Smartphone app to ease maintenance technicians’ woes
10 Oct 2011
Paris — CMMS (computerised maintenance management system) software offers a valuable tool for maintenance managers: helping them to keep track the status and performance of equipment across entire process facilities. However, they are often viewed with less enthusiasm by the field service technicians, who have to input the data into these systems.
According to maintenance management and CMMS softare company CARL Source, field service technicians see CMMS software as too administrative, complex and time-consuming. As a result, it said, work reports entered in the CMMS are often incomplete of a poor quality and of little use.
“Managers often see this as an interesting feedback but the information involved, for example on costs, is not familiar to operators. Inputting data is time-consuming work, which is done at end of shift, said Laurent
“Operators, therefore, pay little attention to this work resulting in lower quality data, little analysis and little improvement overall, Laurent commented.
In a recent survey Carl Software found that most maintenance reports lacked essential information such as time spent, parts commissioned, relative comments. Around 80%, he noted, said a job was done without provide any added value for the maintenance department.
To resolve these problems the French company is a mobile application, called CARL Touch, which can be installed on an Android Smartphone or a digital tablet. The app complies with a ‘push synchronisation’ method according to the WebSocket protocol.
“Technicians thus have their own easy-to-use mobile terminal … that takes away their fear of using a CMMS,” said the company. “They are in constant contact with their back office, they can receive alerts, send multimedia reports, geo locate equipment and enter real-time information in CARL SOURCE database.”
“CARL Touch enables the technician to consult his maintenance task at any time, geo-locate installations, ask for assistance from his back office to receive documents, photos that can be useful for work repairs,” said the company.
