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Salt River Project
Trained and Ready—Salt River Project gets more out of software with personal attention
Situation
For Salt River Project (SRP), working in a pressure cooker is a daily routine. As the electric power and water supplier for central Arizona, the company operates a network of power plants, dams and canals that keeps the Phoenix area functioning even on the most sweltering summer days. For the most part, the work of SRP is no more exciting than business as usual. If something goes haywire at a power plant, however, things can go awry quickly.
In cases of emergency, SRP calls in the infantry—a fleet of highly trained Mechanical Services specialists working in the corporate machine shop who, within two hours of an emergency call, can swoop in to put the pieces back together. From mechanical failures and dam patching to power plant overhauls and metal fabrication, these journeymen can do it all.
To accomplish these tasks, the 65-person team uses an assortment of specialized tools. Housed in their own tool room, easy access to these tools can mean the difference between power for Phoenix citizens or a debilitating citywide outage.
Although SRPs machine shop now has a system that gives their teams easy access to tools, that wasnt always the case. The man who managed the tool warehouse for more than 15 years retired with little warning, and most of the information about where things were and how they were managed was stored in his memory. He took years of tool and vendor knowledge with him when he left.
Solution
The department realized they needed a foolproof method for managing their vast tool, equipment and consumable inventory and put Barbara Gebbia, senior cost engineering technician, in charge of finding the solution. Changes in management and the way we thought about our corporate business process helped us rediscover the asset we had in the tool room. Our tools are essential, whether performing the smallest task in the shop or completing a unit overhaul at a remote hydro-generation site. Not only are the tools worth a lot of money, they are the basis for the very work this department does—and they were all over the place, Gebbia said.
Though she doesnt work in the tool warehouse, she knows its culture and quickly realized they needed powerful software that wouldnt overwhelm the people who had to use it every day. ToolWatch, a tool tracking software company, had the perfect solution for SRP and Gebbia.
Were very nervous about introducing new computer technology. ToolWatch, to me, is See Spot Run. Its pure logic, and makes perfect sense, Gebbia said. Easy as it is to use, she knew she couldnt just buy it and leave it to the somewhat technophobic tool room employees to get it up and running.
The company needed help if they were to get the most out of the purchase. Gebbia and Manager Jim Hartz scheduled a JumpStart session with ToolWatch professionals. SRP fed employee and tool information to ToolWatch over the weeks leading up to the on-site session. This was input into the system before the on-site session. When ToolWatch professionals arrived, they were ready to work side by side with tool room employees. Over four days, they helped employees organize the warehouse, tag tools and enter them into the system. All the while, they worked one on one with individuals until they were comfortable performing the specific tasks they would need in ToolWatch.
During implementation, SRP got a good look at the disarray their tool room had been in. It really opened our eyes to how scattered things were.
Youd open a drawer marked clamps and youd find a drawer full of gloves. We had been buying stuff that we didnt need because we didnt know we had it in the first place, Gebbia said.
Result
With 75 percent of the tool and consumable inventory in the system so far, SRPs unnecessary purchases have all but stopped. The department has big plans for recouping their materials budget—20 percent of their $1.4-million annual operating budget. Using ToolWatchs consumable tracking program, they will now have viable records that allow them to charge those items back to the jobs on which they are used.
But its the little changes that are improving tool room operations already. Just by beginning to check out the hand tools regularly, theyve noticed that certain craftsmen have to request the same tools again and again. Now they may just include these items in the tradesmans tool box. Thats exactly what you hope for—learning information that helps us manage the department better, said Gebbia. And making life easier for employees every day.
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