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Realworld Eastern Europe – Business of approx. 20 million lei, increasing by 25% compared to the previous year

Realworld Eastern Europe, one of the local players in software solutions market, part of the Dutch holding Realworld Systems, achieved a turnover of approximately 20 million lei (4 million euros), which represents an 18% increase compared to 2021, when it recorded a business of 16 million lei.

This growth was primarily driven by an internal restructuring process and a 25% increase in expanding the team, particularly in the sales and delivery areas, which resulted in its consolidation in line with the values promoted throughout the group.

Another element that led to the increase in turnover was the focus on existing customers and the optimization of projects carried out with them, as well as taking over new companies in the portfolio, such as Swisscom, one of the largest European telecom operators, which decided to call upon the services of Realworld Eastern Europe for the integration of the Smallworld solution.

2022 was a busy year for us and we were involved in many important projects, among which we can mention the newest project concluded with Orange Romania, with the support of CROSS NI – OSS Network Consolidation. It was signed at the end of 2022, and the delivery process began in January 2023, to be fully implemented in the coming years. The project involves the integration of CROSS Inventory into the OSS/BSS ecosystem to unify information about Orange’s infrastructure, to help business continuity, but, more importantly, to adapt to the continuously developing infrastructure“, said Bogdan Hebean, Managing Director of Realworld Eastern Europe.

In 2022, most of the activities were focused on implementing and developing the Smallworld application for the main telecom operators in Romania, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as continuing the development process with customers, for greater efficiency in daily operations for inventorying and documenting networks.

“In 2021 we were actively involved in a series of business process automation projects using the Cortex solution – an intelligent automation and process orchestration solution that we managed to implement in the largest telecom companies in Romania. Realworld Eastern Europe team improved its project delivery methodology and optimized internal customers processes. This is the main advantage being a reduction in the required working times”, added Bogdan Hebean.

For 2023, the company aims to develop increasingly complex projects for customers, offering them end-to-end solutions in areas such as Integration and Orchestration, GeoSpatial, Enterprise Management, with a focus on a revenue increase by 18%. Realworld’s focus will remain on industries in which it already has experience, such as telecom, banking, or manufacturing.

With 25 years of experience on the Romanian market, Realworld Eastern Europe is one of the main providers of professional services and GIS solutions for companies that develop and operate geographically distributed networks and infrastructures, such as telecommunications, water supply and sewage, transportation and distribution of electricity and gas. The company also delivers and integrates process automation and orchestration solutions as well as digitalization solutions for maintenance processes in the local market.

The solutions we propose aim to digitally transform our clients, talking here about very large companies. Digital transformation primarily involves a radical change in the way people work. This is probably the most complicated and challenging aspect of our work, being the reason why the sales cycle is so long. We have solutions that ensure a natural transition to new processes so that workforce transformation can be done as plain as possible”, concluded the company representative.

Realworld Eastern Europe will implement the CROSS solution within Orange Romania

Realworld Eastern Europe, local partner of CNI, will implement the network inventory solution of the Czech supplier, CROSS Network Intelligence (CNI), for Orange Romania. The local company that provides professional services and integration solutions for organizations that develop and operate networks and infrastructures for geographically distributed services has the advantage of benefiting from a team that possesses extensive technical expertise in the industry of question, especially in the field of GIS integration. Also, Realworld Eastern Europe has a close collaboration with both CNI and Orange Romania, for many years.

“The consolidation of the OSS stack represents a big challenge for all CSPs. With a relationship dating over 20 years, Realworld Eastern Europe is both a strategic system integrator and a trusted technology adviser for Orange Romania. Choosing CROSS NI as the main OSS integration tool for their consolidation project was the natural suggestion, considering the size and complexity of the Tier 1 Telco Operator’s infrastructure.”,

Stated Bogdan Hebean, Managing Director of Realworld Eastern Europe.

With its unique ability to consolidate and contextualize assets from a variety of data sources and network layers (especially physical and logical), CROSS will support Orange Romania in building a single coherent model of their network . This dynamic data model, combined with valuable tools and insights, will further support their transformational goals, such as optimizing operations, accommodating new customers, and realizing impactful OPEX savings. It will also help to easily identify customers affected by a potential outage and highlight areas of risk in the network, thereby improving network resilience in those areas.

The project, kicked off at the beginning of this year, will bring for Orange Romania the integration of CROSS Inventory in the OSS/BSS ecosystem to unify information about the Orange infrastructure, to support business continuity, but more importantly, to adapt to the continuously developing infrastructure, with the ultimate goal of achieving zero-touch automation.

About CROSS Network Intelligence

CROSS Network Intelligence has been implementing its flagship OSS solution CROSS at major Telecom Operators across Europe since 2013. The CNI team has deep industry experience in the OSS/BSS marketplace with a solid track record of designing, implementing and supporting solutions at a local, regional, and global scale that are still in service today.

Digitalization of Promissory Notes Submission

Situation

New technological developments are exerting competitive pressure on banks, demanding more efficient and convenient online services. You most probably need to react to the changes in your customer behavior, to keep up as well.

Lately there was a significant impact on digital transformation, creating a direct need for you, as a financial institute, to communicate with your customers through digital channels, such as platforms and apps. It’s not a novelty that the number of digital users has increased globally by 23% in the last 2 years and it’s still growing.

Convenience and, above all, user-friendliness seem to be behind the success, as customers appreciate being able to access all their financial services via mobile devices. And the simpler to use, the better.

Generally, promissory notes (PN) represent an alternative to traditional bank loans. These debt instruments are being used frequently on the local market between legal entities. Although the process is still under bureaucracy, a new legal context will allow you to process the PNs in a digital manner.

Challenges

Manual work and human error leave agents having to check PNs in bulk when the customer has brought them at the bank. Afterwards, a 2nd review is made by the reporting back-office team to check and correct the errors, catching only part of the PNs.

What should be noted is that this is done for thousands of PNs each month.

Solution

Our aim is to create a digital opportunity for the bank’s customers, by scanning the original PNs directly into the app, through a secure digital channel. Thus, we decrease the visits to bank branches and front-end representatives gain more time.

We’ve integrated the intelligent automation platform with an OCR system and the mobile banking application. When customers fill in a PN, instead of going to the bank to submit it, they can scan it directly into the app. Then, the system validates it. If something is wrong with the PN, the app will not accept it, requesting a scan of a new and correct PN.

We also optimized the existing flow as well, customers still having the option to leave PNs in a bank branch. When the customer submits the PNs in bulk, the agent skips the manual validation step, and scans them directly. Our solution checks for errors & alerts the bank agent for any incomplete or incorrect PN.

Furthermore, a reporting dashboard was created, to have a complete overview of scanned PNs, as bank branches are processing thousands of them each month.

Outcomes

For the bank’s customers:

  • Decreased the time and costs spent on bringing the PNs to the bank
  • Increased customer experience, offering a transparent digital alternative
  • Own control on their PN’s status – realtime reporting

For the bank:

  • Saving 100h monthly of manual processing: agents can focus on customer relationship and the reporting team can work on other tasks
  • Decreased human error, by having a digital solution validating the hand-written PNs
  • Optimized End2End PN processing flow

Enhanced Customer Experience

  • Enriched Customer Trust & Loyalty
  • Reduced Human Error
  • Optimized End2End Workflow

Increased Team Performance
Full Audit Trail for Governance & Compliance
Reduced Operational Time

START YOUR INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION JOURNEY TODAY!

www.realworld-systems.com | info-ro@realworld-systems.com

The local business process automation industry will grow by 15% in 2023

  • Telecom industry, leader in the adoption of process automation systems
  • Digital banking alternatives are forcing the industry to accelerate process automation

The automation of business processes will gain even more momentum, this year, at the local level and is starting to be accessed by more and more industries that want to simplify the activities of operational teams. Thus, at the level of our country, the BPA (Business Process Automation) market will grow in 2023 by approx. 15% vs. 2022, in line with the increase reported internationally.

“The trend is in line with the global one, where the BPA industry is in full swing, especially in the current market context, economically unstable and with a low degree of predictability. Studies show that the value of the global business process automation market will grow from approx. 12.4 billion dollars in 2022 to approx. 14.02 billion dollars in 2023. Also, according to The Business Research Company*, by 2027, the value of this market may reach 22.94 billion dollars”, said Bogdan Hebean, Managing Director of Realworld Eastern Europe, one among the local software integration market players.

The main automation processes are implemented for repetitive tasks, which the operations team spends too much time solving, with marginal added value. But by integrating a BPA system, the company can have a number of major advantages, such as improving the customer experience or relieving employees from key roles of repetitive tasks and training them in activities and work processes with higher efficiency.

Telecom – reference industry in BPA

According to the representative of Realworld Eastern Europe, at the level of our country, one of the industries with the most automated processes is telecom. This trend plays a key role, becoming one of the main factors towards innovation, efficiency, success and, in the current context, leading to lower costs. Automation in telecommunications means faster definition and provisioning of mobile and fixed services. By reducing the time and costs required to activate and deliver services, operators will be able to gain and maintain a new customer base much more easily.

The main benefit of BPA systems in the telecom industry is reduced operational costs by providing a scalable and automated customer experience, streamlined services and optimized internal processes.

Another important aspect is the efficient flow of data in the context where automation can process information at a much higher rate than traditional processes, optimizing the entire ecosystem of a business.

Moreover, automation of network monitoring has emerged as a trend. With the rise of IoT devices, the advent of 5G, network virtualization and various other new technologies, the traditional approach to data collection and analysis is no longer adequate. As a result, coordination of all these elements becomes crucial and automation of the process, where possible, is the preferred solution.

Realworld Eastern Europe has already implemented a series of process automation systems within Orange Romania, one of the main players in the telecom industry. One of these involved triggering and monitoring processes related to billing, disk backup, and many other repetitive but critical operational tasks.

The banking industry is catching up with the process automation trend

Beyond the telecom industry, where BPA is already being widely adopted locally, the banking industry is one of those that is seeing an acceleration of process automation projects.

This sector has gone through a major digital transformation in recent years, especially as a result of the pandemic situation in 2020. The context has forced the offering to customers to move more and more to online or tele-sales.

“Thus, they encountered the need for rapid digitization, especially since, recently, digital banking alternatives have grown in interest, with digital-friendly customers adopting such products more and more”, Bogdan Hebean also said.

He emphasized that, in this context, he noticed a growing increase in the rate of adoption of BPA systems by the local banking sector, a trend he estimates will continue in the coming years.

Business process automation global market report

About Realworld Eastern Europe

Realworld Eastern Europe, a company founded in 1998, is part of the Dutch holding Realworld Systems, with a presence in the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Romania, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia and the USA.

The company offers professional services and integration solutions for organizations that develop and operate networks and infrastructures for geographically distributed services, such as: banking telecommunications, water supply and sanitation, electricity and gas transport and distribution. In addition, the company develops and delivers maintenance management and digitization solutions.

One of the main benefits brought by Realworld Eastern Europe is the speed of reaction and offering solutions focused on the specific problems of each individual client. The company also stands out as a long-term partner for the clients it works with, offering stability and a deep understanding of their challenges.

Realworld Eastern Europe has a team of consultants and developers passionate about automating and orchestrating business processes, which aims to improve the operational performance of clients around the world.

Get Your Organisation Ready for Kubernetes with Realworld Training

GSS on Kubernetes

You do not read about the technical detail underneath this solution in the flyers, websites, and case studies. Why should you? This stuff is complicated! 

Luckily, there are people who truly enjoy the technical details that can assist. Technicians are meticulous with respect to technical details, but what about the organisational aspects of such a technology implementation? Is your organisation ready? 

This training aims to help management-level employees understand what organisational aspects need to change due to technical innovations. Talk the talk with the technicians to ask the right questions but, more importantly, get the organisation right for the technician to perform at their best. 

In just one half-day session, you will learn to talk the talk. Know what organisational changes to plan for upgrading to the newest version of GSS (GeoSpatial Server by GE Smallworld). 

GE Smallworld

GE Digital selected Kubernetes to implement their solution for web technology. A good and logical choice from a technical perspective. From Smallworld version CST 5.2 upwards, you need to implement Kubernetes for your web API services. 

Be aware Kubernetes is not just an application! It is a network infrastructure, a system administration environment, and an application development environment all at once. 

Lacking a proper organisational foundation is a recipe for failure.

Organisational readiness

Is your organisation ready to implement and use the new Kubernetes infrastructure? Do you know what to change?

It is not that you can choose to use Kubernetes: It is a must! 

Smallworld GeoSpatial Server (GSS) is built on Kubernetes from version 5.2 onwards. It may feel like you are forced into doing something you may not want to do just yet.

Nevertheless, the future is here, and there truly are benefits. This is your opportunity to acclimatise. 

Training

Realworld understands that organisations may not be ready for such a change and therefore created a training program for management-level employees to learn how to speak the language of Kubernetes.

During the training, you will learn the basic concepts and organisational changes that need to take effect. 

With this knowledge, you start embedding Kubernetes within your organisation, where the right responsibilities are allocated to the right process owners.

The training is conducted via Microsoft Teams during normal business hours based on CET (Europe) time zone. Interested parties may request a suitable timeslot. The duration of the training is about four hours.

The price for the training is €1000 per attendee. Preferable group sizes are three to five persons.

Contact details

Contact Realworld for a training appointment, more details, or questions: 

Gert Wijsman: Gert.wijsman@realworld-systems.com

Realworld EE: Soluțiile de Mentenanță Predictivă pot crește rentabilitatea companiilor producătoare

  • Maintenance Connection, platformă scalabilă de gestionare a activelor pentru companii, aduce beneficii anuale tipice de 3,4 mil. USD*
  • Anual, la nivel global se pierd aproximativ 8 miliarde USD doar în industria prelucrătoare din cauza timpilor de nefuncționare a echipamentelor

București, 27 Iulie 2022 – Peste 56% dintre companii continuă să funcționeze în modul reactiv în ceea ce privește mentenanța de bunuri – utilaje, echipamente – în loc să abordeze întreținerea preventivă, ceea ce conduce, la nivel global, la pierderi de 8 miliarde de USD anual, conform estimărilor Realworld Eastern Europe, companie de integrare de soluții software, parte a holding-ului olandez Realworld Systems.

Reducerea numărului de defecțiuni, concomitent cu scăderea timpului de intervenție, cât și adoptarea tehnologiilor de colectare de date în timp real sunt aspecte cheie în mentenanță. Astfel, piața globală de Mentenanță Predictivă este estimată să atingă valoarea de 6,3 miliarde USD în acest an și se află în continuare într-un ritm susținut de creștere, potrivit unui raport al Market Research Future**.

Se estimează că Mentenanța Predictivă, care are capacitatea de a utiliza analiza datelor pentru a optimiza întreținerea echipamentelor și pentru a îmbunătăți infrastructura industrială învechită va fi folosită de 83% dintre companiile producătoare în următorii doi ani. Mentenanța Predictivă în fabrici ar putea reduce costurile cu 12%, îmbunătăți timpul de funcționare cu 9%, reduce riscurile legate de siguranță si sănătate (H&S) cu 14% și extinde durata de viață a unui activ învechit cu 20%, conform unui raport PWC**.

O soluție dezvoltată de Accruent și aflată în portofoliul Realworld Eastern Europe este Maintenance Connection, un sistem computerizat de management al mentenanței (CMMS) care reduce timpul de nefuncționare a echipamentelor, poate preveni defecțiunile și eficientizează procesele de intervenții și revizii, gestionând astfel, la un nivel complex, întreținerea echipamentelor companiilor.

“Maintenance Connection este o platformă flexibilă, intuitivă, scalabilă, care permite gestionarea echipamentelor pentru întreprinderi și companii, concepută pentru a ajuta profesioniștii în mentenanță să obțină o perspectivă asupra ciclului de viață al echipamentelor. Beneficiile se leagă de prelungirea duratei de viață a activelor, de reducerea timpul de nefuncționare, îmbunătățirea productivității, cheltuieli mai mici legate de inventarierea echipamentelor. Practic, prin implementarea Maintenance Connection, este maximizată productivitatea, asigurând o amortizare a investiției în mai puțin de 12 luni”, a declarat Bogdan Hebean, Managing Director Realworld Eastern Europe.

Soluția are aplicabilitate într-o varietate de industrii precum cea producătoare, energetică, farmaceutică, dar și pentru spitale, aeroporturi și alte entități care dețin echipamente critice.

 Soluția recomandată de Realworld EE este implementată de către companii de renume precum Bayer, L’Oreal, Nissan, Saint Gobain, Delta, Valvoline, Volvo, Siemens, GAP, Nordstrom cu o rată de success de 98% (rată de utilizare și reînnoire a subscripției) și se integrează ușor în arhitectura software a companiilor.

De altfel, numărul mare de companii care adoptă, treptat, soluții de Mentenanță Preventivă este dovedit de dimensiunea pieței globale de întreținere predictivă care se estimează că va ajunge la peste 62,5 miliarde euro până în 2030*.

*Media beneficiilor anuale obținute conform unei analize realizate în rândul a 880 de companii utilizatoare CMMS

**surse

https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5403213/predictive-maintenance-market-by-component-by

https://www.comarch.com/telecommunications/blog/the-emergence-of-predictive-maintenance-40/

https://www.pwc.be/en/documents/20180926-pdm40-beyond-the-hype-report.pdf

https://www.anodot.com/blog/predictive-maintenance/

https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/enterprise-asset-management-software/vendor/accruent/product/maintenance-connection-eam/review/view/4208408#product-capabilities

###

Despre Realworld Eastern Europe

Realworld Eastern Europe, companie fondată în 1998, este parte din holding-ul olandez Realworld Systems, cu prezență în Olanda, Marea Britanie, Germania, Ungaria, România, Africa de Sud, Indonezia, Australia și SUA.

Compania oferă servicii profesionale şi soluții GIS pentru organizațiile care dezvoltă şi operează reţele şi infrastructuri pentru servicii publice distribuite geografic, ca de exemplu: telecomunicaţii, alimentare cu apă şi canalizare, transportul şi distribuţia energiei electrice şi a gazului. În plus, compania dezvoltă și livrează soluții de gestionare a mentenanței și de digitalizare.

Unele dintre principalele beneficii aduse de Realworld Eastern Europe sunt viteza de reacție și oferirea de soluții axate pe problemele specifice ale fiecărui client în parte. De asemenea, compania se remarcă drept un partener pe termen lung pentru clienții cu care lucrează, oferind stabilitate și înțelegerea profundă a provocărilor acestora.

Realworld Eastern Europe dispune de o echipă de consultanți cu o experienţă de peste 20 de ani în achiziţionarea şi prelucrarea datelor geospaţiale, precum şi în dezvoltarea şi implementarea de soluţii GIS pentru clienţii din întreaga lume.

Realworld EE: Predictive Maintenance solutions can increase the profitability of manufacturing companies

  • Maintenance Connection, a scalable enterprise asset management platform, delivers typical annual benefits of $3.4M*
  • Annually, approximately $8 billion are lost globally in the manufacturing industry alone due to equipment downtime.

Bucharest, 27 July 2022 – More than 56% of companies continue to operate in a reactive mode instead of employing a predictive maintenance approach which translates to a  global loss of 8 billion USD annually, according to estimates by Realworld Eastern Europe, a software solutions integration company, part of the Dutch holding company Realworld Systems.

Reducing the number of failures, simultaneously with decreasing intervention time, as well as the adoption of real-time data collection technologies are key aspects of maintenance. Therefore, the global Predictive Maintenance market is estimated to reach 6.3 billion USD this year and continues to grow at a sustained pace, according to a report by Market Research Future**.

Predictive Maintenance, which has the ability to use data analytics to optimise equipment maintenance and improve aging industrial infrastructure, is estimated to be used by 83% of manufacturing companies in the next two years. Predictive maintenance in factories could reduce costs by 12%, improve uptime by 9%, reduce health and safety (H&S) risks by 14% and extend the life of an aging asset by 20%, according to a PWC report **.

A solution developed by Accruent, part of the Realworld Eastern Europe portfolio, is Maintenance Connection, a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) that reduces equipment downtime, can prevent breakdowns, and streamline the processes of interventions and overhauls, thus managing, at a complex level, maintenance of the companies’ equipment.

“Maintenance Connection is a flexible, intuitive, scalable enterprise equipment management platform designed to help maintenance professionals gain insight into the equipment lifecycle. The benefits are related to extending the life of assets, reducing downtime, improving productivity, and lowering expenses related to equipment inventory. Practically, by implementing Maintenance Connection, productivity is maximised, ensuring a return on the investment in less than 12 months”, said Bogdan Hebean, Managing Director of Realworld Eastern Europe.

The solution has applicability in a variety of industries such as manufacturing, energy, and pharmaceutical, but also for hospitals, airports, and other entities that own critical equipment.

Realworld EE’s solution is implemented by companies such as Bayer, L’Oreal, Nissan, Saint Gobain, Delta, Valvoline, Volvo, Siemens, GAP, and Nordstrom with a 98% success rate (subscription usage and renewal rate) and easily integrates into companies’ software architecture.

Moreover, the large number of companies gradually adopting Preventive Maintenance solutions is proven by the size of the global predictive maintenance market which is estimated to reach over 62.5 billion euros by 2030*.

* Average annual benefits achieved according to an analysis of 880 companies using CMMS

**Sources

https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5403213/predictive-maintenance-market-by-component-by

https://www.pwc.be/en/documents/20180926-pdm40-beyond-the-hype-report.pdf

https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/enterprise-asset-management-software/vendor/accruent/product/maintenance-connection-eam/review/view/4208408#product-capabilities

###

About Realworld Eastern Europe

Realworld Eastern Europe, a company founded in 1998, is part of the Dutch-holding Realworld Systems, with a presence in the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Romania, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, and the USA.

The company provides professional services and GIS solutions for organisations that develop and operate networks and infrastructures for geographically distributed public services, such as telecommunications, water supply and sewerage, electricity and gas transport, and distribution. In addition, the company develops and delivers maintenance management and digitalisation solutions.

Some of the main benefits brought by Realworld Eastern Europe are the speed of reaction and offering solutions focused on the specific problems of each individual client. The company also stands out as a long-term partner for the clients it works with, offering stability and a deep understanding of their challenges.

Realworld Eastern Europe has a team of consultants with over 20 years of experience in the acquisition and processing of geospatial data, as well as in the development and implementation of GIS solutions for clients around the world.

A Brave New World

The Splunk .conf 2022 has been a truly inspiring convention where we made new friends and started new partnerships. In this post, we want to share our technical inspiration, and thank Justin Brown for drawing us into his presentation by naming it “React UI and Splunk: Fast, Flexible and Really, Really, Ridiculously Good Looking Dashboards”. That one we just had to attend!

A brave new world

For those of you who are web developers, React UI might be what you are living and breathing. As Splunk app developers, however, we are used to building dashboards in a declarative fashion in an XML file called ‘Simple XML’. This makes it really easy to build beautiful dashboards. You have many options at your disposal but will eventually find yourself restricted by the components provided unless you are willing to invest in some JavaScript development to customise it for more intuitive and appealing styling.  As you can imagine, this is exactly what we have been doing. We started to reach the limits of what was technically possible but still wanted to provide an even better experience for our dashboard users. Then along came this presentation, opening the door to a whole new world, and a whole new can of worms.

But why?

The promise of React in Splunk is that you get access to all the components from the Splunk UI toolkit that you can use in a declarative fashion (XML or JSON) and then some, but this time you get to control where they appear. This might at first sound like more work to achieve the same result, but there is more! You also get to control when they refresh, and you can add your own. This is big, because as soon as you start to push the boundaries of Simple XML, your dashboard will start to run far more searches against the Splunk database than is actually needed to populate the dashboard.  The result of moving to React? Your dashboard will be much more responsive and consistent, and yes, it will be ridiculously good-looking.

Is it done yet?

Well, no. There are quite a few things to arrange before seeing your first React UI dashboard in Splunk. Where you first needed to edit a single XML file for a complete dashboard, you now need to import the desired components and define the layout in a .jsx file, style it in another file, and compile the whole thing into a .js file using Babel.  Suffice it to say that if you are not a web developer, you have your work cut out for you. If you like a good puzzle though, then you will have a blast! So with our team, we are currently setting up a new build street with Node JS for development on Amazon Linux, using Visual Studio Code to edit the code remotely over SSH (yes, you can), and bind mounting each team member’s stage (output) area into a personal Splunk search head Docker container so they can review their build output before committing their sources.

A/B? Go!

To challenge ourselves to get the most out of this new technology, we defined a test where we will be redesigning our most popular dashboard with the goal of making it easier to find answers. This dashboard is called ‘Replay user clicks’, which our customers use to retrace the steps of a Smallworld GIS operator when investigating a bug report.  We will produce two new versions, which will be A/B tested. We expect that this new technology will greatly help us to provide our Diagnostics users with even better dashboards, and we look forward to the A/B test in a few weeks.  Have a great day, and happy Splunking! Get in touch to find out more. 

How To Use Your Cmms To Document An AEM Program

AEM programs can be key in improving your operations and increasing the usability, useful life, and resource utilisation of your structures, systems and assets (SSAs). That said, successful implementation of an AEM program is often easier said than done, but the right CMMS system can help.  

What Is An AEM Program?  

The term AEM — whether you take it to mean, “Alternate Equipment Management” (CMS) or “Alternative Equipment Maintenance” (TJC) — involves the alteration of manufacturer maintenance requirements to gain advantages in usability, useful life, resource utilisation, or support of your structures, systems, and assets (SSAs). In other words, it helps you modify your maintenance plans to optimise your SSAs.  

What’s more, a successful AEM programme will also use learn methodologies to help users identify activities that can be adjusted to maintain, or increase, the safety of the SSA while reducing expenses (usually related to labour, materials, or parts).

Unfortunately, implementing an effective AEM programme is often easier said than done. 

Why? Remember, an AEM is meant to help modify a manufacturer’s service requirements — usually a Preventive/Planned Maintenance check or service. It is not designed to reduce or eliminate failures or breakdowns (that is another conversation). 

To get it right, considerable time must be spent analysing the service history of the SSA under review, and specific attention must be placed on those service events that could have been prevented (or caused) by an alteration defined by the manufacturer. 

This kind of legwork is difficult to get right, especially if you don’t have the right tools in place.  

The Right CMMS Can Help  

The right CMMS can be used to record most of the documentation requirements for an AEM programme. Here, we’ll focus on a few key data values that make a compliant AEM possible, while also ensuring your SSA inventory management needs are met.  

The Data You Need To Record In Your CMMS  

To build the data required to develop your AEM plan, your CMMS must be able to record several key data components in at least three areas of the programme: work orders, inventory, and schedules. Here are key data values that should be available on each corrective maintenance-type work order:  

  • PM Preventable: Add a field used to identify if the service\issue could have been prevented by either modified or additional PM checks and services. There should be two choices—” yes” and “no” – and this field should be required.
  • Failure Code: Failure codes are used to identify why the SSA was unable to perform its function (mission). Having standardised, concise failure codes are a critical data value for many types of analysis. 
  • SSA Downtime: It’s imperative that service issues that result in SSA unavailability record their downtime, to be critically analysed later. The cost of asset downtime must be calculated into total asset cost and lost revenue, and will impact service contracts if uptime metrics are involved.
  • Failure Effect: Was any system, personnel, or process negatively affected by the service issue? If so, this is important to note.  

Within the SSA inventory section, your CMMS should be able to assign values for these attributes on each record:  

  • Risk Classification: CMS, accrediting bodies, and NFPA all require you to classify items in the inventory as critical/high risk, non-critical/non-high risk, and Category 1-4. Many HFM SSAs will need CMS risk and NFPA risk classifications, so the ability to develop and apply two specialised fields is essential.
  • Risk Assessment: This is a review of the risk to staff and surroundings in the event of failure as well as during use.
  • AEM Inclusion Values: Has the SSA been evaluated? Is it included in the AEM? If not, why? If so, what has changed?
  • Manufacturer & Model Values: Using standard and consistent values across SSAs is required for AEM documentation, since the history analysis must be available for that type of SSA, for benchmarking and industry review. Defining your inventory by manufacturer and model also promotes accurate procurement and performance analysis. Recall management is also critically dependent on identifying SSAs by manufacturer, model, and serial number.
  • In-service Dates: Without this critical data point, no accurate lifecycle analysis, mean-time-between-failures, or other service history analytics can be performed, and they cannot be expected to return defendable data values. You must know when an SSA went into service to determine all service-related data values.

Next, each SSA should have the original manufacturers’ requirements recorded (i.e.: frequency and procedures), to ensure that specific documentation requirements are met. From there, any changes made to these requirements must be recorded as well. The original requirements can be documented in various ways:  

  • Uploaded and\or available from the SSA record as physical documents (i.e.: Word file, PDF, etc.).
  • CMMS scheduled activity records that have been deactivated (i.e.: PM\IN schedules).
  • Procedures that have been deactivated after changes have been made.

Finally, you will also need the analytics used in review and AEM inclusion, including:  

  • The source of the work order\service history.
  • The records that were reviewed.
  • The name(s) and qualifications of those performing the review.
  • The name(s) and qualifications of the final authority for inclusion.
  • Mean-time between PM-preventable failures, etc.  

A modern CMMS would have the ability to create all these fields and to store and/or access these documents on-demand, in support of AEM procedures.

If your CMMS cannot perform these activities, contact Realworld Systems to see what a modern-day, highly capable CMMS looks like.

How To Increase CMMS Adoption & Get Your Team On Board

Learn some tips to address potential challenges from your team and how to implement CMMS adoption for your company.

A computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) is a powerful software that can streamline maintenance operations, increase the asset lifecycle, improve employee productivity and increase your business’ overall ROI.

But it will only work if your entire team is on board and using the software properly. Without this kind of comprehensive adoption, you will run into the same problems that you had before you bought the CMMS – things like incomplete information, inaccurate data, or disparate information housed across many different systems or formats.

This is something that businesses often get wrong: according to one survey, 61% of maintenance managers find implementing new software somewhat challenging and only 39% of businesses admit to using a CMMS consistently to track maintenance tasks. That is because there are many things that can go wrong: training can be executed incorrectly or incompletely, the system can be misconfigured, or there can be resistance to the technology – the list goes on.

That said, adoption is absolutely essential to proper CMMS operations. This requires top-to-bottom, cultural shifts in practices and mindsets. Here is how to get it right.

What Does CMMS Adoption Mean?

Broadly speaking, the term “CMMS adoption” simply refers to the widespread and correct use of CMMS software during an organisation’s day-to-day operations. The idea here is simple: you can have the best technology in the world, but if your employees do not like it, do not understand it or do not use it, it will not work as it should. You need widespread adoption to reap the benefits of your CMMS tool.

Unfortunately, this is often hard to achieve. According to one survey on CMMS adoption, only 52% of maintenance managers say that their technicians update work orders in the field (despite mobile compatibility being one of the key benefits of a modern CMMS), while 38% say that those work orders are updated from a desktop and 10% say they are not updated at all.

This is a huge issue. The whole purpose of a CMMS is to streamline maintenance activity in one comprehensive, up-to-date system – and that simply cannot work if people are not actually using the system properly.

Widespread CMMS adoption requires that all relevant personnel be on board, including:

  • Technicians
  • System administrators and maintenance managers
  • Operators
  • Inventory managers 
  • Executives
  • Reliability engineers
  • Your IT teams

Why CMMS Adoption Remains Low

The most common barriers to CMMS adoption include:

CMMS Systems Are Too Complicated

According to a 2019 survey, CMMS adoption was only at 39% to track maintenance tasks, while 21% of participants used pen and paper, 28% used spreadsheets and 12% used no system at all.

This largely has to do with the fact that, for many years, CMMS systems were exclusively on-premise, and on-premise systems come with certain limitations in the modern, multi-site landscape we currently live in. Namely, on-premise systems:

  • Cannot effectively scale and customise as a company evolves.
  • Come with a lack of mobility and accessibility, leading to communication and flexibility issues that decrease productivity over time.
  • Do not integrate well with other systems, which can lead to inconsistent or incomplete data. This, in turn, can hindera company’s ability to switch to data-driven, analytics-heavy operations — and that is what business today is all about.
  • Require manual patches and security updates that could lead to compromising security concerns.
  • Often call for complex coding and a huge amount of technical know-how to be properly implemented, managed and troubleshooted.

On-premise systems also come with a much larger up-front cost and a laborious installation process. In short, they were tough to implement and use, which largely defeated the purpose of getting the system for most maintenance managers.

Employees’ Fear Of Replacement

Without automated and centralised systems, the majority of an organisation’s tacit knowledge lies in the minds of its experienced and skilled workers. These individuals solve problems, train the new hires and add incredible value to an organisation.

A CMMS system represents the threat of replacement to these individuals – so they may withhold information or refuse to use the CMMS altogether.

Discomfort With The Technology

A CMMS represents a huge leap away from a paper-based maintenance management system, and it requires extensive, ongoing training. Many organisations do not approach this training systematically or in a user-friendly way, and this gap in understanding could majorly hinder widespread adoption.

A Misunderstanding Of The Purpose Of A CMMS

People are largely creatures of habit and resistant to change, particularly when it comes to technology and work processes. If someone’s way of doing things works for them, why would they change it?

This is an especially prevalent point of friction for employees that do not truly understand the benefits of the new system and how it will make their jobs and lives easier.

Ultimately, many of these points come down to one thing: company culture, or the fundamental perspectives, habits and practices of a particular organisation. Ultimately, that culture must be overhauled to allow for widespread adoption of a CMMS or any other system.

How To Maximise CMMS Adoption In Your Organisation From Day One

The good news is that there are defined measures you can take to change the culture in your business and maximise adoption.

Step 1: Get Your People On Board

First, you have to reduce friction among your team and break down any barriers to adoption. To start, you should:

Emphasise Benefits And Ease-Of-Use

You know that the people in your organisation are likely going to have some resistance tochanging the current system. You also know that there are certain things about your existing system that are not great – that is why you are getting a CMMS! Make sure, then, that you emphasise these shortcomings to your employees and answer the question “why should I care?” for everyone you talk to.

For CEOs, the answer could be something along the lines of, “it will make our business more money and increase efficiency.” For technicians, “it will make your day-to-day tasks easier and less frustrating to complete.”

Overall, answering these questions effectively should generate some excitement for the new system while giving you a comprehensive understanding of where your team members stand.

Maintain Open Communication And Collaboration

It is also vital for you to understand the needs and desires of everyone on your team, from stakeholders and executives to inventory managers and maintenance technicians. Each one of these team members will have his/her own pain points and “must-haves” for the CMMS software – and they all should be a part of the selection process.

Your technicians, in particular, will be using the CMMS more than anyone else. Including them in demos and making sure that the system fits their needs will help them feel like their opinions matter – which, in turn, will increase adoption of the system.

Get Your Training Right

The right CMMS vendor will provide ongoing training and 24/7 support, including a broad asset management policy, training videos and modules, articles, demos and free trials.

Make sure that you implement this training from day one, starting with vendor-led, hands-on training. This will provide your technicians with valuable learning time in a friendly, low-risk environment so they can acclimatiseto the software at their own pace.

You also want to make sure that you stay on top of retraining when the software releases new features or when you notice any misuse.

Get Your Team Excited

It is your job to keep your team in the loop about changes that are coming and to get them feeling good about those changes. Create a positive environment surrounding the release and make sure that everyone is informed so no one is caught off-guard by the changes.

Emphasise Standout Features

The right CMMS will improve your operations and make your employees’ lives easier. Make sure that they understand that by emphasising standout features. Mobile capabilities, in particular, will allow your technicians to access the information they need directly at an asset location, which can minimise confusion and increase efficiency in the facility. Similarly, data tracking can ensure the centralisation of key information, can minimise costly rework and ensure that everyone has the information they need to do their job correctly.

Actively Recognise Good Work

A CMMS can give you a lot of powerful data about your technicians’ performance. Use this data to provide positive reinforcement to employees that are doing a great job and using the equipment most effectively.

Step 2: Develop Guiding Principles For Your Team To Follow

You will also want to establish guiding principles that will lay a strong, clear groundwork for proper CMMS use and adoption. After all, if you expect clear and ubiquitous user adoption, you need clear guidelines and cultural expectations.

Start With Company-Wide Policies

  • Establish official CMMS processes and rules: This will create a standard that all employees can work towards, and it can eliminate confusion and inconsistencies between employees.
  • Maintain open communication: What are the benefits of implementing a CMMS? Who should your team members turn to if they encounter an issue with the system? How will you ensure that there is ongoing training and adoption? Make sure that your communication is open and your processes are clear so no concerns go unaddressed.
  • Reward positive behaviour: If people are doing a great job, let them know! This will not only encourage continued adoption among those employees but also encourage other team members to follow in their footsteps.

Establish Specific CMMS Rules

In the same vein, you want to make sure that there is no confusion when it comes to CMMS use. To this end, you can establish CMMS use principles. Some examples include:

  • “No work order, no work.” The idea here is simple enough: all work orders, including emergency work, must be immediately captured in the CMMS system.
  • The 400% rule. This rule establishes that 100% of labour, 100% of contractor costs and 100% of materials should be documented 100% of the time. This helps to ensure that work orders are completed properly – and that the data integrity of your CMMS system remains intact.

Here, remember that the rules you establish should make the most sense for your business. To this end, it could be helpful to have a roundtable discussion with relevant employees to establish what guiding principles will make the most sense. Also, make sure that you have a dedicated CMMS administrator in charge of enforcing these rules and spearheading other CMMS tasks (read more on the importance of a dedicated administrator).

Final Thoughts

When implemented correctly, a CMMS system can be a transformative tool for your manufacturing operation, helping you increase efficiency, maximise insights and ultimately increase your employee satisfaction and company ROI.

If would like to learn more about choosing the right CMMS for your business, get in touch with a Realworld specialist.