How 3 Floyds Brewing Company Greatly Reduced Breakdowns with FTMaintenance

Before FTMaintenance

In a brewery setting, maintenance needs to be solid, otherwise you can’t brew beer. Everything in the brewing process is time-based, so it’s critical to get machines back up and running before you lose entire batches of beer. Since breweries are part of the food and beverage industry, cleaning and sanitation are very important. The FDA tightly regulates the brewery industry to ensure public safety.

Before 3 Floyds Brewing Company purchased FTMaintenance, they used manual maintenance management methods. This included service tags, providing a historical maintenance record, attached to machines and other assets. Personnel had to physically go to each asset individually to retrieve information. These tags were not waterproof and often got ruined when located in areas with a lot of moisture, causing critical maintenance information to be lost. Many preventive maintenance records were incomplete, missing, or otherwise inaccessible.

With FTMaintenance

Today, 3 Floyds Brewing Company  has four technicians that use FTMaintenance for preventive maintenance, with information from 175 preventive maintenance work orders securely stored in the FTMaintenance cloud. Now that they can store detailed notes, equipment information, and maintenance records, nothing gets lost like it did before. Their preventive maintenance process is more efficient now that it no longer relies solely on printed documents. While they primarily use FTMaintenance for maintenance work orders, they recently started using FTMaintenance Service Request as well.  FTMaintenance Service Request makes it easy for anyone to submit requests to the maintenance team through a customizable online form. These requests, if accepted, turn into work orders.

Not only does the maintenance team value FTMaintenance, their suppliers value it as well because these suppliers now have a clearer view of what’s going on and how maintenance is being accomplished. Rob Poortenga, Facility & Property Manager at 3 Floyds Brewing Company, likes that he is able to customize FTMaintenance to his needs, yet it is user-friendly enough to learn easily. He recommends FTMaintenance to anyone who asks him about maintenance management software.

Results

Since 3 Floyds Brewing Company began using FTMaintenance, the maintenance team has seen 90% fewer production equipment breakdowns because they are able to utilize FTMaintenance for preventive maintenance planning. Overall, their equipment maintains a higher level of availability so that more beer can be produced. The maintenance team is able to learn about the machinery in a more comprehensive way through readily accessible information in FTMaintenance, and therefore better preserve machines and assets. Work order history records detailing past maintenance jobs also help technicians quickly and efficiently visualize what needs to be done for new work. They are able to capture additional detail when performing new maintenance work to benefit future jobs. Job notes and descriptions attached to work orders provide additional information. Easier access to maintenance information has resulted in machines being serviced more quickly so that downtime is minimized.

With preventive maintenance work orders in FTMaintenance, the maintenance team benefits from a greater flexibility of scheduling, the ability to assign tasks to specific technicians with each work order, printing upon work order activation, and the creation of a preventive maintenance history.

3 Floyds has further benefited from unlimited technical support provided by FasTrak’s knowledgeable customer support team. Anytime the maintenance team has had questions, the FTMaintenance support staff has been readily available to address their needs. Rob and his team have actively participated in regular FTMaintenance webinars and have developed a beneficial partnership with FasTrak staff to foster continual learning.

About 3 Floyds Brewing Company

3 Floyds Brewing Company was listed #38 among the 100 best brewers in the world by RateBeer Worldwide in 2019. Located in Munster, Indiana, the brewery was founded in 1996. They got their start with a five-barrel wok-burner-fired brew kettle, repurposed open Swiss cheese fermenters, and a Canfield’s Cola tank. Using only the finest ingredients, they strive to set themselves apart by making the best and most memorable beers. Three Floyds Zombie Dust Pale Ale has achieved a cult following in the Midwest, ranking as the #1 American Pale Ale and achieving a perfect 100 rating by BeerAdvocate, an online beer rating site. Other popular brews include Alpha King IPA, Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout, and Gumball Head Wheat Beer. 3 Floyds Brewing Company has been an FTMaintenance customer since 2015.