The core business of the Cape Town Marine division is ship repair, with work being undertaken at any time of the day or night throughout the year to fit in with a vessel’s itinerary. To tackle the largest and most demanding work in the shipping sphere it is crucial that maintenance teams are supported by a system that allows for better planning of maintenance work and to ensure that the correct spares are available when needed.  

“Previously, DCD-Dorbyl was running maintenance on manual systems consisting of numerous spreadsheets and the yellow card system, with no proper history of work that was being done. This resulted in information becoming fragmented, and it was difficult to determine costs associated with projects and general maintenance work. With the spreadsheets it was also not possible to determine when to maintain or replace items of equipment, or to pinpoint areas needing additional operator training”, said Alan van Schoor, Electrical Superintendent.   

OptiRUN™ was deployed at DCD-Dorbyl in Cape Town approximately 3 months ago, and is a full-featured maintenance management system supporting both proactive and reactive maintenance strategies.

“OptiRUN™ is the only solution of its kind here in South Africa, and upon learning more about its capabilities, it seemed to be exactly what we needed. ApplyIT has been a good business partner providing a high level of service and are always there when we need them”, said Van Schoor.

“The standard reporting in OptiRUN™ provides more visibility around the costs of maintenance to facilitate future planning and budgeting. The solution also has a stores management facility that allows for spares to be associated with equipment and maintenance work orders. DCD-Dorbyl now has the tools to be able to plan and schedule maintenance in advance”, says Gavin Halse, ApplyIT MD.

Newly appointed Maintenance Planner at DCD–Dorbyl, Ernest Lintnaar has recently undergone OptiRUN™ training. Lintnaar has worked previously with maintenance systems within other applications and says this is his first time using a system that is dedicated strictly to maintenance: “I can see the benefits of a system like OptiRUN™ in our environment. The more I use the system, the better it becomes. I am confident that OptiRUN™ will prove to be a time and money saver in the long run, allowing us to highlight any problem areas with minimal administrative effort, and providing better management information for proactive decision making.”

Contact

Gavin Halse, ApplyIT (031) 275 8080, HalseG@applyit.co.za