A new year, a renewed focus. In the January spirit of resolutions and the quest for improvement, have you planned your maintenance goals this year? Trapeze Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) can help. In this blog we reflect on how your peers use EAM to help them realize their goals for improving efficiency and controlling costs, how to set yourself up for maintenance success, and trends to watch.
When Candace Moore arrived at AAATA in 2018 as the Manager of Fleet Services for TheRide, she wanted to analyze the efficiency of the agency’s maintenance practices. Candace quickly learned that Trapeze’s EAM system currently in use was a valuable resource for data. But she also recognized that ‘data for data’s sake’ has no intrinsic value – it needs to be actionable. Looking to optimize AAATA’s use of EAM, Candace sought out the Trapeze team to assist.
Identifying and tracking effective key performance indicators ( KPIs) enabled AAATA to optimize the rich data generated from EAM and improve its maintenance efficiency and control costs. As a result, AAATA saw substantial efficiency improvements.
From AAATA to MARTA, the agency optimized its maintenance practices by first optimizing its use of EAM. Trapeze and MARTA worked together to evaluate MARTA’s EAM workflows, updated best practices and software configurations to improve its maintenance analytics and efficiency.
MARTA is the ninth largest transit authority in North America with nearly 5000 employees. The agency has been using Trapeze EAM since 2006. MARTA uses EAM to manage its bus, paratransit, non-revenue, track work vehicles, rail facilities, and maintenance of way (MOW) assets. With MOW alone, MARTA improved operational efficiency by 70% by interfacing EAM with its graphical track maintenance tool.
Like any system in use for a while, the team fell into comfortable patterns. Through attrition, MARTA discovered that some tribal knowledge and nuances for using the system were lost. Some of the business units were not aware of updated functionality. Jonathan Weaver, a long-time MARTA employee, became the Manager of Operations Technology in November 2022. He started asking questions about EAM: What does it do for us? How can it make us better? Jonathan decided to bring Trapeze onsite to share with the team features and functions they might be missing, as well as the latest in transit best practice workflows.
When MST Facilities went live with EAM Mobile, the agency worked with Trapeze to ensure that the system was configured to be easy to operate for technicians and maintenance staff in the field. MST has 400 repair task types in EAM and 15 total repair reasons for its facility assets. By creating work order codes for PM inspections, repair groups and tasks, repair reasons, work classes, work accomplished codes, and inspection procedures, these codes have simplified the process.
Staff using EAM mobile can easily pick a code from the list. This process has cut down significantly the time staff must search in EAM.
One of the trends that occurred post-Covid and continues into 2024, is a shortage of maintenance technicians. Agencies are having to do more with less staff. Doing more with less means technicians need support to enable them to do their jobs easier and smarter. Providing technicians with easy access to schematics, parts, and work orders in the field is critical. MST improved efficiency and data accuracy with EAM mobile. All work activities are now recorded in EAM, enabling MST to capture true costs with improved data elements for its facility assets.
So how can EAM set you up for success in 2024? Beyond setting KPIs, ensure you are:
As noted in the MARTA example above, many of our customers are only using a small percentage of EAM’s capabilities. That’s where a health check and optimization strategy come into play. As we build our solution, we continue to evolve. How long ago did you install EAM? What version are you on? There may be features in the tool that by simply turning them on could give you immediate value. As an EAM customer, it’s time to take another look at how you are using existing features or consider adding these features to your EAM toolkit.
All your mobile technicians are on the move and capturing data via a portable hand-held device ensures your organization has the most reliable data from which to make business decisions. Additionally, Mobile PDAs can be utilized in the parts room, for pull-out inspections, consist inspections and for track and signal inspection and work orders. MobileFocus works in wireless, store/forward wireless, or in batch mode, providing our customers with the most flexibility possible.
Trapeze’s integrated Illustrated Parts Catalog (IPC) allows foreman and technicians to quickly look up parts needed by drilling into schematic diagrams and transfer that list of needed parts to an open work order or parts request, saving time and effort. This module radically improves efficiency in your shop by eliminating the cumbersome process of searching through paper manuals and walking requests over to the parts room. When retiring vehicles, easily scan multiple manuals to see where parts can be repurposed.
In addition to rolling stock, you are responsible for maintaining wayside assets, including stationary (signals, switches, etc.) and linear infrastructure (track, catenary lines, electric traction and more). You need rail solutions to help plan and track the defects, inspections, repairs, and maintenance. Our approach has been to build industry-leading linear capabilities right into EAM for use by the Maintenance of Way/Track, and Signals departments. EAM Linear extends our maintenance management functionality with the use of a powerful linear reference system (segments, markers, offsets).
One of the trends we’ve seen in 2023 and continuing into 2024, is agencies choosing to integrate an Enterprise Asset Management system (EAM) and an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP). An ERP handles day to day financial and HR transactions whereas a transit-focused EAM makes sure all your passenger facing vehicles and facilities are safe, reliable, and fully functional. Transit assets—buses, trolleys, rail, and fixed assets—are far more complex than typical assets found outside transit. Transit workflows are also highly specialized: pre-trip inspections, state of good repair, vehicle fueling/charging, component rebuilds, asset configuration management, plus specific regulatory reporting (TAM, NTD reports, etc.). The range of asset types and workflows is far beyond the capabilities of ERP solutions with a focus on managing the financial side of the organization.
Shoehorning transit assets into an ERP leads to problems down the road including:
A single ERP + EAM interface means reports can be generated faster, more consistently, and more holistically across the agency. Your data is vetted, complete, and accurate knowing it’s handled the same way across the entire system. Each system becomes the “best of breed” single source of truth for your agency. You get the most out of both systems when you let them each focus on what they do best. Our Trapeze EAM team have extensive experience interfacing with ERP systems.
As always, we welcome your feedback. Meeting with our customers onsite, via our Collaborate customer online community, and at our annual ThinkTransit user conference, we continue to build our EAM solution to meet the specific needs of transit. We are focused on usability — enabling you to work smarter, not harder and do more with less. Stay tuned for more exciting updates in 2024.
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