“Within two days we could start working with McMain”

As a part of the French family firm SPHERE, SPHERE Nederland contributes to producing household packaging, like the well-known KOMO waste bag. Besides that, the focus has shifted further towards biodegradable bags. They are not just thinking of products when talking about improvement, but also the Technical Service and that is when McMain comes into the picture. Gert-Jan Horstra, Head of Technical Service, talks about his experiences.

Technical services are very busy nowadays. There is a lot of work to do, but the technical personnel is in short supply. “That is why is it nice to have McMain. In the past, little history was digitally recorded and it is important that this does happen. Colleagues will retire at some point and then their knowledge will be lost. By storing this knowledge in for example maintenance software, it is possible to take over or pass on the work. For that reason we had a certain package, but they stopped developing updates. That is why we went looking for something else and found you through a third party.”

Bye Excel, hello maintenance software

“We are looking to the future. I took over the function of Head of Technical Service from my predecessor two years ago. When you take over someone’s job, it is nice if knowledge exists that you can fall back on. I was part of the team for years before I took up the baton and I always say: we do it together as Technical Service. To still create an overview for ourselves, we used an Excel list when our package did not get anymore updates. You could pretty easily put away maintenance under a particular machine. It is of course harder to find everything and less user-friendly than maintenance software, but that is how we did it for ourselves before McMain was introduced.”

“Technical personnel is in short supply and we have a lot to do. That is why it is nice to have McMain. But since we started using the Graphic Planboard, there is peace at the Technical Service.”

Fast implementation

Every company has their own work process and their own goals. “The feedback to the production is the most important element for us. They can now easily create a breakdown through the Reporter App. Then it is also immediately stored in the maintenance system. We used to have a logbook in which this was written and everyone had their own interpretation. Now it is a call in the system and you can work with it.” McMain has been running in this Technical Service since April and the search for a package was accompanied by predetermined requirements. Usability was high on the list, followed by a requirement that it would be easy to work with. “You quickly click through it: it is easy to work with and all functionalities are present as we thought they should be, like preventive maintenance and a planning. The implementation went very smoothly for us. After two day with a kick-off and a consultant on site, we could start using McMain in practice.”

Saving time with the Graphic Planboard

That the communication is clearer and that time is saved is already visible according to Gert-Jan. “I believe 100% that we are going to save even more time now we are implementing the Graphic Planboard. I can now very specifically tell the technicians to get to work on the tasks they are scheduled for. The logbook does not have to be dug through for work and everyone knows, despite varying work hours, exactly who does what. That is ideal with this planning. Since McMain, we have been working much easier and I also see that the staff is using the system well. The longer you spend with it, the more you learn and then you come across other questions.”

Want to know more?
Do you also want to save time in your Technical Service and work towards targeted maintenance? Try the trial version of McMain Online for free and see for yourself! If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at sales@mcmain-software.com or +31 341 – 750 500.

---