Porocel is a worldwide leader in catalyst services and a leading producer of activated alumina, specialty adsorbents, and support media for the refining and petrochemical industries. The company also offers catalyst regeneration, presulphurizing, and grading services as well as a range of toll processing services, including calcination, drying, forming, impregnation, size reduction, and classification.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1937, Porocel is based in Houston, Texas, and has five manufacturing sites and offices in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The company\u2019s catalyst service facilities are in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company\u2019s Little Rock, Arkansas, site manufactures activated alumina and activated bauxite, and provides various toll processing services.<\/p>\n
Maintenance professionals often need to hit the ground running. That was certainly the case when Mike Goldman, Porocel maintenance planner, started his job with the company in late 2017.<\/p>\n
Mike quickly realized maintenance processes at his location hadn\u2019t kept pace with the company\u2019s rapid growth. Porocel\u2019s 16-person maintenance team at the company\u2019s Little Rock, Arkansas, site was primarily reactive\u2014and it wasn\u2019t working for the techs or the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were like Indiana Jones running in front of that stone,\u201d Mike explained. \u201cIf you\u2019re small company, you can run maintenance off someone\u2019s clipboard. That doesn\u2019t work as things get bigger. They didn\u2019t know what they didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike was hired to help Porocel figure what they needed to know. His former work with a high-tech defense contractor meant he understood how to create a more structured maintenance environment.<\/p>\n
His first step was assessing how the maintenance department was currently run\u2014the who, what, when, where, and why. His next step was finding the way forward.<\/p>\n
In what he describes as \u201cdivine intervention,\u201d he discovered the solution on the company\u2019s server: MPulse Gold. And in the next 60 days, he got the Little Rock plant on and using MPulse to effectively and efficiently manage their maintenance workload.<\/p>\n
Porocel bought MPulse 7 Gold in 2011, and it was used by some of the company\u2019s other sites. But the Little Rock plant had never fully implemented it, and it was left mostly unused on the local servers.<\/p>\n
Mike started experimenting with MPulse to see what it could do. He soon realized it made more sense to upgrade for free to the faster, more full-featured MPulse 8. He also decided to take advantage of MPulse\u2019s free cloud hosting, where the software would run in a dedicated, professionally managed environment and he didn\u2019t have to worry about hardware.<\/p>\n
After getting buy-in from other Porocel sites and his IT team, Mike made the changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called MPulse and asked them how quickly we could make it happen,\u201d said Mike. \u201cWhen I came in the next morning, it was done. I put in my login and password\u2014and it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Mike wasn\u2019t done yet. He also needed buy-in from his techs, about a quarter of whom were uncomfortable with computers.<\/p>\n
Using MPulse 8\u2019s Advanced Customization features, Mike designed his MPulse work orders so it took techs just a few clicks to enter information, thanks to the custom fields, nested fields, and custom prompts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI created form view and record view layouts that had everything the guys need to see\u2014and nothing they don\u2019t need to see,\u201d Mike said. \u201cThe latter is as just important, or more so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using resources from MPulse\u2019s support portal and a few calls to MPulse phone support, Mike got MPulse working the way he wanted. After working through some internal training with his techs, he saw immediate benefits:<\/p>\n
Work order management is the heart of Mike\u2019s new strategy. Before, the company\u2019s work assignments were physically handed out after morning meetings, which delayed the maintenance team\u2019s ability to start work as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
Now Porocel\u2019s operators create work orders directly in MPulse, and they\u2019re assigned electronically. Mike estimates each tech gains about 30-60 minutes of work time each day using this process.<\/p>\n
Mike also wanted to move his team from 100% reactive to a more balanced reactive\/proactive strategy. With help from Porocel\u2019s operators and maintenance techs, Mike set up PM schedules in MPulse for key assets.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur first automatically generated work orders occurred last weekend,\u201d he said. \u201cI checked MPulse on my phone and could track them through from issued to completed and closed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Porocel is ISO 9000 certified, and Mike knew from experience that he needed to track the details of the manufacturer\u2019s increasingly complex maintenance operation to maintain that certification.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s started the process with MPulse by setting up a PM program that will help the company pass inspections and audits\u2014and avoid a last-minute rush to set things in order.<\/p>\n
Another big item in Mike\u2019s plan is inventory management for consumables\u2014filters, belts, etc. Mike plans to manage inventory and assign locations in MPulse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be able to use MPulse to see if we have filters and where they are,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s more likely that filters will actually be on the shelf when we go look.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike and Porocel have come a long way in just 60 days. Mike believes more companies need help from a CMMS analyst like him, but they don\u2019t know it\u2014and some don\u2019t even know it\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the art of marrying the tool with the process,\u201d he explained. \u201cIn the end, you need documentable and repeatable processes to use tools most effectively to support the assets you want to maintain.\u201d<\/p>\n