Top-ranked Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio needed a computerized maintenance management system to handle maintenance operations campus-wide. Read on to learn more about the Baldwin Wallace College success story.

Products: PMC | Market: Facilities, Education | Download PDF: Click here 

Founded in 1845, Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, a fully accredited institution affiliated with the United Methodist Church, offers liberal arts-based undergraduate, graduate, and pre-professional programs. Baldwin Wallace ranks among the top schools (11th in category) in U.S. News America’s Best Colleges 2003. Baldwin Wallace was also rated a “best value.” Baldwin Wallace’s diverse student body enjoys the best of both worlds. Berea, with its tree-lined streets and picturesque homes, is an ideal college town. Yet Baldwin Wallace students are only 20 minutes from the heart of Cleveland, home to many Fortune 500 companies and one-of-a-kind recreational and cultural opportunities.

The Challenge: Keep Improving Services to Students, Faculty and Staff

Baldwin Wallace’s Department of Buildings & Grounds is responsible for planning, developing, operating and maintaining all buildings, building systems, building services, ground maintenance, special event setups, and summer conference services. In 1990, the department installed the college’s first computerized maintenance management system (CMMS): the DOS version of DPSI’s PMC, one of the most widely-used and successful CMMS in the world.

Karen Hart, PMC Systems Administration/Data Specialist, says, “We started from scratch. I’ve been here since day one, and I remember having to gather all the information we needed and get it entered into the system. In fact, I was the one who figured out the master information and security. “We’ve come a long way since then,” she continues. “The volume of work orders has grown as the student ratio has grown. We are documenting much more information and tracking more statistics.”

The Solution: PMC Enhances Maintenance Management

PMC generates all of the preventive maintenance requests for the entire campus. Depending on the piece of equipment, preventive maintenance may be scheduled monthly, every six months, or every year. “Using PMC helps ensure that the appropriate preventive maintenance work gets done on a regular schedule,” says Hart. “Our team also handles what we call on-the-fly work orders. These requests for unscheduled maintenance come from five sources,” she explains. “Phone calls, faxes, e-mails, voice messages, or through security for emergencies that occur after hours. Typically, these are things that happen suddenly. Often it’s a student who needs help: a door closure breaks, a stair tread comes up, a key gets broken off in a door lock, or a toilet or sink overflows in one of the dorms.”

With PMC, the Department of Buildings & Grounds is better able to track equipment and maintenance on the equipment. “We know when a boiler is replaced, how often belts or filters are changed, and can track information about emergency generators and lights,” says Hart. “We have information at our fingertips about what maintenance was done on each piece of equipment over time, and we can track that.” “PMC keeps us on a schedule,” adds Hart. “Keeping better care of the equipment, there’s less chance of breakdown.”

“We’re measuring cost savings in the preventive maintenance area,” adds Hart. “When we close our fiscal year, we now have important bottom line figures on all costs by building. PMC tells us what it costs to maintain each building on campus, including the cost of parts and how many man-hours were spent. We also have a valuation of our inventory, which we couldn’t get before.” “But we’re not resting on our laurels. The number of students, faculty and staff on campus continues to grow, requiring more support than ever. We see more room for improvement.” Hart explains.

The Future: Implementing a Web Requester

“Our next step will be to put a Requester on the campus Web site. Students, teachers, and campus employees can just click on the Requester icon to submit a request for a work order right from their computer,” Hart says. She can pull up the requests on her PC, and either accept or reject the work orders. An e-mail will go back to the person who placed the work order to let them know whether it was accepted or rejected. That person can also check on the status of the work order over the Internet. Hart expects the Requester to open up communications throughout the campus. “It will be a real time-saver,” Hart promises. “This streamlines the process of requesting a work order. Providing the status of work orders on the Internet is a nice feature. It lets the person who submitted the work order know what’s happening with their request. It will save time for other departments too. We are still in the setup process, but we may decide to make area coordinators or hall directors responsible for their areas. They won’t be allowed to make changes to anyone else’s work order, but this way they can see that somebody else has already submitted a work order. That way we won’t receive 10 work orders for the same problem.” “The employees of Buildings & Grounds are committed to providing quality services to students, faculty and staff,” Hart says. “Using PMC helps us provide exceptional service in a timely manner.”

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