Another AMPRO success story

“Since we started using AMPRO our overall maintenance costs have reduced by 24.8%” (Andrew Willoughby, Technical Services Co-ordinator, Pace Farm, Australia)

Pace Farm is Australia's leading producer and marketer of eggs and egg products. It is a fully integrated producer with 60 farms, 600 staff and over 2,000,000 hens. Pace Farm supplies egg products to major food processors, restaurants, supermarkets as well as the food services industry in Australia and overseas.

Pace Farm consistently strives to invest in originality and the ability to exceed international standards, and these have become the main drivers within the company. For that reason Pace Farm is now also classified as a world class benchmark in its maintenance and operational cost saving practices within the industry.

Many people wonder, what is so different about the maintenance practices that have led Pace Farm to such success. Andrew Willoughby, who is the Technical Services Co-ordinator for Pace Farm looks after Pace Farms’ projects, training practices, as well as maintenance procedures across all their sites.

For such responsibility he needed a tool to help him monitor what is happening across each site at any time, and he needed to be able to do this as time efficiently and cost effectively as possible. Mr Willoughby was aware of the benefits of using a Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) as he had been introduced to them previously. He started looking at a CMMS for Pace Farm.

Pace Farm went through a thorough evaluation process and contacted 15 different CMMS suppliers, including Third City Solutions the makers of AMPRO. Mr. Willoughby said Pace Farm chose AMPRO over the 14 other CMMS packages because it was “the simplest to use, it has the easiest layout and it does what Pace Farm wanted it to do”. He also mentioned that Third City Solutions staff members were “very easy to work with and they were prepared to tailor AMPRO to even better suite Pace Farm’s needs”. 

Today Pace Farm uses AMPRO primarily for managing their maintenance activities on their grading floors and farms.

Maintenance management software packages, including AMPRO, are said to result in a number of different benefits such as cost savings, improved business planning, reduced downtime and increased production. So, when asking Mr. Willoughby if their productivity had changed since the purchase of AMPRO, he responded very positively. Mr. Willoughby explained; “We measure Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) rates and when we initially started using AMPRO, 2 years ago, there was a slight increase in our productivity. Now that we are using AMPRO consistently, our average equipment availability has increased by 15%”.

Further to this, Mr. Willoughby added that their “stock management is better” as well as they are “able to find quick solutions for problems by looking at equipment job history”. He explained that Pace Farm has “5 different sites networked together, which all have access to AMPRO, meaning that presenting and finding information at any time is easy”.

It is true that since the purchase of AMPRO, Pace Farm’s productivity has increased by a substantial amount. Another benefit of using a CMMS, such as AMPRO, is that it should help you to lower your operating costs within a company.  When Mr. Willoughby was asked if their operational costs had dropped, he again responded positively. He also continued “In the first 12 months from starting up with AMPRO we had a drop of 18% in our operational costs. Since then, up until today, there has been an additional drop of 7%, and we have also forecasted another 5% drop for the next 12-18 months.” 

In addition, when looking at purely maintenance related costs for Pace Farm, Mr. Willoughby also added that since they started using AMPRO, their overall maintenance costs have reduced by 24.8%. This produced savings in stock and spare part holdings, as well as in labour overtime rates.

This study has looked at the effect that AMPRO, a maintenance management software package from Third City Solutions, has had on an Australian based egg producer, Pace Farm. By talking with Mr. Willoughby, who is the Technical Services Co-ordinator for Pace Farm, it became obvious that by using AMPRO Pace Farm has had a significant increase in its equipment availability, which has led to an increase in production activities. Further to this, Pace Farm’s operational and maintenance related costs have dropped since the implementation of AMPRO. This has also led Pace Farm to become an innovator in maintenance and cost savings strategies within the egg production industry.

As a final point, Mr. Willoughby was asked if there is anything he would like to tell people who are looking implementing a CMMS, Mr. Willoughby concluded that after using a number of different CMMS packages in the past, he considered AMPRO to be the most effective and simplest one to use. He stated that “at Pace Farm our case was unique because of the nature of our business, and we needed something that could be tailored to suite our needs. The support that Third City Solutions provide can not be beaten. They are always meeting our requests, and they are always looking at making improvements to further meet the requirements and needs of Pace Farm, and their customers.”

5 minutes with a Customer - Park Beach Plaza - www.parkbeachplaza.com.au
 

We recently asked one of our customers a few brief questions about AMPRO and maintenance management software in general.

Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Debbie Marchant and I am an Administration Manager for Park Beach Plaza - a shopping centre in Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia.

Why did you choose AMPRO as your CMMS?
Our existing program was not coping. After extensive internet research we decided AMPRO was the best available & particularly the most user friendly.

What Benefits have you seen since moving to AMPRO?
We now have control over the timing of service & maintenance tasks, plus our OHS & Legal Teams are very impressed with the inspection history being created. Personally I love the ease of use that means Managers enter information directly into the system, giving them ownership of their work, and freeing my time for other tasks.

What would you say to someone who is looking for Asset Maintenance Management software?
Look no further than AMPRO.

How do you rate the support given by Third City Solutions?
Brilliant. I receive quick answers to my questions - they are always friendly and supportive.

Where do you see AMPRO fitting into your operation in the future?
Unending. Every department has some idea of how it can assist them - and the gift is that once their inspections or recurring jobs are set up, they run themselves.

5 minutes with a Customer - Hannanprint - www.hannanprint.com.au
 

We recently asked one of our customers a few brief questions about AMPRO and maintenance management software in general.

Who are you and what do you do?
Hannanprint is part of the independent Print Media Group (IPMG). We are a large offset printing company specialising in magazines, catalogues and newspapers. We host one of the most modern printing facilities in the southern hemisphere and can provide a total solution for customers from files to mailing. We employee over 500 people in a site which spans 3.8 hectares under cover.

Why did you change from your existing CMMS to AMPRO?
Our previous system was proving to be a handful in managing the everyday maintenance items and reporting. AMPRO allows us to use the extensive range of reports that are available in the application as well as each user having the ability to store their favourite reports in an easy to access area from within AMPRO.

On another issue, our users were complaining about having to return to a main menu and enter a new module every time they wanted to check on something that was in another module. AMPRO allows us to access each module from anywhere in the application and have multiple windows from various modules open at the same time.

What Benefits have you seen since moving to AMPRO?
Apart from the pleasure of navigating around the well laid out application which is consistent throughout, AMPRO also give us the following benefits:

Faster data entry for the trades people.
Exporting reports to common file formats. Very easy to use.
Much improved performance running over our network.
The PDA application (AMPRO PE) has a huge potential for us.

What would you say to someone who is looking for Asset Maintenance Management software?
Have a look at what is out there and then look at AMPRO. You will be surprised at the number of systems out there and they range from cheap little packages through to the large enterprise packages. Make sure you understand what it is you need.

We looked at a few systems and then selected AMPRO because of its ability to supply us with the results at the end of the day. Our machinery is being maintained on time by the correct technician, the data that we are collecting is useful and accurate and the reports are prepared at the press of a button.