Peel Plastics Boosts Work Order Creation, Increases Uptime, and Improves Productivity with eMaint

The Peel Plastics operation in Brampton, Ontario, has 49 critical assets across two facilities. That includes press and lamination machines and 36 converting, or bag-making machines. All these machines are critical for manufacturing the custom packaging solutions that Peel customers depend on.

The Peel maintenance team previously grappled with an antiquated, desktop-based system that hampered efficient tracking of work orders and management of inventory and purchase orders. This system was difficult to access and resulted in a disorganized, inconsistent approach to maintenance.

They needed an efficient, accessible system – and they turned to eMaint CMMS.

The team at Peel Plastics transferred all their old data to eMaint and began tracking work orders within the CMMS. Kim said the system was “easy to learn” for everyone. eMaint allows users to access the system from the cloud, so it’s fast and simple to determine work order status, track inventory, and get real-time asset data from anywhere with an internet connection. That’s especially an advantage for anyone trying to manage multiple locations at once.

The team has already seen many results since implementing eMaint. One great example is energy efficiency. Traverse City, located in Grand Traverse County, has pledged to stop using fossil fuels by 2040 — the first city in Michigan to make such a pledge. To find and reduce energy waste, Berry has been using thermography. “40% of your energy loss is through stuff you can fix right now,” he said. “I’m doing thermography on all the buildings, finding out where there are window leaks, door leaks, roof leaks.”

The county paired the eMaint CMMS with Fluke’s Ti401 Pro thermography camera to capture and record this information, and it’s already saved the county more than $10,000 by helping them easily identify and fix the root causes of energy loss in their facilities.

Tracking and trending asset data in eMaint has helped Grand Traverse County extend asset life. It’s also helping them plan ahead for future expenditures — especially important when considering a limited budget. “Take thermography for looking at trends,” Berry said. “Is my roof starting to show wear, are we getting to the point where we need to start forecasting out a replacement? Or for a piece of equipment where the bearings are starting to warm up, are we getting to that peak of service life?” This helps Berry and his team plan ahead when assets need to be repaired or replaced.

In true Michigan form, another facility the team manages is a hockey rink. Keeping the ice in top condition requires some special considerations. “Humidity is a big one,” Berry said. “We always have to watch our dehumidifiers and compressors for making the ice.” The rink is a pole barn-type building, and to keep the rink in good condition, they need to make sure the air is constantly cycling. Otherwise, stalactites will form on the ceiling and drip down onto the ice, causing build-up on the rink that constantly needs to be shaved down with a Zamboni.

There are many more opportunities that Berry is exploring to keep his facilities and equipment operating smoothly and cost-effectively. For example, in the near future, Berry plans to start using vibration analysis on some of the county’s HVAC equipment.

eMaint has been a game changer for Peel Plastics, especially in the areas of work order management, standardizing workflows, and Preventive Maintenance (PM) optimization.

Peel Plastics’ maintenance team used to struggle with work order completion. But with the help of eMaint, Kim designed a simple and effective tracking system. Using eMaint, he projects all the plant’s work orders onto a big screen in the maintenance department so that everyone can see exactly what needs to get done. eMaint also automatically sorts work orders according to priority level and updates the work order status in real time.

eMaint’s work order system also makes standardization easy, with built-in checklists and customizable fields for including more detailed instructions. The result is an unbeatable level of visibility, which makes the whole operation run more efficiently.

From creating and tracking work orders to providing improved visibility and access, Kim says eMaint has been a huge improvement compared to their old system.

eMaint’s robust reporting features also help with work order completion. Kim uses eMaint to automatically generate reporting on work order completion in 10-day spans. Every Monday, he has eMaint automatically email the latest data to key members of his team. He’s found that the reports are getting results, too, as maintenance tasks are finally getting done on time. It’s an effective way to increase visibility and focus his employees on improving completion rates, he says.

eMaint is also helping Peel Plastics accelerate the shift to a preventive maintenance approach. The team now pulls asset uptime data from eMaint to track how many hours a bagging machine, for instance, has been in operation. That enables crews to judge exactly when the machines are due for routine maintenance tasks.

The maintenance team also appreciates that they can generate purchase orders directly from eMaint, simplifying the spare parts inventory process. eMaint lets them track and access inventory data easily, so they have all their inventory and purchase order data in a single centralized location.

At this point, Kim is looking forward to implementing eMaint X5 in the near future. He’s excited about X5’s improved ability to generate purchase orders for multiple assets. He’s also looking forward to eMaint X5’s next-generation workflow creation tools, as well as its increased ability to easily manage multiple worksites.