Datatex, a Switzerland-based ERP solution provider to the textiles and apparel industry with offices in Italy, India, Israel and the US, has launched the new module for the management of plant maintenance in the latest version of NOW software. NOW is the ERP management software owned by Datatex, and is the best-selling vertical IT solution for textile industry in the world today.
The purpose of this module is simple: to be able to record the activities and the deadlines related to the maintenance of the machines, thus being able to schedule at best the available resources and always keep under control what needs to be done and when it needs to be done, Datatex said in a press release.
The prompt recording of activities and related costs makes it possible to obtain an assessment of the efficiency and reactivity of the interventions, and is able to offer a vision of the actual situation compared to the planned, thus giving the possibility to assess whether the planned budgets have been adapted to the needs. As the new plant maintenance module is fully integrated with the ERP, you have the possibility to see the situation of the spare parts in the warehouse in real-time, you can immediately unload the necessary parts, and you can start the purchases of the material at the same moment in which one notices that a part is missing. In the requested purchases, as well as in the discharges of material, it is always possible to know in relation to which maintenance intervention these purchases have been made and by which user.
The new NOW module covers three types of maintenance. First is extraordinary maintenance, the maintenance requests are entered by the users, are taken over by the scheduling manager, are converted into maintenance order and are then assigned to the maintenance technician. Preventive maintenance activities are defined within indicated deadlines, the system automatically creates a schedule of maintenance activities, and the activities are finally transformed into maintenance order and assigned to the maintenance technicians. Inspections include the measurements to be made are defined, specifying the frequency and the reference values and then giving the possibility to enter the measured values.
In defining the activities, it is possible to link the spare parts and the type of maintenance technicians that will be involved. Furthermore, the planned costs of spare parts and maintenance personnel can also be defined.
The maintenance requests and the scheduling of the interventions must be approved by the managers and this takes place through the activities carried out on maintenance orders.
To facilitate data control and to provide an overall picture of the situation, the new NOW module also contains analysis and summary printouts, which are used to assess the workload of maintenance personnel and their efficiency. A comparison between the planned data, both of duration and cost, with those actually registered in the system, is very useful for monitoring the situation and allows the appropriate measures to be taken to achieve better results in terms of productivity and cost reduction.
