Franck Maillot, engineering and maintenance manager and early-user of mobile CMMS software Mobility Work, has been working for Danone for eight years and is specialized in maintenance and performance. Last year, he joined the team in charge of maintenance digitalization. His scope covers more than a hundred of Danone Waters’ plants, one of the group’s branch.
Mr Maillot already knows a lot about Mobility Work CMMS and therefore agreed to tell us more about his experience. He explains to us why the application meets the requirements of the Danone group, what are the fields of improvement and why large companies should trust startups.
HOW DID YOU LEARN ABOUT MOBILITY WORK? WHAT CONVINCED YOU TO TEST OUR CMMS?
Maintenance has always been a major issue, at the core of the company’s expectations. Before choosing Mobility Work, I was benchmarking a variety of CMMS solutions. It was important for us to keep an open mind so we were comparing conventional tools, such as SAP or Coswin, with interfaces that are used today by the group, as well as more innovative solutions, like Mobility Work.
We ultimately discovered Mobility Work by chance, by pure word of mouth: it was at an exhibition, and it immediately raised our interest. But before launching into it, we wanted to concretely see how it worked. So we visited the FMGC, one of Farinia Group’s major plants, where it was already implemented.
Today, Danone is still using SAP PM as it is the group’s standard but we are looking to provide added value to maintenance, one thing that our current software doesn’t exactly allow us to do.
HAS YOUR MOBILE CMMS SOFTWARE ALREADY BEEN IMPLEMENTED IN YOUR COMPANY?
Yes, it has, in two of our plants (Salvetat and Volvic) for several months for each one of them. These are our pilot plants, they allow us to make sure that Mobility Work meets our expectations before we can think about further deploying it.
WHAT ARE MOBILITY WORK’S BENEFITS ACCORDING TO YOU?
The very first thing is of course its ease of use. This is Mobility Work’s main argument and it’s obviously a very important aspect. It’s moreover essential for final users as they will have to use the tool on a daily basis. The CMMS application is very intuitive and we get along with it easily: these are as many arguments which convinced us to make this choice.
All news related to ongoing interventions are available from Mobility Work’s newsfeed.
But there is more to it: I would say that working with a startup has a lot of benefits. We can say that we’re using a solution that is constantly evolving and that is really interesting to use. Danone’s aim is not to solely use Mobility Work but to continue working on this actor-contributor relationship that allows us to send feedbacks and to continuously help improve the solution. Each company has the possibility to freely contribute to this evolution which implies many positive consequences.
CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE DEPLOYMENT OF MOBILITY WORK CMMS IN YOUR FACTORY?
It is first important to mention the small things that need to be improved. We are for example facing a big challenge regarding senior technicians profiles. We would like maintenance features as well as interfaces with other CMMS to be developed. We for instance suggested to implement a more advanced data exchange system that could make our everyday life easier.
Still, everything went really well with the implementation, there was no doubt about that. The maintenance technicians were quite happy to use this new tool and they are now all completely accustomed to the application. Concerning the on-field use, I have to admit that Mobility Work has a major advantage: it is mobile and easy to use, everything was made to facilitate the on-site work and that is exactly what we were looking for. In short, we can say that we are satisfied.
WHICH FEATURE DO YOU USE THE MOST, THE ONE YOU CANNOT DO WITHOUT?
We mostly use the equipment management feature, which is, according to me, the most important one. All the features that go with it, like the task or activity ones, are essential.
All news related to ongoing interventions are available from Mobility Work mobile application’s newsfeed, available on iOS and Android.
There also are some features that don’t seem so important at first yet but which probably are about to become essential: the QR codes and the possibility to access our equipment quickly, for instance. These are very interesting options that allow you to work quicker, since the user just has to scan a piece of equipment to find all the information he needs. I also would like to talk about the analytic tool, as it adds value to the solution, and about the whole community dimension that Mobility Work quite rightly praises. This aspect will become even more important once the application is deployed on more sites.
WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS ABOUT WITH YOUR MOBILE CMMS SOFTWARE?
As I am in charge of bringing methodology to our plants, I would say that Mobility Work still is a complementary tool today. We are willing to continue developing it and to implement it in Mexico, within around twenty plants. We are even thinking about going further and implement it in China. Our goal truly is to convince a large amount of Danone Waters infrastructures and to make them understand that this tool can really enhance their productivity. Our Mexican plants are really similar, so it would be very useful to benefit from the whole community dimension there!
DURING THE TIME YOU HAVE BEEN USING MOBILE CMMS SOFTWARE, DID YOU ENCOUNTER PROPER SERVICE SUPPORT?
Yes, I did. I find it very satisfying that Mobility Work constantly cares about customers and does its best to always improve the solution, we truly value that. We always keep in mind that we are working with a startup and that it’s not always obvious for large companies to go down this path, each structure has its own way of thinking. It is important that each party knows its boundaries. Sure, some aspects still need to be more professionalized, but we have admit that Mobility Work is as startup: agile and very attentive. Another benefit of this tool is its cost, it is indeed very different from conventional maintenance management software that companies still choose to work with today.
Thanks to the very smooth communication with Mobility Work’s team members, we can cooperate together, remain responsive and keep a high quality level. We obviously achieved to work together and to learn from each other!
Thanks to Mr Maillot for delivering his honest testimony: users’ feedbacks are at the heart of our approach, and are helping us improve our product on a daily basis.
