Fortune Favors The Nifty

In Fall 2019, Katie Beth, Associate Director for Facilities and Operations at the University of Washington, and her team made the decision to move their Facility Management to Maintenance Care’s CMMS platform. Being responsible for the recreational facilities on campus – including several gym facilities, pool areas, and outdoor amenities – the department’s focus was to make preventive maintenance, upkeep, and task reporting easier for staff and supervisors.  

Little did they know that within half a year, the decision of transitioning to CMMS would prove more serendipitous than they could have ever imagined: during the ensuing outbreak of COVID-19, Maintenance Care’s software helped Katie and her employees maintain the rec facilities in great shape from a distance. Here’s what they learned through this experience. 

"We were fortunate to get Maintenance Care when we did. It helped us keep business moving forward remotely during the lockdown." – Katie Beth, Associate Director for Facilities and Operations, University of Washington

When signing up, the goal was to improve coordination and communication among staff, save time and energy through remote work order and progress tracking, and make reporting easier – a valid argument, given the many locations and assets Katie and her team need to take care of on such a big campus. 

Implementing Maintenance Care proved surprisingly easy for the entire team thanks to well-structured training and intuitive UI. A big plus: whenever the team needed it, the customer service reps at Maintenance Care had an open ear and helping hand. Katie’s verdict: initial worries that the new technology might be met with resistance turned out to be unwarranted. Within a few months, Maintenance Care became a part of the maintenance department’s daily life.  

The department’s top 3 features are task scheduling, preventive maintenance, and inspection logs. From the start, using CMMS gave them the opportunity to takes notes, track progress, and check completed tasks via the app. On the supervisors’ side, they received the option to keep an eye on progress very positively.

When COVID hit in spring 2020, the entire campus was forced to deal with a pandemic and the ensuing social distancing policies. At that point, the new software solution revealed its full value: almost overnight, remote tracking and work order coordination turned from nifty feature to essential tools for the maintenance team.  Having access to remote progress tracking, task delegation, and digital asset tracking allowed them to keep going during the time of the lockdown.  

At the time Facility Management decided to make the switch to CMMS, nobody was even thinking about a global pandemic, but the decision turned out to be exactly what they needed. For Katie Beth and her team, switching to CMMS turned out to be the most fortunate decision as it allowed them to keep operations going while ensuring the safety of employees, faculty, and students on campus.