Operator rounds play a key role in maintaining equipment reliability, sustainable productivity and occupational safety.
Efficiency of operator rounds relies on the quality and accuracy of data (typically thousands of points) collected by an operator. This data helps companies examine, manage and improve processes. Most companies overlook the opportunity to digitally optimize operator rounds and still hand paper checklists and clipboards to their operators to perform rounds.
Why Switch to Digital Operator Rounds?
Asset managers need to step into the shoes of operators to understand their struggles to meet expectations. Outcomes from operator rounds have the potential to directly impact equipment reliability and occupational safety. Companies shouldn’t allow human errors and limitations hamper efficiency by using conventional methods. Conducting operator rounds by hand causes a number of problems, including:
- Inability to access key data required by operators to make well-informed decisions
- Critical data gets lost or hidden among huge volumes of normal data. This can compromise asset reliability and worker safety because work instructions will not be created in the ERP system to fix the problem.
- The double work of entering the data collected by operators into an ERP system such as SAP.
- Data entry errors.
- Inability to upload multimedia files such as photos and videos to provide more accurate information.
- Time lag between when a critical issue is detected and a work order or notification is raised, leading to potential asset damage or unsafe work conditions.
Companies need to adopt digital operator rounds solutions to overcome these challenges and optimize their plant maintenance.
Innovapptive Stands Out
Innovapptive’s Connected Worker platform offers a Digital Operator Rounds solution that supports a culture of consistent improvement to your maintenance operations. The solution is strengthened by a set of must-have features that caters to the needs of operators to deliver on your expectations.
What sets Innovapptive apart from the competition is its unique features, including:
Customization: Equipment design changes and process changes are normal in industries. Innovapptive’s Operator Rounds solution is built on a proprietary RACE™ (Rapid Application Configuration Engine) platform that enables no-code/low-code customization. The solution is agile enough to respond to changes to match your unique business requirements.
Typically, customizing a solution is a complex process and consumes a high amount of IT resources. Our no-code/low-code platform makes life easier for your IT teams by enabling them to customize the solution within minutes. This translates into faster adoption of design and process changes with high degree of efficiency.
Integration with ERP systems: Innovapptive is the only vendor offering a digital operator rounds solution that’s integrated with ERP systems, including SAP and IBM Maximo. This empowers operators with quick access to key data and support.
Other must-have features— including uploading multimedia and annotations on images and documents— help companies capture the tribal knowledge of their operators. Data is uploaded into your ERP system in real-time, enabling you to pass it on to other operators. This prevents the loss of tribal knowledge when an experienced technician retires..
For example, a senior operator might recommend checking filters of a motor frequently during summer. He knows from years of experience that the motor will accumulate more dust as a bay door is kept open for air and it brings in more dust during the summer months. A new operator is less likely to know this is important until the senior operator adds it to the operator round.
Integration with Work Order Management Software
Critical equipment failures need to be addressed immediately to avoid grave dangers to the workforce and company. Innovapptive’s Digital Operator Rounds is integrated with a work order management software, mWorkOrder, to trigger work orders as soon as a critical issue is identified during a round. This helps companies prevent safety incidents and unexpected shutdowns.
The solution is also integrated with Digital Work Instructions to offer real-time, visual guidance to field technicians from experts while performing rounds. This expedites rounds and saves time, while enhancing efficiency.
This is how Innovapptive’s Digital Operator Rounds helps companies establish streamlined operator rounds processes and keep production lines running, translating into higher ROI.
Want to learn more about Innovapptive’s Digital Operator Rounds solution?
Click here to schedule a free live demo or call 1-844-464-6668 to talk to our experts.
