Eagles in the Rockies

The EPC started out with an early version of Eagle's software in 1996. They upgraded to Eagle's ProTeus Expert CMMS in mid-2000, along with a newer version of Crystal Reports(tm), which allows for the creation of customized maintenance reports using ProTeus data. The addition of the barcode module in late 2000 helped the EPC improve its inventory tracking through the use of handheld scanning devices.

While the version of ProTeus used at the EPC can handle up to eight users, the EPC has two maintenance software users; one handling PM/DM workorder generation and one handling spare parts purchasing and inventory tracking. Along with the barcoding and Crystal Reports options in use at the EPC, ProTeus can also interface with the Department of Labor's OSHA CD-ROM, allowing it to print appropriate OSHA guidelines on workorders. ProTeus is also available with an interface to the Johnson Controls (Milwaukee) METASYS Building Automation System - allowing facilities that track equipment status through METASYS to generate automatic workorders when a piece of equipment goes into alarm or reaches a predetermined runtime totalization.

Time is Money

Salow, who uses the software to generate maintenance work-orders, is new to maintenance software, having started with ProTeus less than a year ago. While Eagle does recommend a three-day training class for all new users, Salow discovered she was able to pick up the basics of the program on her own with about a week of practice.

As she gained more experience with the software, she progressed into using the more advanced features. Recently, Salow began using ProTeus' Crystal Reports option to generate informative data on maintenance practices. "I expect the reports will help with improving department efficiency by letting us see how much time and how much money is being spent on certain tasks," she says.

And time and money is important to the EPC. The employee payroll is a big portion of the EPC's maintenance expenditures, Salow reports, so it is important that the park has a tool enabling them to schedule and complete maintenance tasks as efficiently as possible. "If you have one person taking 45 minutes to do a job and another taking 15, you know something's going on and you can take steps to get everyone on the same page."

Salow also praises ProTeus' ability to identify causes of repeated breakdowns. "We can track each building separately and see when the same problems are coming up repeatedly. That lets us know that something isn't being fixed properly, and we can correct it."

The EPC also uses ProTeus' history features for making repair/replace decisions on key pieces of equipment and for organizational purposes. "Using the information available in the history records, we are much more efficient with our workorders. We know which craft to assign the workorder to, which person to send, and what tools they'll need," says Salow.

And workorder history can only be created by recording (logging) workorders. Before ProTeus was installed, the EPC was performing 15,000 workorders per year. But they only logged about 3,500 of them. Since ProTeus, "we're still performing 15,000 workorders, but now we're logging 11,000 workorders per year. That's over a 300% improvement," says Salow. ES