Customers
Bigfoot CMMS On-Site Training Yields Big Dividends
New England Extrusion has a modern, complex, manufacturing facility in Turners Falls, MA. Morale is high, and employees are, in general, very appreciative of their work environment. It is not an overstatement to say that you can sense a "team spirit". The Plant Manager had authorized the purchase of Bigfoot CMMS and on-site training, and had high expectations. Because it was a computer program, Joe Couture, head of IT, became responsible for the success or failure of the undertaking. To get a head start, Joe asked Smartware Group to import the equipment data he already kept in spreadsheet form.
Smartware's Bob Peelstrom arrived the afternoon before the company's scheduled on-site training session was to begin. He examined the equipment data, then turned his attention to the various options and lists which allow the user to "custom fit" Bigfoot CMMS. Nothing else had been done, because Joe knew that the Maintenance Department should be involved in these decisions. The expectation was that the missing information would be entered at the very beginning of the training session, so that everybody could learn how to use the system.
The trainer had seen this situation before; corporate culture praises observable activity, and casts a suspicious eye on those who pause to contemplate before they act. The trainer suggested that everybody take a deep breath, and hold a "pre-training" brainstorming session. He asked that the attendees come from both the corner offices and "the trenches". What followed was the genesis of the "Startup Kit", now a standard feature of the Bigfoot package.
Bob printed screen copies of the utilities tabs, and simple blank spreadsheets to serve as "scratch pads" for drop lists. His general procedure for the afternoon was to identify concepts covered by a drop list or a setting, ask the group to write their individual responses, and then compare tem. What the group found was that very few terms are "self-evident", and that careful consideration of the droplists would go a long way in eliminating miscommunication. For instance, they found that what some people were listing as problem codes were listed by others as cause codes. A five minute detour to discuss the meaning of those two words proved invaluable. All parties realized that while an outsider might view the discussion as "picky", they could see the obvious importance of standardization for effective trouble-shooting and historical analysis. The time spent reaching consensus over a cup of coffee meant time not spent sweating bullets at the computer while entering the basic building blocks of the system.
The subsequent training on day-to-day use of the program proceeded at a quicker-than-expected pace because all had a good understanding of why they were doing something, and appreciated the importance of "little" decisions in the overall scheme of things.
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