Special thanks to Carol Van Name, IT Director, and Jim Harvey, Maintenance Supervisor, Plant Services Allan Hancock College, California
New Web+Center version for Facilities and Plant Services in requirements phase: We welcome your requests.
After reviewing Allan Hancock College plant services Web+Center installation and other Web+Center users that have implemented a second Web+Center installation for groups outside of IT, we are now researching and obtaining requirements on what enhancements are needed to better support these Web+Center installations. If your organization or company would like to part of this requirements and research phase for a Web+Center version focused on Facilities and Maintenance, please contact Internet Software Sciences directly by email at support@inet-sciences.com or by phone at (650) 949-0942.
To move your Facilities and Plant Services operations to an efficient, cost effective work order management system, use this Allan Hancock case study as a model of what you can implement immediately using the current release of Web+Center .
Case Study – Allan Hancock Community College Plant Services group
Web+Center is primarily used for IT support, but we are now finding many organizations that already use Web+Center for their IT operations, have also set up a separate Web+Center installation as a Work Order system for their Facilities or Plant Services group too.
Allan Hancock college installed a separate instance of Web+Center 4.0 system in addition to their IT Web+Center support system back in July 2004. They continue to add work orders daily and their system has logged more than 15,000 plant services work orders to date.
Configuration for Plant Services Work Orders
Allan Hancock College Plant Services Group has their Web+Center work order system configured with work groups of:
- Grounds Department
- LVC Customdians
- Mail Room
- Maintenace Department
- Safety Committee
- Shipping and Receiving
- SM Custodians
- Transportation/Vehicle Repair
Work orders are first created by College staff submitting work order tickets through the Customer+Center web interface or by calling into the plant services staff and a work order is dispatched for every possible facilities, plant services issue. A quick peek at work order tickets for this week included:
- Removal of mold in elevator rooms
- Repair of gap in fence line
- Checking emergency lighting in restrooms
- Drinking fountain Leaking
- 52 degrees in our office this morning!
- And the list goes on and on!
With 15,000 work orders in 6 years, that is an average of more than 7 work orders entered and processed each day.
The Web+Center – customer interface (shown below) provides a simple yet effective way for staff to submit basic facilities work orders that can be easily dispatched, assigned a priority and tracked by the plant services staff for repair.
Customer+Center page for Allan Hancock College Plant Services system
Once a ticket has been entered by the customer or by a phone dispatcher, it is then assigned and dispatched to a plant services group and then to an individual person for service. Every morning group managers sort and assign work orders, entering any requests that were phoned in. Each staff member checks the system for work orders assigned to them.
Plant Services Work Order Ticket in Tech+Center
Conclusion: If you already have an Web+Center IT help desk installed, then you know about the simplicity and low cost of Web+Center. Now get those same benefits for maintenance / facilities / plant services management.