2019Case4JonesEngineeringGroup

they could check with the central plant stores to see if one was available, and failing that, they had to make a phone call to the person who managed the original plant list to see how many of those items we owned, where they were last recorded, and then start making phone calls – not an efficient process. Now, they simply open the application on their mobile phone and at a glance can see which project the items are located on. With a little knowledge of how busy each site is, an individual can track down an available piece of equipment very quickly and arrange for it to be transferred to them without delay. Transferring a piece of plant is vastly simplified through use of the app and built-in scanner on each individual’s phone to record the identifying plant number by pointing and clicking at the bar code on the tag. The simple operation of the app means the company now has a much higher compliance rate among plant users. The previous system of writing down the number, then having to enter it into an email, and forwarding it to someone else to complete the transfer was double- handling at its best. Scanning the equipment tag avoids potential typos which used to involve frantic phone calls or emails for plant numbers to be rechecked as they did not match items on the database. The company is also seeing less downtime among the crews in the field due to locating or waiting for plant, and also less money wasted hiring or purchasing additional plant as a result of the visibility. Previously, if a supervisor could not locate a plant item easily it was safer to either hire or buy a new one as opposed to having his team held up. Statistically, the company found that across the 13 most frequently used plant categories, there were almost 4000 assets and more than 3000 transfers in the twelve months of 2018. Based on the purchase price of new assets, if people did not have the visibility of plant locations and went ahead and bought new items instead of transfers, they would have spent in excess of € 7Million. This highlights the scale of potential savings possible due to an increase in plant transfers. Another benefit that Jones Engineering sees with the new database is that it now receives automatic notifications when equipment calibrations are due. Based on the expiry date, a reminder email is sent automatically to the plant manager and also the person the asset is assigned to. This gives them time to arrange re-calibration and removes the human element of someone having to run reports manually or constantly check the database to keep up to date. An unintended consequence here has been the development of an internal local calibration capability for the welding equipment. The company now has a dedicated maintenance team of di rect employees who have received speci f ic calibration training and are certified as approved to carry out this work to calibrate both orbital and manual welding plant. This may not seem like a big win, but when you consider that across all operations the company has in excess of 400 welding plants spread across more than 100 domestic projects as well as 50 sites overseas, having control of this internally gives the company more flexibility through use of in-house expertise. A small amount of initial investment was required to purchase specific test meters and load banks etc., but this has given the company the ability to be self-sufficient and minimise potential delays as they are not tied to availability of third-party calibration expertise. Other improvements have become apparent since the process began and one of these has been with the PA Testing process. The team noticed that this process could be improved by purchasing some new label printers where a variety of label colours were available as standard. JEG only had one label colour with its previous label printer. By using a different colour label for each three-month period, the new coloured labels now provide a good visual indicator that equipment is within its three-month calibration period even without having to check the tag for the calibration expiry date. Again, some minor investment was required, but the company’s existing printers were nearing end of life anyway as the vendor had phased out this particular model, so changing to more modern equipment was more economical and efficient. Figure 4. Percentage of Corded Versus Cordless Drills in JEG Analysis of this data is really powerful and is giving JEG insights into other areas where efficiencies can be made. For example, Figure 4 shows the comparison between corded and cordless drills across the group. Improving cordless numbers means time savings on site, no trailing leads, reduced PA Testing, etc. Figure 5. TIMWOODS Plant & Equipment Waste Reductions In summary, implementation of the new plant database has improved overall efficiency in all areas where plant and equipment are used within Jones Engineering, and utilising the TIMWOODS model has reduced waste in each of the eight waste categories. 24 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2019