Acu-tech Case Study

Business History

Acu-Tech are a leading manufacturer and supplier specialising in complete Polyethylene (HPDE) pipe systems and solutions for fluid/gas transfer and cable protection.

Established in 2000, Acu-Tech is an Australian privately owned and operated company with branches in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Kalgoorlie and Newman.

Acu-Tech supplies complete, application specific pipe system packages including vales, fusion welding equipment, training and technical support. Our services are utilised in a wide range of applications across the plumbing, mining, civil, rural, gas directional drilling and mechanical services markets.

The need for a CMMS System

• They used to have only a whiteboard in the maintenance workshop, where jobs of the day were written on and wiped out when completed.
• No history on any work done on assets and costs associated.
• No real visibility on the workload/forecast on what had to be done.
• Techs used to say they were busy, however there was no real data to track workload or back log in tasks.
• No scheduled planned maintenance or reminders for tasks to be completed, and the team mostly worked on reactive repairs and breakdowns.
• No list/register of all assets in the factory to track, monitor and measure the lifecycles.

The Solution

Agility was introduced to the Extrusion Maintenance team to begin with, where they added all of the existing “open” reactive jobs. PPMs for work around the factory were then added, and a big screen was installed in the workshops for the team to view and work through the daily schedule. The team find it very easy now and quickly got used to listing all jobs in Agility. They have since introduced the system to all other maintenance departments, and their Brisbane and Melbourne branches. To support their operational processes and requirements, they have added KPI Dashboards and Roadworthy Checklists.

Currently, they maintain 962 assets on Agility, and they have completed 4,500 work orders since they went live.

The benefits

The automation of all preventative tasks has given their team more time to work on actual maintenance tasks, rather than planning. It has also created a sense of reassurance that all jobs will be done, at the right time, as they can easily view the labour availability to track what has been completed.

Introducing Agility means they now have one system that is used as a “Source of Truth” for all maintenance related tasks. Recently, they had an external audit on Mainroads for our transport department, and were able to show all the relevant repairs and services that had been carried out on their fleet. The auditors were very impressed with the system, and how easy it was to navigate and find the relevant information. Agility has improved their audit process tremendously.

By using the dedicated mobile app, technicians can now easily view and complete tasks on the go, anywhere, and they don’t have to walk to a desktop or write it down somewhere in a notebook.

Maintenance Technician, Albie, said:

“I find the PPM’s that we have added especially daily checks in the morning and afternoon have really helped to identify potential issues that we are able to rectify immediately that day before it becomes a problem or reschedule when the line is down.  This means there is minimal impact to production.  And we have seen a decrease in the number of call outs and breakdowns.  Having the app on my mobile means I can see all my jobs that are scheduled each day and can easily complete and add jobs as I need to.”

The future

Acu-Tech are currently working on the following integrations with external systems, that will enhance their processes:

• Myob Exo – this integration is with their ERP, to use spare parts in work orders, and auto replenish the stock.
• Evexso – this integration is with their Transport Management System, to auto-create work orders in Agility, for faults reported in a Daily Pre-Start on vehicles.

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