Saint-Gobain has been one of Mobility Work’s top customers for many years. Saint-Gobain Crystals is an industry-leading supplier of advanced engineered materials for diverse industries including geophysics, industry, health, security, physics, protection, aerospace and more. They have been using the Mobility Work maintenance management software for over two years now.
Erik Stanison, Sr. Maintenance, has been the driving force implementing and using Mobility Work at the Saint-Gobain Crystals facility in Hiram, Ohio, USA. As an admin of his network on the CMMS, his main responsibilities include preventive maintenance (PM) management, assigning tasks, creating equipment but also training new users to the software.
“What are the maintenance issues specific to your sector and your activity?
At the Saint-Gobain Crystals facility in Hiram, we mainly use Mobility Work CMMS to track time and costs: we want to know how much time our technicians spend repairing a piece of equipment, and what it takes to maintain a piece of equipment. For example, if we own a $10,000 piece of equipment and we spend 200 hours and $5,000 dollars a year on it, it could mean that it is time for us to purchase a new piece of equipment, instead of maintaining an old one that isn’t worn out.
How did you manage your maintenance before starting to use Mobility Work?
I have been here for eight years, and I have witnessed two different maintenance management software before we implemented Mobility Work, which we started using because we constantly had issues with our former CMMS: it basically didn’t do exactly what we wanted it to do, and had issues performing basic maintenance routines.
What led you to adopt Mobility Work?
Jonathan Bennett, Business Systems Analyst at Saint-Gobain Crystals Hiram, was tasked with finding us a new software for our maintenance management. He came across Mobility Work, tested it for a little bit and then presented it to me and Thomas Dassatti, Maintenance Supervisor at the facility.
Are you in contact with other Saint-Gobain plants thanks to Mobility Work?
Yes, absolutely. For example, I know that the Saint-Gobain Crystals facility in Milford, Connecticut, started using it shortly after we implemented it. We talked a few times about how each of us use it. They are tracking their data a little bit differently than we are.
How did the adoption of Mobility Work go? How long did it take?
I think it went really well. I didn’t have anything to do with the transition from our last CMMS to Mobility Work, like importing all of our equipment list from the former tool to the new one. However, having talked with Jonathan Bennett, I know it went pretty smoothly.
For a couple of months, we were using both systems simultaneously, notably while we were transferring the data from one system to the other. This way, we were able to go back and check and see if there was something missing.
Based on your experience, how does our CMMS meet your needs?
I love this system, I think it’s great. There are lots of tools and features, it’s a good system that we are continuing to learn as we use it. It is by far the best system that I have used.
Which features do you use most?
Here at Saint-Gobain Crystals in Hiram, I am probably the person that uses the CMMS the most as I am in charge of entering data in it, creating equipment and tasks. As an admin, I use the dashboard and the maintenance plans the most. Thanks to the dashboard, I can extract all the data I want: how many hours each individual technician has spent on the equipment, the associated costs, etc. On a daily basis, the regular maintenance technicians use the calendar the most.
Also, we just found out the other day that the mobile app includes the speech-to-text feature, and that you can record yourself and it will put out what you say. This is a great time saver, especially for maintenance teams. Another time saver would be the fact that you can easily add pictures of an intervention and upload it to the CMMS.
Thanks to the CMMS, my technicians also are a little more autonomous: some equipment that are part of our preventive maintenance need to be replaced every quarter. Thanks to the CMMS, and especially to the equipment tags, our maintenance technicians only need to click on the equipment to see which parts are linked to it. They then have all the information they need (part number, supplier, cost etc.) and don’t need me to order the missing parts, they can just do it themselves.
What is your relationship with the Mobility Work team?
Anytime I have a question, I hit the little help button and I type in my question. Mobility Work answers really quickly, knowing the time difference between the US and France: I never have to wait, I always get an answer within 24 hours. Also, as an administrator, I get emails whenever something is going to happen in the app, a new update is live or whenever an issue is currently occuring, that’s really nice.
There are a few things that have changed since we implemented the system and when I asked about it, the answer that I was given was totally satisfactory.
“Mobility Work’s main strength is its user-friendliness. It is by far the best system I have used.”
Are there any features you would like to see on Mobility Work that are missing today ?
The ability to email the person that has been assigned to a preventive maintenance task and when it comes up. Actually it’s not so much for our maintenance technicians, but more for the people in the company that do not use Mobility Work everyday. For example, if I create a task for someone, I can choose to have them notified by email that they have gotten a new task versus just opening up Mobility Work and seeing the notification tab. However, I have already talked to the Mobility Work team about it, and they said they were already looking into that question.
Other than that, out of the top of my head, I couldn’t think of any additional features that I could see wanting right now. I think it provides enough features, especially for the price!
Do you have any upcoming projects with Mobility Work?
I have a couple of training sessions that I have to do for new users and some refresher courses for old users.”
A big thank you to Erik Stanison from Saint-Gobain Crystals for his testimony!
