Business Impact Summary
"Long Beach Transit’s comprehensive asset management system is one of the key reasons we are part of the Federal Transit Administration’s round table on the State of Good Repair."
ROLANDO CRUZ
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & VP MAINTENANCE & FACILITIES
LONG BEACH TRANSIT
Key Challenges
On the maintenance front, Long Beach Transit needed a flexible solution that enabled it to:
- Analyze data to predict and plan maintenance activity and costs
- Optimize operations by improving the way work orders were developed and segmented according to the type of work
Solutions
After a thorough evaluation, Long Beach Transit implemented the following Ventyx solutions:
- Ventyx Ellipse EAM streamlines asset infrastructure to improve productivity and reduce operating costs
- Ventyx Ellipse ERP improves inventory visibility, provides real-time information on equipment, supply and maintenance, and reduces personnel involved in logistics processes
Benefits
Using Ventyx Ellipse, some of the benefits experienced by Long Beach Transit’s maintenance department have included:
- 35 – 40% reduction in maintenance activity
- Greater predictability in vehicle performance
- Visibility of the entire asset cost lifecycle
- Improved communication with mechanics
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The Company
Each year, more than 28 million people in California travel on buses operated by Long Beach Transit. The transit company provides fixed and flexible bus services in Long Beach, Lakewood and Signal Hill, as well as portions of Artesia, Bellflower, Carson, Cerritos, Compton, Hawaiian Gardens, Norwalk, Paramount and Seal Beach.
Long Beach Transit also operates the Passport shuttle, a free mini bus service within the downtown area; the 49-passenger AquaBus water taxi; and the 75-passenger AquaLink water taxi.
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The Challenge
For Long Beach Transit, keeping its vehicles in top condition is critical to providing a safe and reliable bus service for millions of passengers. When Long Beach Transit’s Executive Director and Vice President of Maintenance and Facilities, Rolando Cruz, joined the organization ten years ago, Long Beach Transit had little ability to analyze data about its fleet of 220 vehicles to support its maintenance operations.
“All we had were the old green screen systems with no true data to analyze the service history of each vehicle,” explained Cruz. “We could generate work orders and that was it. We had no way of performing analysis besides running reports that were standard and fixed – it just didn’t give us the ability to see where we were doing well and where we weren’t.”
Long Beach needed a system that enabled it to segment work orders according to the type of work, as well as see the results of that work for pre and post analysis. “Previously, we could only schedule work by the day,” said Cruz. “Instead, we wanted to be able to segment the scheduling of work according to the job. We also wanted some flexibility to change the way we could schedule work orders as we grew.”
“Of all the packages on the market, Ventyx Ellipse was by far the strongest. The maintenance and materials applications were so much more advanced in terms of functionality and flexibility – Ellipse immediately outweighed the others.”
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The Solution
Since implementing Ventyx Ellipse, Long Beach Transit has developed a strong relationship with Ventyx, learning new ways to optimize the maintenance and operation of its assets in different areas.
One such area Long Beach Transit was looking to optimize was how it could effectively predict – and minimize – the wear and tear of parts, such as brakes.
“In the transit world, the wear and tear of parts is an ongoing challenge,” said Cruz. With Long Beach Transit vehicles running an average of 300 miles each day, wear and tear is inevitable. “It was important for us to get better visibility of the condition of each vehicle so we could reduce downtime. In the event that one of our vehicles required service, we needed to know we could be instantly ready with parts and labor.”
With buses constantly stopping and starting in traffic, servicing brakes is a common maintenance activity. It is also a very time consuming job. “It was an immediate area we knew that, with the help of Ventyx Ellipse, we could improve.”
Using Ventyx Ellipse, Long Beach Transit developed a historical record of brake jobs, enabling them to study patterns and predict when brakes would need replacing. “Previously, we’d found that some of our vehicles were doing 8,000 miles before requiring a brake job, while other vehicles could manage 30,000 miles,” said Cruz. “This was such a large range and we needed to work out why.”
Ventyx Ellipse enabled their mechanics to analyze why brake jobs were performed, where the problems were, and iron out any inconsistencies. Their aim was for all vehicles to average approximately 27,000 miles before a brake change was needed. Within a couple of years, all vehicles in their fleet were meeting this standard.
Ventyx Ellipse has saved Long Beach Transit money too. “Not only are we doing less maintenance on areas like brakes, more of our fleet are staying on the road and out of the workshop,” said Cruz.
“Using Ventyx Ellipse, we’ve been able to decrease our maintenance activity by 35-40%. Previously we were performing around 8-10 brake jobs a year. Now, we hardly do any.”
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The Results
"By developing a comprehensive picture of asset management, Ventyx helps Long Beach Transit not only provide a great bus service, but also manage public funds in the most responsible, forward-thinking way."
ROLANDO CRUZ
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & VP MAINTENANCE & FACILITIES
LONG BEACH TRANSIT
According to Cruz, the greatest benefits of Ventyx Ellipse are being able to customize work orders according to their needs, as well as being able to analyze data by any category for maintenance planning. “If there was one word I would choose to describe to Ellipse, it would be flexibility,” he said.
“We are able to provide upfront instructions to our mechanics about what’s required, suggest parts and estimate labor time – it’s all there. And if we ever have a change to a job, new information and instructions can be generated and read by the mechanics immediately. Our mechanics are very spoiled now – when they get a job, they know what’s expected of them, what materials they should be using, and what parts of the job are related to them.”
Previously, the only way Long Beach Transit could schedule any preventative maintenance was by day. Now, Ventyx Ellipse allows them to generate different work orders according to the situation. Some of their maintenance is scheduled by day, others by miles and others based on the condition of the vehicle being serviced.
Above all, Cruz says Ventyx Ellipse has allowed the team at Long Beach Transit to become much better planners. “Today, a lot of infrastructure-based organizations are talking about PAS 55 – a best-practice guide for the whole life cycle management of physical assets. Using the PAS 55 approach, we’re now able to manage the entire life cycle costing of our assets, from the moment they are purchased to the time they are replaced.”
“With the support of Ventyx, Long Beach Transit has been optimizing the entire asset life cycle for years, while other transit organizations are still struggling to understand the concept.”
Ventyx Ellipse allows Long Beach Transit to track different vehicle components, enabling them to compartmentalize problem areas that were considered to be too costly or safety issues.
“In doing so, we are able to predict – and minimize – our maintenance requirements,” said Cruz.
“Thanks to Ventyx, we’ve put in place an active replacement strategy for our engines, transmissions and other major components susceptible to wear and tear. The result: a fleet in optimum condition and a reliable, quality service for Long Beach Transit passengers.”
Long Beach Transit is planning to upgrade to Ellipse 8 in the coming year to take advantage of mobility applications. It also plans to implement Ventyx’s graphical content delivery solution, LinkOne for better parts management.
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