HART services nearly 50,000 passengers a day on their 187-bus fleet. But to maintain an efficient operation of this size, HART needed an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution that would streamline, in particular, their part request process, considering parts are the second largest portion of their budget. “75% of our budget is public funding so we have high visibility when it comes to using those funds and we wanted to be more accountable for that,” said Jabari Hampton, Project Coordinator, HART.
Formerly, HART used a manual process to request parts — causing a large discrepancy between the parts they actually required and the parts they had on the shelf. Since everything was requested verbally, parts were often lost, over ordered or under ordered — and not issued to the appropriate work order. Hampton also noted that previously, they would be missing spare parts that weren’t ordered in advance, which meant those buses weren’t able to run. “If you don’t order parts at the right time, you waste time and efficiency by having a bus sitting there not able to run,” he said.
In November 2015, HART implemented Trapeze’s EAM Storekeeper Portal to improve their part request process. Using this solution, HART now requests parts electronically, reducing the amount of human error that was previously causing duplicate orders and lost parts.
“The EAM Storekeeper Portal creates an electronic paper trail so the storekeeper doesn’t have to manually implement the work order. The storekeeper has to push a button — literally,” said Hampton.
Now, the automatically generated ticket has all the information you need, so the storekeeper doesn’t need to waste time looking for things.”
In less than one year since implementing the solution, HART has noticed a dramatic improvement in efficiency. They’ve reduced the number of duplicate orders that was causing multiple parts requested for the same work order and their latest labor time data report shows they’re more productive this year compared to last year. By turning this into an automated process, they’ve also been able to decrease the number of return parts — since they are now ordering the right ones.
With so many parts being requested per day, this type of process improvement has made a big impact: real-world cost savings and efficiencies for the organization.
“Now, the automatically generated ticket has all the information you need, so the storekeeper doesn’t need to waste time looking for things. The technicians can spend more time on repairs and less time on finding things. I’d estimate we increased efficiency by 20%,” said Hampton.
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