Terumo Cardiovascular Systems is one of three companies in the world that produces highly specialized heart and lung machines for use during surgery. Optimizing for excellence is a must in all areas of operations, including facilities management. Even the slightest fluctuation of temperature in the controlled manufacturing environment must be addressed immediately.
The facilities team of seven at Terumo Cardiovascular Systems manages three buildings, including an FDA-regulated manufacturing plant constructed in the 1960’s, that encompass a total of 300,000 square feet. Located on 55 acres of land in Ann Arbor, Michigan, there are 700 employees working at this facility, which is about an hour’s drive from Detroit.
Emergencies Reveal Gaps
Facilities Engineering Manager Bridget Graham is no stranger to running a tight ship having spent time earlier in her career with the Quality Department at Terumo. While the Terumo facilities team didn’t have a basement “dungeon” filled with thousands of paper documents like many buildings do, all it took was a few emergencies for Graham to realize that locating paper documents was seriously hindering productivity and stalling response times. “Before ARC, it would take my team anywhere from an hour to a full day to find a drawing,” said Graham. “I knew that I needed a tool that my team could go to quickly and easily in case of incidents, accidents and emergencies.”
Graham contacted ARC to learn more about setting up a Mobile Facilities Dashboard that would contain their as-builts, shut-off locations, warranties, and maintenance logs. When she discovered that the ARC Professional Services Team would do all the heavy-lifting of scanning and hyperlinking Terumo’s building information, Graham couldn’t have been more pleased. The documents were scanned and the setup for a Terumo mobile facilities dashboard was completed within a few weeks.
Embracing Mobile Technology Has Its Benefits
When ARC conducted the on-site training, Graham’s team was amazed with the fact they could search, highlight, and update drawings right from their tablets, making the transition from paper to mobile access an easy choice. “We can click on drawings and go to another drawing, click on a floor plan and click on another drawing–when we saw that we were very excited–because we know there is so much we can do with the dashboard,” said Graham. Having the ability to update current drawings on the dashboard rather than marking up a 36” X 24” paper drawing saves time and reduces frustration for the team. And, being able to find building information in minutes versus hours has raised team morale.
Using the ARC Mobile Facilities Dashboard benefits the Terumo Facilities Team in four key ways:
- Mobile access results in less down time
- Cloud-based storage enables secure sharing
- Powerful search capabilities return and display documents in seconds
- Fast access to current building information meets strict compliance requirements
The Terumo senior management team was impressed with how using the ARC Facilities Mobile Dashboard has increased team productivity and streamlined workflows and processes. Graham’s boss, the Plant Manager, is encouraging them to maximize use of the solution – including work order management.
Graham has this to say: “It’s very important to have all this information on mobile devices. My technicians don’t sit at computers all day – they’re on the move. They can look at the tablet instead of carrying sheets of paper around with them. It’s so easy to use, it’s actually a tool that my team will use.”
For the full story about how using the ARC Facilities Mobile Dashboard has transformed Terumo Facilities Team operations, read their story or watch the brief video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePqwmFd-NxM&feature=youtu.be
