Technology in Construction

Greg Norris, B2W Software, Inc.

A More Effective Process for Inspecting Equipment and Generating Repair Requests

Inspecting equipment may not be a favorite activity of operators, drivers, or foremen, but there are good reasons to do them and great ways to do them more effectively with a little help from technology.

Equipment inspections keep people safe. An effective process also keeps expensive assets on the job, increasing uptime, and utilization rates while minimizing the cost of repairs. Unfortunately, the process of inspecting equipment and generating repair requests often gets bogged down by paper forms and a slow, error-prone transfer of information from the field to the shop. Software applications deliver proven advantages at the two critical phases in the process, and those advantages are compounded when the applications talk to each other.

Step One: Capturing Inspection Data

Paper forms were once the best option for equipment inspections. They remain the norm for many contractors. Drawbacks of a paperbased process, however, begin with having the right forms available. Foremen or project managers must maintain a large library of forms to cover each piece of equipment or resort to generic forms. The former is cumbersome. The latter makes forms longer and more difficult to complete and can limit the ability to capture important data specific to each asset.

An application for electronic forms and re-

Software allows contractors to improve equipment safety, uptime, and repair costs by completing inspections with electronic forms and generating repair requests automatically. porting gives contractors the ability to customize forms for any purpose, including equipment inspections, in minutes to record the exact information they want and need. The latest forms are easy to access online and easy to fill out on a mobile device, increasing the likelihood that they get completed thoroughly and on time.

Features like pre-populated dropdown menus, check boxes, radio buttons, and required fields make filling out forms easier and faster and they improve the accuracy and structure of the data. Timestamps and GPS locations, electronic signatures, and photo or video attachments

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Technology in Construction continued from page 63 repair request will be generated automatically also increase the value and validity of form data. is relatively straightforward. Accurate electronic These capabilities just can’t be matched with pa- data from the inspection forms, including deper. scriptions, and photos can then flow directly into the repair requests.

Step Two: The Hand-off to the Shop This type of equipment inspection work-

Once an inspection is completed with an flow is easy to adopt and brings electronic electronic form, the advantages over a paper immediacy and automation to a routine proprocess continue. Paper forms typically pass cess. Contractors can eliminate errors, unthrough several hands and are notorious for certainty, and miscommunication between riding in pickup trucks for several days before the field and the shop, and make it easier getting from a jobsite to the office or shop. for their maintenance teams to prioritize and Many never reach their intended destination. schedule repairs for maximum efficiency, upWhen they do, handwriting can be hard to de- time, and safety. n cipher, resulting in mistakes, incomplete information, or the need for inefficient back-andforth conversations between the operations and maintenance teams.

Electronic forms are submitted with a click. Information about defects or required repairs gets to the people that can do something about them instantly, so the work gets done faster and more efficiently. In many cases, small problems can be corrected before they become bigger and more expensive problems.

Construction companies gain further efficiency and accuracy when they link an application for electronic forms with software for managing equipment maintenance. Data on the inspection forms can then trigger repair requests to be created automatically by the maintenance software, avoiding redundant manual data 625 Pleasant Street Watertown, 625 Pleasant Street Watertown, transfer that takes time and opens up opportunities for er- MA MA... 617 617--924 924--3673 3673 rors. With the right software combination, mapping fields from watertownford.com watertownford.com the inspection forms to the repair request format and defining the conditions under which

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