T. Baker Smith Reduces Downtime by 75% and Cuts Costs with eMaint CMMS

T. Baker Smith is a dynamic community of professionals that delivers innovative and sustainable engineering, environmental, and surveyor solutions to a diverse list of public and private sector customers.

• Slashed downtime by 75%
• Optimized fleet management
• Improved capital expenditure and budget forecasting
• Sustained a preventive maintenance program

T. Baker Smith provides surveying, engineering, and environmental services for the public and private sectors. It builds bridges, repairs levees, and designs sustainable solutions for accessing natural resources.

Since implementing eMaint, T. Baker Smith has slashed downtime by 75%. It also relies on eMaint to keep costs low by optimizing fleet management and extending equipment lifespan.

T. Baker Smith maintains a large fleet of vehicles, side-by-sides, and boats for surveyors and engineers. Boats and vehicles are used constantly, so maintaining consistent operation is challenging. Before implementing eMaint, the maintenance team was consistently on alert for equipment breakdowns.

T. Baker Smith sought a software solution to drive an effective preventive maintenance program. It also wanted to lower maintenance costs, extend asset lifespan, and reduce downtime.

Chad Burton is the Field Operations Manager at T. Baker Smith. Since implementing eMaint, he says, “We know for a fact that we’re saving money.” The maintenance team has reduced downtime and created an effective forecasting and budgeting system.

Optimizing Fleet Management

T. Baker Smith uses eMaint for every aspect of fleet management, including:

• Scheduling and tracking preventive maintenance tasks
• Making data-driven decisions about future acquisitions
• Reducing overall costs

eMaint’s seamless GPS integration gives managers access to a central repository of all fleet management data, including vehicle mileage, work order history, and emergency repairs. The team uses the data to plan future acquisitions, determine vehicle cost-of-ownership, and assess when to repair vs replace each vehicle.

The team also uses eMaint to anticipate maintenance needs and shift to a preventative maintenance approach. Today, drivers use eMaint to generate work orders in the field, including requests for new tires or an oil change. This prevents unexpected breakdowns or sudden emergencies, lowers costs, and boosts operational efficiency.

Burton says the team has reduced downtime and reactive maintenance by 75% while increasing overall operational efficiency. Instead of rushing to make emergency repairs on the roadside, mechanics address problems ahead of time, in the shop.

“When I first started at T. Baker Smith, our unscheduled maintenance was extremely high. We could hardly keep mechanics in the shop. They were always on the road, fixing vehicles, fixing trailers on the side of the road … With eMaint, we were immediately able to build a preventative maintenance program, which I’d estimate has reduced downtime by 75%.”

Data-Driven Insights for Capital Expenditures

eMaint is a key tool in capital expenditure planning at T. Baker Smith. Burton relies on eMaint’s robust reporting features to see which assets need to be replaced in the upcoming year and which equipment is still profitable.

He says, “We can run reports on older equipment, see what we might need to replace soon, or run reports on problematic equipment. We can determine if we’re profiting from a piece of equipment. If the maintenance costs are too high, we can review eMaint data to plan ahead.”

Secure data sharing makes it easy to send reports to the company’s decision makers, which has streamlined forecasting and budgeting, as he explains: “We’ve been able to provide ownership with cost of use, cost of ownership, as well as utilization… and it allows ownership to determine how they want to spend money in CapEx.”

ERP Integration

eMaint’s seamless ERP integration allows the team at T. Baker Smith to track vehicle utilization and locate assets as needed. Burton especially appreciates integration with accounting software, since it automatically updates all contacts and helps with tracking equipment:

“When I need to assign equipment to somebody, I don’t have to go in separately and set up in a contact … I can assign it, and it gives me a history of who had that equipment last … so we can track it across eight offices.”

Spare Parts Inventory

Burton and his team use eMaint work order management features to track the true cost of maintenance workflows. They also use eMaint to locate critical spare parts across all facilities. When one location runs out of a key engine part, another facility can ship it, reducing costs and wait times.

Fluke Tools: Building a Condition Monitoring Program

The maintenance teams at T. Baker Smith use Fluke voltage and amp meters on their engines and control panels. Burton wants to expand his use of Fluke meters to build a condition monitoring program. He’d like to incorporate heat and vibration sensors with the organization’s airboats and all the vehicle engines.

Why Fluke meters? For Burton, it’s a question of reliability. He says, “You choose Fluke for trust. You know when you have to have the right reading…you go with Fluke.”

T. Baker Smith has reduced downtime, improved asset management, and successfully installed a preventive maintenance program. It has dramatically lowered its overall maintenance cost by:

• Eliminating 75% of costly downtime
• Optimizing fleet management
• Improving capital expenditure planning
• Optimizing spare part inventory management

 Going forward, Burton and the team hope to find even more game-changing uses for eMaint and Fluke Tools.