Background
Rinnai America is the North American division of a Japanese-based company. For many years, the U.S. division handled only sales and distribution, but it began manufacturing in 2019 with one assembly line. In 2022, the company opened its new, 330,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility, including two production lines with a full metal stamping section and a 150,000 sq. ft. warehouse.
When the new plant was under construction, Director of Manufacturing Dean Darcy and his team realized they would need a software program to help manage maintenance at the sprawling facility. One of the manufacturing engineers previously used Asset Essentials at a former job and “bragged about everything it could do,” Darcy says. The team was convinced, and they implemented Asset Essentials when the plant opened in 2022.
“The support that the Brightly team provided during the implementation phase was great,” Darcy says. (Brightly was later acquired by Siemens.) “They helped us input all our assets and get the communications right. They made it painless.”
While Darcy says he and his team found Brightly customer support — now a part of Siemens — to be very helpful in answering questions, “we soon realized that any question we have is already in the help section, with the answer ready for us,” he says.
Tracking and streamlining repairs
The Rinnai America plant is new and so is most of its equipment, so Darcy has not yet planned for equipment replacements. However, constant use means that tools and machines frequently need repairs — and Asset Essentials makes it easy to keep track of repairs and related data.
“We’ve trained our technicians to document everything they do in Asset Essentials, so every piece of equipment and every tool has a library of critical data associated with it,” Darcy says. “When there’s an issue, we can quickly refer back to see anything that’s been done to that piece of equipment, where we got the part and how much we paid for it. The history we have on our software far surpasses what our counterparts in Japan have. I can’t live without Asset Essentials at this point.”
Justifying expense requests
Darcy is also using the robust data available in Asset Essentials to justify requests for additional funding. For example, he requires techs to document their work each day to help track needs, and a recent study showed the facility needs another tool maker and two more technicians.
“As I build the case for budget planning, I’ll use Asset Essentials data to show that each tech is currently doing the work of one and a half to two people,” Darcy says.
Automating preventive maintenance
Through ongoing maintenance tracking, Darcy and his team learned that a particular stamping machine needs maintenance after about 300 hours of use. Rather than waiting until production workers notice that the dye is running out, Asset Essentials now automatically sends a reminder that the machine is nearing 300 hours.
“The software alerts us that preventive maintenance is needed, so we can get it done without slowing down production,” Darcy says. “It has helped eliminate a lot of down time.”