At a retail site, the lack of asset information means that technicians may be at risk of getting hurt, work orders and critical maintenance can be delayed, or sites could be out of compliance for long periods of time. These issues can directly impact the customer experience by taking team members away from assisting customers and forcing customers to endure a less-than-optimal in-store experience.

Avoiding accidents and operating as efficiently as possible means ensuring that maintenance teams are working with current, accurate, and complete technical information. For many organizations, keeping information up-to-date can prove extremely difficult because equipment and assets constantly undergo change and these disparate systems are holding different sets of information and slowing down work orders and key maintenance projects.

Disconnected systems present a challenge to organizational efficiency and often incur huge costs, as “Organizations in the U.S. and UK are losing a total of $140 billion each year due to disconnected data.”1 When disparate systems need to interact, information leakage and information erosion is often the result.

Within most organizations, maintenance and engineering departments usually work in closed, siloed environments with their own separate software solutions. Because of a lack of integration between systems, it can prove difficult for departments to share information with each other at the store level, which often leads to delays.

Maintenance teams need their mission-critical accurate asset information from the engineers, but because of the disconnected systems, they often struggle to find this information and confirm that it is up-to-date and accurate. If maintenance teams are working with outdated information, accidents, unplanned downtime, and delays can result.

The lack of accurate information can persist throughout the entire lifecycle of an asset. It is extremely important for organizations to tie their assets to engineering documentation because of the immediate impact to maintenance workers and the customer experience as well as the long-term life of critical assets such as HVAC, refrigeration units, fuel pumps, etc.

Learn more on how to connect disparate systems with Accruent's full lifecycle management. 

The integration of Accruent’s engineering information management (EIM) software, Meridian, and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), vx Maintain, connects maintenance and engineering teams. This integration simplifies the data handover between these disparate departments, creates a more streamlined process for service providers, and allows retailers to close work orders and maintenance orders more quickly.

With the integration of Meridian and vx Maintain, one click of a button highlights all the documents related to an asset, including:

  • Maintenance manuals
  • Inspection reports
  • Process and instrumentation drawings (PIDs)

Before maintenance workers go on-site, they can review the available asset information in order to bring the correct tools and avoid potential time loss. Access to this data prior to an on-site visit allows maintenance workers to perform their jobs safely and efficiently.

In addition, maintenance workers often must provide on-site feedback to drawings by marking up and commenting on paper copies. With the integration between Accruent’s two platforms, users can provide their feedback electronically to ensure that nothing is lost, and their feedback is represented accurately.

Once maintenance completes their work, there may be follow-up tasks that must be performed by the engineering department, such as modifying documents or planning new development and improvement projects. After maintenance teams provide their feedback via vx Maintain, the CMMS automatically triggers a notification to the engineering department. This communication facilitates the handover process between the engineering and maintenance teams.

This integration also allows organizations to view all technical documentation related to asset tags within the vx Maintain solution, allowing users to:

  • Access document revision histories
  • View previous versions of documents
  • Add documents to print queues for processing
  • Optionally initiate requests for changes to documents.

The integration between Meridian and vx Maintain offers the capability to work with both solutions, reducing costly errors caused by incorrect or obsolete tag information or documents. Meridian and vx Maintain allows organizations to optimize the management of their assets and extend asset longevity throughout the entire asset lifecycle. Organizations can view a cross-departmental view of all information released, or under change, in a plant modification project, preventing design mistakes and maintenance hazards.

Accruent’s integration of vx Maintain and Meridian bridges the gap between maintenance and engineering to streamline business processes, increase productivity and efficiency, and contribute to overall profitability. With this integration, Accruent can unite disparate engineering and maintenance teams to ensure accuracy of asset information, close work orders more efficiently, and improve the customer experience.

Break down information silos between internal engineering and maintenance teams. Contact us today to find out how.

 

1Information Management. Disconnected data costs organizations $140B