Business Impact Summary
Key Challenges
The T needed an automated solution to replace its manual methods for:
- Improving service reliability
- Managing thousands of assets while providing a clear view of the entire asset infrastructure
- Optimizing the lifecycle of its fleet, from purchase to replacement, thus aligning with federal-funding and compliance requirements
- Performing fast and effective maintenance of critical assets by quickly identifying spare parts
Solutions
After a thorough evaluation, The T implemented the following Ventyx solutions:
- The Ventyx Ellipse EAM solution streamlines asset infrastructure to improve productivity and reduce operating costs
- The Ventyx Ellipse ERP solution improves inventory visibility, provides real-time information on equipment, supply and maintenance and reduces personnel involved in logistics processes
- Ventyx LinkOne provides correct and timely parts information via a graphical content-delivery solution
Benefits
Ventyx solutions help the T to achieve:
- Greater visibility across its assets, boosting reliability, safety and productivity
- A 50 percent reduction in the process for finding and ordering spare parts
- A 94 percent annual reduction in archived work orders (from 16 document-storage boxes to just one)
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The Company
The Fort Worth Transportation Authority, known as the T, is a regional transportation authority in Texas, servicing Tarrant County and the North Central Texas region. Annually, the T provides nearly nine million passenger trips on buses, vanpools and the Trinity Rail Express, which it jointly owns with Dallas Area Rapid Transit.
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The Challenge
Providing a high-quality, best-practice public bus and rail transportation service across Tarrant County and North Central Texas requires the complex management of a vast array of assets. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority, known as The T, has literally thousands of assets to maintain to provide seamless service that gets people to their destinations safely and on time.
The T maintains 200 vehicles, 2,500 active bus stops, a central maintenance facility, central bus transfer center, bus wash, a service station, and an intermodal transportation center. It also has an operations building and a facilities-maintenance building used by its 500 staff consisting mainly of mechanics, bus drivers, corporate support staff and management.
The T’s preventative maintenance planning is extensive, covering all assets from its multimillion dollar buses to heaters and air conditioning units in its maintenance buildings.
In 2004, The T began looking for software that would allow it to manage multiple asset types and still have one clear view of the entire asset infrastructure throughout its operations. Up until then, The T had been using a manual method for capturing information about its assets, which would then be entered into the existing computer system.
The T selected Mincom Ellipse to provide the integrated solution needed to manage the lifecycle of its assets, from purchase to replacement.
The T also chose to implement Mincom LinkOne to help manage the availability and ordering of spare parts, enabling mechanics to perform effective maintenance on its vehicles.
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The Solution
The T implemented Ventyx Ellipse and LinkOne in June, 2004. In 2011, it recommitted to both solutions by upgrading to benefit from the latest, industry-leading functionality available.
Ventyx Ellipse facilitates the automation of a range of scheduled maintenance inspections on The T’s fleet, from ordinary safety inspections to detailed inspections covering every aspect of the vehicle.
These include scheduled state inspections, climate-control inspections, body inspections covering the interior and exterior of a vehicle, and scheduled tune- ups based on the manufacturer’s recommendations.
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The Result
Ventyx offers benefits from a management perspective with an integrated ERP and EAM solution specifically designed to support asset-intensive industries, such as Transportation. If someone at The T has a question about the condition or service history of a bus, for example, it’s not necessary to access six different software packages to find the answer.
A unified system also has many other advantages, especially when it comes to reporting. All the data needed is at the organization’s fingertips. And from an IT perspective, it is naturally easier to maintain.
Using Ventyx LinkOne, mechanics now have the ability to find parts quickly as the program allows them to easily research and identify the specific part needed. It also cuts down on the time it takes to find the information needed to maintain vehicles and other assets, reducing the risk of recurring faults.
Ventyx LinkOne allows mechanics to research and order a part right from the bay, rather than having to go through a library and then complete a written requisition for the part to be ordered. The mechanic can find the right part number immediately and put in a requisition through the work order in Ventyx Ellipse to considerably reduce the job time.
Using Ventyx Ellipse’s supply chain management solution, The T has also been able to realize efficiency in managing its fuel inventory. Previously, The T had populated a spreadsheet and then manually entered it into the system. Now, Ventyx Ellipse automatically analyzes and adjusts fuel levels and reordering requirements without having to enter data by hand, saving hours in monitoring fuel and gas inventory. It also reduces the time needed for inventory reporting at the end of the year.
A complete manual inventory of parts no longer has to be accomplished. Auditors may simply come in and look at the system to determine inventory and observe cycle counts through Ventyx Ellipse.
Another benefit of Ventyx Ellipse has been improved document control and the dramatic reduction in paperwork. According to The T, paperwork has been reduced from an estimated sixteen document-storage boxes each year to only one.
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