St. Mary’s County Public Schools (SMCPS), in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, serves 17,000 plus students from Pre-K through 12th grade. The district operates 19 elementary schools; four middle schools; three high schools; and eight administrative, educational, and training facilities. The SMCPS Division of Supporting Services, Department of Maintenance is responsible for maintaining all of the school district\u2019s facilities and assets with 33 maintenance personnel.<\/p>\n
For many years, the SMCPS Department of Maintenance operated in the way it knew best. The phone rang. Someone answered it and took a few notes, and then a maintenance technician went to fix the problem. There was little documentation, no preventive maintenance program, and limited historical data or background information.<\/p>\n
SMCPS wasn\u2019t unusual. Many school districts adopted a maintenance strategy of simply fixing what broke as a means to work within budget restrictions. In July 2004, Sharon Dvorak, Work Order Specialist, was tasked with improving the way the Department of Maintenance handled the growing needs of the school system.<\/p>\n
As with all things in life\u2014especially in a large organization\u2014change can feel quite ominous. Sharon was aware of the \u201cwe\u2019ve always done it this way\u201d mindset. She needed to find the best way to introduce these changes for everyone.<\/p>\n
Sharon implemented the biggest change just a few months later\u2014the department\u2019s first CMMS software system, MPulse Silver. MPulse Silver gave SMCPS the ability to schedule preventive maintenance tasks and manage work orders as well as the capacity to receive, manage, and update service requests from unlimited requesters.<\/p>\n
Sharon started using MPulse the same way most new CMMS users do\u2014setting up the database with all the district\u2019s building assets, employees, maintenance tasks, work order types, trades, and departments. In the autumn of 2004, with the basics in place, SMCPS began receiving and processing their first computergenerated work orders.<\/p>\n
But Sharon wasn\u2019t just implementing maintenance software. She was introducing a completely new way to do business. Many of the SMCPS staff who were affected by these changes were not only unfamiliar with this type of process, they had never used a computer before. So Sharon personally trained each service requester (one primary and one secondary for each of the district\u2019s facilities) who would use MPulse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our case, many of the people involved were not familiar or comfortable with computerized processes,\u201d Sharon said. \u201cIn order to create a system that would be stress free and readily used, I needed to simplify the process as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two people stand out the most in Sharon\u2019s memories of this time period. \u201cThey were next to tears and visibly shaking at the thought of learning all of this\u2026 but they tried.\u201d Sharon\u2019s persistence with training paid off.<\/p>\n
By 2006, MPulse was widely accepted throughout the organization. Fast forward to August 2016, and Sharon hit a major milestone\u2014surpassing 100,000 opened work orders.<\/p>\n
Like most MPulse administrators, Sharon\u2019s day centers around work order management. MPulse helps the SMCPS maintenance team get the highest priority work done while making sure lower priority work doesn\u2019t slip through the cracks. \u201cWe needed to prioritize,\u201d Sharon said. \u201cOver the years our budgets have started to dwindle, so we needed to make sure we were spending our time\u2014 and our money\u2014wisely.\u201d<\/p>\n