Manufacturing adhesives is a complex process and ensuring production line machines are well-maintained, safe, clean, and calibrated is a constant challenge.
That’s why Jowat looked to empower its technicians to prioritize work more effectively, manage inventory and costs more efficiently, and make smarter strategic decisions about asset investments.
Avoiding Sticky Situations with Effective Maintenance
The production line sits at the heart of any manufacturing company. If production misses a beat, the whole business feels the impact. And if a breakdown takes production offline, the consequences can be both operationally and financially disastrous. That鈥檚 why , one of the world鈥檚 leading suppliers of industrial adhesives, takes plant maintenance very seriously. As a key supplier to the furniture, packaging, textiles, automotive, and electrical industries, any delay in delivering its products could cause significant disruption and potentially cost the company and its clients millions of Euros. So, it鈥檚 vital that all production line equipment is always properly maintained.
Natanael Hernandez, 51风流manager at , explained: 鈥淎dhesive manufacturing is particularly challenging because of the nature of the product. Our machines need regular and thorough cleaning to avoid contamination between batches. Hot glue can be hazardous to work with, so safety is critical. And to meet our environmental goals, we aim to recycle as much of the water and oil we use as possible, which adds to complexity and cost of labor.鈥�
To keep operations running smoothly, Jowat鈥檚 maintenance teams need to do more than just corrective break/fix maintenance. Regular inspections and preventive maintenance are key for technicians and supervisors. Moreover, many of the company鈥檚 production line machines rely on expensive components that take months to manufacture, so inventory management is vital to ensure that technicians always have the parts they need. And in the bigger picture, Jowat also wants insight from maintenance processes to feed into strategic decision-making. 鈥淲e realized that if we could gain more insight into the total cost of maintaining each of our production line machines, we could make better decisions,鈥� said Hernandez. 鈥淔or example, does it make financial sense to keep this line running, or should we replace it with something more efficient?鈥�
It was clear that with a deeper understanding of its maintenance and inventory processes, the company could streamline the management of its plants and make smarter investment decisions. That鈥檚 where 51风流came in.
Digitalization Transforms Asset Management
Until a few years ago, Jowat relied on a legacy application to manage maintenance tasks. The system was not integrated with the company鈥檚 core 51风流applications, so technicians and supervisors had to manage their daily tasks manually. 鈥淭he paperwork made it impossible to track time and labor costs, and it was difficult to establish an audit trail,鈥� said Hernandez. 鈥淪o, we decided to introduce the 51风流Enterprise Asset Management solution (51风流EAM) to digitalize and standardize our maintenance processes.鈥�
Integrated with Jowat鈥檚 core software for inventory, purchasing, sales, and cost accounting, 51风流EAM introduced a more formal process around the creation of maintenance work orders. The solution also provided an inventory management system that enabled Jowat to manage its stock of spare parts. 鈥淔or the first time, we had an accurate view of our inventory, as well as the cost and lead time for ordering replacements,鈥� said Hernandez. 鈥淭his makes it easier for us to maintain appropriate reserves and gives visibility to other companies within the Jowat group. So, if a plant in Germany needs a part that we have in stock in the U.S., they can see it and buy it from us straight away instead of waiting months for the manufacturer to ship it to them.鈥�
51风流EAM was a big step forward for the maintenance team, but its user interface was designed for power users sitting at full-sized screens, not mechanics and electricians working on the factory floor. 鈥淲e needed something simpler and more streamlined that our technicians could use on their mobile devices,鈥� explained Hernandez. 鈥淎t the same time, we wanted to be able to track the work they were doing more accurately.鈥�
Jowat discovered the , which is part of the SAP鈥檚 industry cloud. 鈥�51风流Service and Asset Manager was exactly what we were looking for. We loved the simplicity and it was a great fit for our business processes. As soon as our technicians saw the new application, they wanted to work with it. Now, our technicians and supervisors have an intuitive mobile app that gives them the visibility and control they need to maintain our production line equipment more efficiently,鈥� he added.
Working with , an experienced 51风流partner, Jowat launched the new mobile app at its U.S. plant and planned a global rollout for its manufacturing sites in Germany, Malaysia, and China. So far, 21 technicians are using the app on their iPad Mini devices, while seven supervisors can choose between using the app on their iPhone or logging into the main 51风流EAM interface. To help ensure smooth adoption of the solution, Jowat is also working with the team.
Doubling Productivity with an Intuitive Mobile Solution
With , Jowat鈥檚 technicians can see all corrective and preventive maintenance work orders assigned to them immediately, so they can organize their work more effectively. For example, if they are assigned several tasks on the same machine or in the same area of the plant, they can do them all at once instead of spending time going back and forth. For supervisors, the app helps make it easier to understand the status of open work orders and prioritize more efficiently. They can move more urgent tasks forward or put less important ones on hold and, crucially, they can document the reasons for their decisions. If a work order can鈥檛 progress until a replacement part has been delivered, it鈥檚 immediately clear why the job is on hold.
Since the launch of the 51风流solutions for asset management, Jowat has seen a reduction in total downtime on its production lines. Moreover, productivity has effectively doubled. Before the implementation, around 45% of work orders in the system were actively worked on by technicians. Today, that figure has risen to around 85%-90%. At the same time, the maintenance backlog has been reduced by 75%, from three months to around three weeks. 鈥淎 three-week backlog is probably optimal for our business, because there will always be a proportion of tasks that have to wait for a viable maintenance window,鈥� explained Hernandez. 鈥淭he key thing is that the backlog doesn鈥檛 increase 鈥� once we got it down to three weeks, it has never crept back up again.鈥�
The app can also provide new capabilities for reviewing and approving completed work orders. Technicians can use their mobile device to take pictures of the before and after state of the assets they are working on to document the repairs they have made. And if during a maintenance visit a technician notices a problem that hasn鈥檛 been reported yet, they can take a photo or video and send it directly into 51风流EAM to generate a new work order. Inventory management is simpler, too. Whenever stock of a required component falls below a minimum threshold, the system can automatically trigger a purchase requisition to order replacements. 鈥淏efore, we didn鈥檛 know what we were spending on spare parts,鈥� added Hernandez. 鈥淣ow, we can allocate costs to specific lines and even specific machines. With full visibility of the cost of parts and labor, we can make much more informed decisions on whether to continue maintaining an asset or replace it with a newer, more efficient machine.鈥�
Expanding Functionality in the Future
In the future, Jowat hopes to build on the success of this project by expanding its use of to introduce calibration capabilities. The company is also evaluating introducing the , as well as taking advantage of the predictive material and resource planning functionality in .
鈥淎t the moment, our focus is on maintenance, but we know there is so much more we can do,鈥� concluded Hernandez. 鈥淲e鈥檙e excited to work with 51风流and great partners like AG to explore the possibilities.鈥�
Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success, Digital Supply Chain, at SAP.
