Situation
When you’ve been in business for 35 years, you know your numbers and can put an exact price on the hourly cost of equipment downtime. For a wood manufacturing and distribution company with nearly 5,000 employees and 20 different locations spread across 13 states, the downtime costs caused by avoidable maintenance and repair issues started to add up. When one of their lift trucks breaks down, the effect on production alone costs $5,000 per hour. They knew there had to be a solution to recognize and perform needed repairs before a breakdown and before fluid leaks potentially caused an environmental issue. Their one caveat was that the budget to affect these issues was available through their safety and compliance division.
Solution
The company rolled out its new equipment inspection program with Redlist at two of its lumber manufacturing plants. They configured Redlist’s forms to complete daily and monthly inspections of all “rolling stock” or mobile assets, as well as safety equipment. The digital inspection reports replaced the cumbersome 3-ring binder system they used before and enabled them to set up repair notifications immediately after identifying maintenance issues. Catching problems, especially leaks, earlier, quickly reduced equipment downtime and the environmental hazard incidents at the plants.
Impact
The maintenance improvements with Redlist have led to such excellent results that the company plans to expand the program into more of their locations, including implementation into their lockout tagout programs. Not only did they achieve their goal of significantly reducing equipment downtime with a savings of $5,000 per hour, but they have also created a stronger safety culture than they’ve ever had before. Employees are more fulfilled with the additional job and safety training offered based on their reporting. Also, plant managers and corporate management now have everything they need for greater visibility into asset maintenance and compliance.
