer’s | Software license fees plus customization costs to modify for unique processes |
| Time to deploy | Months to develop | “Off-the-shelf”, ready to implement |
| Integrations | Add your own choice of APIs | Select APIs |
| Security & bug fixes | Your resources | Vendor develops, you update |
| Flexibility to change | Yes | Limited customizations |
| Functionality | Generally, has fewer features and less specificity to the functional area | Generally, more fully featured, designed and vetted by 1,000’s of users from the functional area |
| Intuitive for users | Often less intuitive | Generally, more intuitive given history of use & feedback |
| User adoption | Falls to you to ensure the organization follows through with training and support to drive adoption | Vendor implementation services and training materials |
| Summary | IT resource intensive, long development cycle, custom software | Less IT resource intensive, shorter development cycle, less flexible to custom needs |
This is certainly a generalization as many other factors come into play such as complexity of workflows, skills of in-house developers, types of integrations needed, on prem vs. cloud, etc. And these variables have a significant impact to identifying the overall cost comparison. And history tells us that it is best to not be too optimistic in development time and cost estimations. Project Management Institute (PMI) found that 43% of IT projects exceed their initial budgets, 49% are late, and 14% fail altogether.
Today’s Considerations
There are many factors playing into this decision today. A significant consideration is the lack of availability of skilled developers. IDC quantified that the shortage of full-time developers is currently 1.4 million people (2021) and that will rise to 4 million people in just 4 years. With limited IT staffing in-house and limited supply of IT development contractors, the build vs buy software decision may no longer be a choice. But there’s many additional factors at play:
1) Low-code/No-code Tools
The labor shortage and endless need for software to accelerate digital transformations across the enterprise is fueling the growth of low-code and no-code tools to facilitate development.
Low-Code Application Development Platform Market – The global low code application development platform market size is expected to reach USD 86.92 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc (July 2022). The market is projected to register a CAGR of 22.7% during the forecast period.
These development tool sets can accelerate app development between 40 and 60% faster than traditional development.
2) Growing Requirement for Application Adaptability
Development can no longer be considered primarily “done” once initially completed. Beyond the normal software updates, security and bug fixes, software needs to support a new level of flexibility that businesses require. The pandemic and ensuing supply chain shortages and inflation all illustrate the need to be able to rapidly adapt to change.
According to Gartner’s CIO Agenda, The leadership, organizational, and technology priorities CIOs must address in 2022, “Use technology in ways that support key pieces of composable business. Composability is the ability to assemble app components in various combinations to satisfy specific requirements. It makes it possible for organizations to increase production and accelerate timelines for innovation in a highly customizable way.
To support composability, “Composable Technologies are systems and data that integrate quickly and easily. Highly composable organizations recognize that iterative delivery processes, collaborative workstyles, and integrated systems drive better results.”
3) New Level of Collaboration Within the Business
This level of adaptability requires a new way of working with the business on software projects to accelerate development and adoption of new digital work processes. Creating project teams where the functional staff can take a greater role in the “development” of their software addresses the IT resource challenges and enables greater ownership and adoption of the resulting software.
“Who knew that one day, ordinary citizens, who lack deep knowledge of technology and programming, would be able to create really efficient solutions for their daily processes in an objective and clear way – and better: without relying on IT specialists? That’s what Low-Code provides: simplified access to technology.”
Mario Trentim, Low-Code Tools: Simplifying Technology as the Secret to Digital Transformation, June 2022
4) Hybrid – Application + Low-code Platform
The build vs buy software decision is also getting blurred with today’s software development technologies. Today, you can find ready-made software applications with their own low-code or no-code platform to enable the composability needed in today’s environment.
“Over the past year, we have seen existing solutions start to really mature and continue to show traction. Vertically focused, no-code/low-code products have especially found great fit in the market.”
Karan Bhasin, 10 investors discuss the no-code and low-code landscape in Q1 2022, March 2022
When these investors were asked which no-code/low-code developed apps excited them the most, they responded with:
“We see big opportunities in internal tools that usually require a lot of third-party integrations.
Here, low-code platforms replace a lot of the mundane work of creating internal tools and applications.
Modern low-code tools may provide about 90% of the out-of-the-box functionally required for these
operations and about10% wiggle room for customization required by the specific use case.”
So, given this new combination, how do the trade-offs change between custom app development and ready-made software?
Today’s Factors in Build vs Buy Software Decisions
| Consideration | Custom Development with Low-code Tools | SaaS Ready-made Software with Low-code Editor |
| Cost – upfront and on-going | In-house or outsourced developer’s – time savings with low-code tools | Software license fees (“customization” managed in-house – no developer/no customization costs) |
| Time to deploy | Months to develop (40-60% faster) | “Off-the-shelf”, ready to implement (any modifications are 40-60% faster) |
| Integrations | Add your own choice of APIs | Select APIs |
| Security & bug fixes | Your resources | Vendor develops and updates |
| Flexibility to change | Yes | Yes |
| Functionality | Generally, has fewer features and less specificity to the functional area | Generally, more fully featured, designed, and vetted specifically for the functional area |
| Intuitive for users | Often less intuitive | Generally, more intuitive given history of use & feedback |
| User adoption | Falls to you to ensure the organization follows through with training and support to drive adoption | Vendor implementation services and training materials |
| Summary | IT resource intensive, moderate development cycle, custom software | Less IT resource intensive, can be quickly modified and as flexible as a custom developed app |
As highlighted in the table, both approaches become faster in implementation with no trade-off between the two approaches to meet adaptability requirements. In summary:
Additional Considerations Today
“The average company has 254 SaaS applications but, on average, only 45% of a company’s SaaS apps are being used on a regular basis. Moreover, 56% of all these apps are shadow IT, or owned and managed outside of IT. And the crazy part is to think that goes on top of all the software packages and systems of records they already have to run the core of their business.”
The State of SaaS Sprawl in 2021
It is unsustainable to continue to have “SaaS Sprawl” in today’s world. For decision-making and efficiency, it is critical that applications are in active use and are well integrated with legacy and core systems, like SAP. Low-code development platforms whether standalone or within an application need to include the APIs and capabilities to be easily integrated into core systems.
The Best of Both Approaches for EAM Applications
Here at Sigga, we have fully embraced the need for applications to be flexible to be modified at any time. Our ready-made, mobile EAM software comes on a fully featured no-code platform. This robust, native mobile application is a result of continued development across 15 years of deployments with 70,000 users.
We are specialized in maintenance mobile apps and software for SAP EAM. As such, we have the only no-code platform with over 200 pre-built SAP PM services. This means, you can completely avoid the costs and delays of development with SAP integration specialists. In addition, our SAP integration technology is specially designed to deliver high performance with a high volume of data and mobile users.
We are an SAP-certified global software company with 20 years of experience in helping large global companies optimize SAP with our innovative solutions and attentive support. We invest hundreds of thousands of hours annually in research & development to ensure the highest quality user experiences, ease of implementation, and security of our EAM software. As a result, some of the world’s largest companies across over 14 industries trust Sigga to improve the efficiency of their SAP-based operations.
See how Sigga EAM Empower can deliver on your digital transformation goals in operations.
