SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION OF MAINTENANCE, PURCHASING, AND INVENTORY IMPROVES FACILITY OPERATIONS

The Ocean County Utilities Authority realizes that plant and infrastructure maintenance are key to ensure highest quality effluent and minimize the likelihood of sanitary sewer overflows. The goal of the new integrated maintenance, inventory, and purchasing system is to ensure the availability of proper resources (human, materials, and tools), reduce cost of inventory, and ensure reservations of spare parts for scheduled work orders within a single application. Planning and tracking the maintenance costs of installed equipment and preventing downtime within a facility are additional goals of the solution.Data to determine the effectiveness of the maintenance solution is available based on metrics that evaluate productivity for maintenance planners, maintenance productivity, reduction of inventory spare parts, inventory dollar value, and cycle time reduction for parts and equipment procurement. The new maintenance solution is saving money for the Authority and providing timely and accurate data for both operations and maintenance personnel. SAP R/3 was the software solution selected and was sole sourced.